By Patric Hedlund, TME
Men in tights? They’re both hilarious and moving in the first offering of the Mountain Theater Alliance summer season. Kat Fair has directed and co-produced a delicious “I Hate Hamlet” with excellent casting. Paul Rudnick’s tightly written play is funny at every twist, rich with one-liner gags often packed with insight.
The action spins on grand themes of ambition versus self doubt and the definition of a successful life, but you won’t know that until you wipe away the tears of laughter as the Act One curtain drops.
Rudnick’s story features the ghost of bigger than life—and bigger than death—acting legend John Barrymore. He was a narcissistic, womanizing alcoholic in his days on earth and hasn’t changed much in the hereafter.
Bill Fair was born to play Barrymore, yanked from the great beyond to coach a television soap opera demi-star on how to dive into the wrenching depths of Hamlet’s conflicted soul.
T.J. Dalrymple is Andrew, who has been invited to play Hamlet for the summer Shakespeare Festival in New York’s Central Park. But young Andrew is going through a confidence crisis. His TV series has been cancelled, but his fan-base makes him a hot commodity on the C-list Hollywood celebrity auction block.
The talented cast also includes Michael Dulle as the “You don’t do art, you buy art!” Hollywood hyphenate writer-producer-director-hustler Gary Lefkowitz. His single-minded goal is to seduce the conflicted young man back to Hollywood. He dangles a $3 million payday if Andrew will drop this Hamlet nonsense and return to Tinseltown to star in a school-teacher-with-superpowers sitcom.
Stacy Havener is perfect as the blowsy, middle-aged real estate agent Felicia, dressed in screaming colors, tight as sausage wrappings. Bouncing like an overeager teenager, she has a Bronx accent, bubble gum, too much make-up, love-handles, flabby arms and a magnetic obsession with money. Oh, she’s also psychic. Havener delights in the broad role and finds her match in Lefkowitz.
Jill Hackett plays Andrew’s agent, a woman of impeccable grooming, a German accent and the racking hack of a cigarette addict. She is nostalgic about her fling with Barrymore when he was still in the flesh.
Emily Sandifer is Andrew’s peripatetic fiancée, flitting across the stage in a fluid but restless dance, pollinating Andrew’s aspirations to high art while vowing to remain a virgin until she’s sure she’s found her forever hero.
Like the acting, the design of the production is excellent. Kat Fair did a splendid job of creating the costumes for these characters. Mike Cram, Michael Dulle and Bill Fair constructed Barrymore’s apartment as a faux medieval castle, complete with a throne.
MTA’s Summer Stage season ends July 16, so reserve your seats at 661.242.6904.
“I Hate Hamlet” plays in rotation with “November” at the Pine Mountain Village Gazebo Stage. See play dates in the Community Calendar.
Photo captions:
(left) T.J. Dalrymple as Andrew with Bill Fair as the ghost of John
Barrymore in ‘I Hate Hamlet’
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This is part of the July 8, 2016 online edition of The Mountain Enterprise.
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