The Prince and the People – Thetls

5/13/2017 The prince and the people – TheTLS

ARTS SEPTEMBER 28 2016

During the final moments of the charged and superbly acted Mobile Unit Hamlet at New York City’s Public Theater, Horatio, compelled to help his dying friend, moves to pocket the iPhone with which he filmed the preceding “carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts”. But as his hand descends, Chukwudi Iwuji’s Hamlet releases an arresting shriek that urges Horatio to continue recording and, staring directly into the lens, implores that he “tell my story”. In an America pulsing with the cries of the Black Lives Matter social justice movement, the director Patricia McGregor’s evocation of the cellphone footage capturing the “casual slaughters” and “deaths put on by cunning and forced cause” of an everincreasing number of black men is both obvious and haunting. That cackles emanated from a number of spectators during this exchange reveals more about the state of contemporary theatre, and the country, than this sensitive production could have hoped or intended to achieve.

Revived in 2010 by the Public’s visionary artistic director, Oskar Eustis, the Mobile Unit continues the vision of Joseph Papp, the theatre’s founder, whose actorfilled lorry started bringing free theatre to playgrounds and parks across Manhattan in the 1950s and went on to create one of the most influential arts institutions in New York. The recent expression of that project has one major difference though: before this company of nine actors’

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/private/the-prince-and-the-people/ 1/6 5/13/2017 The prince and the people – TheTLS residency at the Public’s black box (where tickets to the theatre in the round cost just $20), their threeweek tour takes them to maximum security prisons, homeless shelters and community centres across the city’s five boroughs. For many at these uncommon venues, the Unit’s productions are not only a first encounter with Shakespeare but the first encounter with any dramatic work, yet this Hamlet’s contemporary allusions were not lost on them. Eyewitness reports of almost unnaturally attentive audiences as well as written testimonials, such as one man stating that he learned “revenge is not the end” or the many who commented that they wish they could see the play on “the other side”, prove false the argument (pushed by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, most prominently) that the texts need modernizing for understanding today. These firsttime theatregoers follow this language perfectly well – often verbally responding to an actor’s words or actions, as MOBILE UNIT HAMLET was normal practice in Elizabethan England – suggesting that the methods Shiva Theater, The Public Theaterof d elivery, not the source material, need reimagining. New York, until October 9 Owing to rules concerning assemblies at some facilities, Mobile Unit productions must be short (in this case, a seamless and blistering 100minute cut, shorn of all references to Scandinavia in particular – “There is something rotten in the state” only – that never feels lacking), set and props kept to a minimum (little more than a fourbyfourmetre golden rug, some wooden boxes and flashlights), and costumes simplified, even for tripling roles – all of which places nearsole responsibility on the actors’ physicality and their handling of the language to convey meaning and hold the audience’s attention. And through these institutional restrictions, this agile ensemble channels Peter Brook in harnessing the latent potential of a bare stage with actors completely exposed.

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While evocations of Black Lives Matter echo throughout the production – Hamlet’s father dressed as Malcolm X in a grey suit, spectacles and astrakhan hat, turns his words into a challenge for his son to continue a legacy of Civil Rights activism; the hoodie Hamlet wears in the graveyard scene – perhaps its most effective resonance arises out of the structural simplicity imposed on it. Passion surges to the foreground continuously, most notably in the manic Iwuji, an associate artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company, who makes endless circles around the stage as he grapples with MOBILE UNIT HAMLET the murder of his father, turning his soliloquies into tightly coiled Shiva Theater, The Public Theaterpow erhouses of emotion delivered not introspectively or in isolation but as New York, until October 9 if he needs communion with an audience. His frenetic movements are mirrored later by two others who have also lost their father: Ophelia (a heartwrenching Kristolyn Lloyd) in her final scene as she, with hollowed eyes, gives herbs and flowers to those around her, and Laertes (Christian DeMarais) on his return to court, unhinged and beyond rational thought. In a play in which the sincerity and reciprocity of love are always in question, this trio emphasizes the deep and particular anguish of losing the very possibility of love when someone close has been unjustly and violently taken from the world.

Depicting these discomfiting truths with visceral intensity, the Mobile Unit’s Hamlet is a production that, in many ways, acts in opposition to the ossified, bourgeois view of the theatre that conditions audiences to sit quietly while the drama takes place at a safe remove. Many in these audiences at the Public may find it moving, but will their perceptions of, and experience in, the world truly shift as a result of the play? Its minimalism, devotion to the text, and proximity of actors to spectators invite such radical change and, in turn, suggest a reevaluation of how theatre could, and should, be experienced. In a way, this run for the general public becomes educational outreach as much as any part of the tour, teaching supposedly “proper” audiences how improper their attitude towards theatre can be. You Might Also Like

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