Hamlet, Audience Lost In Gears of Maschine

THEATER

Hamletmaschine

by Heinrich Muller

directed by Julian von Loesch and Richard Eoin Nash

at the Loeb Experimental Theater

Hamletmaschine is a 360-degree assault on the senses. In the tradition of Jet Of Blood, this play takes an incredibly pessimistic view of the modern world and its future--then it turns around and attacks the audience with every medium available to theater.

If there are heroes in this play, they are undoubtedly directors Julian von Loesch and Richard Eoin Nash. Excluding the excessive dead time between scenes, the directors professionally guide the 13 actors through their maze of lines, dance, music and movement.

The two directors do not go it alone, relying heavily on the talent of a host of other artists. Hilary Hansen's impressive set establishes itself as a force for the entire production, using colors that accentuate the nihilistic themes of Hamletmaschine: blood-red and the Ex's standard, black. The dour colors of the set are unexpectedly highlighted by a backdrop of humanoid figures dressed in vibrant shades of yellow, blue, green and white. The set's centerpiece: an obtrusive, enigmatic coffin/stage entrance for the cast.

Kaiama Glover binds choreography with a problematic industrial/funk beat. Poor stage acoustics muffled the sound so much that at first, it was inaudible; when soundpeople Sean O'Keefe and George Duffield took steps to increase the volume and integrate the music with the mood and flow of the play, they made it so loud that it was more distracting than beneficial.

Jacob Aaron Broder, as Hamlet, had a rather rough start. His abrupt tone and volume shifts, which were supposed to parallel his mood swings, were instead too rough and affected. As the play progressed, he gained his rhythm and confidence to the point where, when he uttered the line "I want to be a woman," he was believed.

Rachel Cohen's Ophelia was a great complement to Hamlet. When she changes from Shakespeare's weak, supplicating girl to Heinrich Muller's strong, gruff-voiced feminist, she threatens to overshadow the play's lead character. Though her solo dance left much to be desired on both her part and that of choreographer Kaiama Glover, her unorthodox lines were delivered with sufficient punch and conviction to enthrall the audience.

The successes of von Loesch and Nash's direction were formidable, considering the failings of Muller's text. The play itself seems to be another title to add to the growing number of plays aimed solely at examining tradition and modern society and then slowly destroying them. Disregarding fundamentals of plot and character, Hamletmaschine barrels on like a renegade freight train to a destination unknown. The program guide indeed forewarns us that the "production might be unpalatable to people accustomed to traditional forms of theater," but the disclaimer does not excuse the play's lack of coherence and design.

The program also hints at the play's message: The world is "hurtling towards a social, ecological and mass-mediated cultural catastrophe, for which Western Enlightenment seems to have no solution." With this defeatist slogan in hand, Muller proceeds to attack the audience with images and scenarios that represent this "catastrophe."

The problem with Hamletmaschine is that it deals excessively with images of destruction and decline and then offers us no compensating solutions or vision. In its stead, the play's program guide attempts to provide impromptu solutions to modern problems, including a revolution led by the Third World and women. An interesting thought, but it fails to be integrated into the thematic bent of a play dominated by Hamlet, a man constantly surrounded by women--even the "liberated" Ophelia--who dance for his pleasure.

The play's relation to Shakespeare's original has been distorted beyond recognition. The program unsuccessfully attempts to link the two plays through Brecht's obscure interpretation of the original. Hamlet provides an indisposable framework, a crutch for an otherwise weak extrapolation of it. In short, Hamletmaschine ends up a purposeless desecration of Shakespeare's masterpiece, and is successful only through a familiar title and a talented interpretation by the cast.