Dear Germantown Community Theatre,

It’s always nice to get out of the house and visit acquaintances every now and then, and it

was nice seeing you this past Sunday afternoon. Your production of I Hate Hamlet was a nice diversion on yet another hot and humid afternoon in the Memphis area. Sorry, I digress.

Your production of this Broadway play shows theater is about choices, choices that can either make a show success, or not. The first of several choices in bringing the pages to life is of course which play to produce. Once that is made the next and probably the most important decision is which director will bring the heartbeat of the play to the stage. In turn his choices of actors helps to breathe life into the characters. If all the correct choices are made, the audience sees it, feels it, and a hit is born.

Like I said, if the correct choices are made.

Your decision to produce I Hate Hamlet was one that paid off. Unfortunately, some of the other choices didn’t fully deliver as well as your play selection did.

The play was funny, and the audience was laughing at all the right moments. It was also a great way to bring Shakespeare to those who wouldn’t normally venture out to see a full production of his work.

With that being said, some of the other choices left me scratching my head and asking one simple question: Why?

Why have the actors constantly stand center stage, or off to the side, and deliver their lines seemingly detached from the other actors? Having an actor stand middle stage and continually look back to the other actors he is supposedly addressing is distracting. I’m left wondering why he isn’t with the others instead of alone in the front. Also, why were the actors sitting with their backs to the audience instead of having them sit upstage facing us?

It was great seeing the backs of their heads.

And my most important question is this: Whose choice was it to have the lead actor, JD Willis, who plays Andrew Rally, constantly put his hands in his pockets throughout the first act? Whether it was a character choice or simply something he was doing unconsciously, it became distracting and annoying. Every time he was required to go to the light, stand, and deliver his lines, into the pockets the hands went.

Of which that seems to be the standard stage direction given to your actors. Each play I’ve seen the actors seems to follow the same pattern: go center stage, deliver your lines, and then go stand somewhere else.

Very puzzling.

With that being said, there is something to be said about the believability of an actor fully incorporating a character and delivering their lines with passion and life. This is something that lacked in most of the actors.  JD was almost able to make his character believable. I believed his angst, but I never completely believed it belonged to Andrew Rally, the character, rather than the actor playing him.

As far as everyone else goes, well, there is much to be said about rehearsal and using that time to discover the characters rather than simply memorize the lines. Unfortunately, much of the cast seemed to be delivering dialogue instead of fully becoming the character they were supposed to be.

Yes, the play is a farce, and the characters are meant to be exaggerated. However, there is a difference between exaggeration and one-dimensional caricature. The actors found the caricatures, but they didn’t always find the characters underneath them. They brought humor to the show, but finding those characters might have brought even bigger and louder laughs.

Unlike another show I’ve recently seen in the area, your production was not crippled by technical issues. So, congratulations on that.

There was, however, one technical issue that unfortunately shone brightly under those hot stage lights: the makeup.

There is a little technique called blending that helps soften the edges and tones of makeup worn by actors. Our dear ghost of Hamlet himself, played by Tim Brown, could have used a bit more of that blending technique. The black smudges and gray makeup should have made him look like a ghost. Instead, he looked like someone who had applied his makeup in the dark.

Not exactly the supernatural effect I assume you were going for.

In the end, I Hate Hamlet was an enjoyable choice of play, and judging from the laughter around me, the audience enjoyed themselves. Well, except for the couple who seemed to be fighting next to me.  I enjoyed the show myself, at times. But theater is about choices, and while the first choice—the play itself—was a good one, several of the choices that followed kept this production from becoming what it could have been, a belly laughing escapade.

Still, on a hot and humid Memphis afternoon, there are worse ways to spend a couple of hours.

Until next time,

Sincerely,

Theatre Patron,