BWW Reviews: WOMEN PLAYING HAMLET Plays at Gamut/Harrisburg Shakespeare Co.

The concept of women playing the character of Shakespeare's Hamlet is no new thing. When the French tragedienne Sarah Bernhardt took the role in 1899, it was estimated that 50 other actresses had portrayed the prince of Denmark in that century alone. In some ways it's a reversal of the Elizabethan custom that had men playing all female parts on stage, including in Shakespeare's works (perhaps that's really why there are so many fewer lines for women in the Bard's works), but it's more likely that Hamlet is a great and universal role whose actions and psychology could be expounded equally by a woman thespian as by a man. There's been a decline in women playing the part since 1900 however, which some theatre scholars claim is due to Ibsen finally providing great women's roles in theatre. (Others of us would really like to know just how many great women's roles there are, especially for those thespians of a "certain age" whose talents exceed their nubility.) However, HAMLET is still perhaps the greatest drama in English, and the character Hamlet the most intriguing in English-speaking theatre.

WOMEN PLAYING HAMLET is the title, and in part the theme of, playwright William Missouri Downs' new play, on rolling premiere through the National New Playwright Network at Gamut Theatre in Harrisburg. It's not a stage version of Tony Howard's book "Women As Hamlet," though a few moments of expository dialogue feel borrowed from it, but a comedy with that concept as the root of the story. A young actor, Jessica (Tara Herwig), has been cast as Hamlet in a production of the original play, and she seeks to figure out how to portray the character. It isn't as easy as she thinks it might be, as everyone with whom she's involved decrees her "too young to play Hamlet."

There's a true academic and theatrical quandary, rooted in psychology, about that line. Hamlet, in Shakespeare, is a college student with the mental development and angst of a middle-aged adult. To be young enough to be the age of the character physically is to be too young to have the insight, whether personal or about the world, to inhabit the character mentally or emotionally. But other than having a conversation with a dubious psychiatrist and hearing the thoughts of an ex-lover professor on it, Jessica never addresses this conflict directly. Her disgruntled acting coach, Gwen (Amy Burke), who hides her own performance as Hamlet - a brilliant performance in a disastrously disrupted earlier production that she leaves off of her credits - seeks to turn Jessica into Hamlet with no real belief that Jessica can do it, because Jessica doesn't know herself. However, Gwen never addresses that point, leaving Jessica to discover it near the end of the second act, mystically salvaging her interpretation of the character. (Is that "I Have Confidence" from the filmed THE SOUND OF MUSIC in the background?)

WOMEN PLAYING HAMLET is a comedy with a moderate amount of humor, not the laugh riot of a farce, and that's just as well if you wish to absorb what's happening on stage. However, Downs relies too much on the repeated joke. The "too young to play Hamlet" punch line is repeated constantly, as is a gag about the non-theatrical jobs taken on by people who earn MFAs in theatre arts. They're repeated a bit past the point of still being funny, to the edge of "not again". On the other hand, the running gag, which develops as the story goes on (as opposed to merely being repeated) of being in a text war with actor Patrick Stewart after being caught texting in one of his audiences is seriously hilarious.

Melissa Nicholson takes on a number of parts, including trouser roles, but is at her finest as Jessica's mother, who, in true Hamlet fashion, has decided to marry her late husband's brother, Jessica's uncle Wayne, to Jessica's horror. (When she approaches the priest to vent about the atrocity, it turns out that the priest is yet another MFA in theatre. From Yale, which he believes entitles him to be more correct than Jessica, with her MFA from a lesser school. The MFA joke is far, far overworked.)

Kathryn Miller plays Emily, Jessica's niece, who prefers texting to Hamlet, which has led to the Patrick Stewart wars. She's a typical self-absorbed teenager who nonetheless loves her aunt, and who has no idea that she's created a problem, partly due to her teen ability to find Stewart's personal phone number on line, and a delightful character.

Director Patrick Flick, a multiple Emmy winner, has a light touch here and a nice way with video projections enhancing rather than distracting from the show - especially with Patrick Stewart's texts. The use of visuals of prior historical women playing Hamlet is also wonderfully illuminating to the audience, particularly to those unfamiliar with the tradition.

For the most part, the show is nicely paced, though the ability to predict just when certain repeat gags are about to show up again makes the timing feel slower as you wait for the axe to fall.

The cast is well-chosen for this, especially with Hurweg fresh out of Gamut's production of HAMLET. Everyone's delightful in their parts, especially Burke as the hyper and slightly insane acting coach, and Miller and Nicholson as actress friends of Jessica's, Rosy and Gilda, come to persuade her to go with them on a trip, a cruise in fact - in which, true to HAMLET form, the two die. Downs knows his HAMLET. He also appears to know Tony Howard's book on women who have played the character, and the ramifications of cross-gender casting. If he were as deft with the running jokes as with his erudition, the play would sparkle more. However, this cast and director make the most of the material, and that's enough to keep the production entertaining.

At Gamut in Harrisburg through March 29. Call 717-238-4111 or visit gamuttheatre.org for tickets and information.

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