Lauren Ambrose, Get Thee To a Nunnery!

"dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia"

<--- This photo is from Shakespeare in the Park's Romeo & Juliet last year (which I loved) but I'm pretending it's from the 2008 Shakespeare in the Park season which is offering up Hamlet. Lauren Ambrose is featured for the second year in a row and this photo is still appropriate because, as you know, Ophelia does get all tragically water-logged by play's end.

My short take on Hamlet as a play: It's an impossibility to find a perfect Hamlet. The role has too many problems or, too be more specific, there are too many ways to play it, none of which turn out hugely satisfying unless the performer is dexterous enough to allude to the several other ways of playing it whilst also making it his own. So I didn't like this Hamlet (Michael Stuhlbarg last seen by moi in the superb Broadway play Pillow Man) who started the mammoth play with his performance turned up to 11. How could be possibly sustain it? (pssst. he didn't. Why not build rather than start out all thunderous?)

The play had other problems. Margaret Colin was an odd or insufficient Gertrud... or maybe it's the way this thing was directed. The Gertrud bedroom scene (the one where Hamlet stabs Polonius) was just terrible. His dead body lays on the bed and Gertrud acts like she isn't even freaked out by her murdered subject and Hamlet never once seems guilty about the stabbing, even mocking Polonius in his death... and isn't Hamlet always second guessing himself? Shouldn't there be guilt?

This free Hamlet, which also stars Sam Waterston, David Harbour and Andre Braugher runs until June 29th in Central Park. Good luck getting tickets.

Anyway. Lauren Ambrose continues to be as delicious onstage as she was for the entirety of Six Feet Under on television. Perhaps this was no revelatory Juliet but she made a fine Ophelia which leads me to my other insurmountable problem with productions of Hamlet: There's just never enough Ophelia ... sweet sweet Ophelia. That's Shakespeare's fault!

Do you have a favorite Hamlet? How many productions / movie versions have you seen?
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Linkella

Defamer has excerpts from Kathleen Turner's upcoming tell-all. Y'all know I'm a Kathleen Turner nut so I can't wait to read that thing. I hope it's 4,000 pages long.
Lazy Eye Theater has a tribute to Kurt Russell's killer year
Aerien loves Mrs. Lovett (Sweeney Todd) in four different ways
Drawn! looks at the film nominated for Best Animated Short @ the Oscars
Towleroad first look at Josh Brolin in Milk
Nicks Flick Picks has a brief but stunning remembrance of Heath Ledger
Popnography also gives brief thanks for Ennis Del Mar
Variety reports on the fourth film to sell @ Sundance. Isn't four kind of a low number given that we're a week into the snow festivities?
StinkyLulu is willing to throw himself on the sword for our amusement. Go vote for which Razzie nominee he should give the "Supporting Actress Sunday" treatment, to. Fun right? I voted for Julia Ormond because I just need to read about I Know Who Killed Me since I will never ever ever see it for myself.

And finally...The Projectionist takes on the Oscar nominations with considerable griping about Juno and various acting snubs. I love David Edelstein's writing but this article reminded me why I myself receive hate mail regularly. When an opinion is stated too much like fact (in this case Frank Langella being deserving of the Oscar itself) it can read as condescending if not garden variety irritating. I haven't talked about Starting Out in the Evening because I didn't have much to say and I often feel churlish about dissing movies that are labors of love. It feels different to slam a threadbare indie than a soulless studio behemoth. Langella is certainly good in the film, but I kept waiting for the revelation that you'll sometimes find in low key performances and it never came. I don't think he belongs in that unusually strong Best Actor lineup. Mostly though I found the movie housing him to be hopelessly uncinematic. After all the raves, I was surprised to find a stilted uncomfortable page-to-screen transfer where a movie was supposed to be. And I still haven't forgiven the movie for giving me a bad Lauren Ambrose performance. How is this possible? But I didn't believe one word coming out of her mouth --not one.

One other small note: Edelstein states that there was snickering at a local critics award events when he voted for Ashley Judd in Bug for Best Actress. I hope he held his head high. Will someone fire those heckling critics on the spot and replace them with movie writers who can look at Bug with a straight face? That's their job and --more to the righteous fury point-- that's a transfer that knows it's now a movie. And Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon are both better at unravelling while codependently intertwining than Frank Langella is in refusing to.
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'O that I were a glove upon that hand'

Remember my proposed Shakespeare moratorium? I often petulantly demand that people take a break from Shakespeare. I'm not quite ready to say my mea culpa on that one but I was mightily impressed with the current Shakespeare in the Park production of Romeo & Juliet. I discussed the production in brief at Zoom In yesterday and I normally wouldn't repeat myself this quickly but I can't help it. R&J won't leave my head. Go see it. Line up early for those free tickets. It runs until July 8th. It's too good to miss.

Aside from the extremely well judged staging (a deceptively simple set, a pool of water, great pacing and energy, believable stage combat...all in the open air of Central Park --gah, a thing of beauty) I appreciated its point of view. It really gets at the irrational nature of the young lovers. That's too often demoted to subtext, in order to exalt the Great Love.

It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden.

The production is more consistently excellent than the assembled performances but there were two true standouts. Mercutio (Christopher Evan Welch) absolutely nails every scene and works play-shifting wonders in the 'plague on both your houses' death scene. And then there's the sweetest flower in all this field... Lauren Ambrose as Juliet. Six Feet Under fans will know that she can act up an teen-angst storm. Psycho Beach Party fans will recollect that she has amazing vocal range and control --remember that her split personality came complete with wholly separate voices. She puts both of these abilities to expert use here. I'm not a Shakespeare connoisseur by any means, but she's the best Juliet I've personally ever seen. Brava!