Review: Robert O’Hara Directs a Misguided, Noirish Hamlet

A ghost is pissed in the wings of the Mark Taper Forum. But that irate specter isn’t Hamlet’s father, it’s William Shakespeare. Robert O’Hara’s deconstruction of Hamlet is ambitious yet overindulgent, more obsessed with oral sex than revenge.

The first half of this “new and improved” Hamlet is heavily abridged. Initially, the plot is recognizable. Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark (Patrick Ball), is visited by his father, the late king (Joe Chrest). The ghost claims that his brother, the new King Claudius (Ariel Shafir), and his wife, Gertrude (Gina Torres), Hamlet’s mother, murdered him in his sleep. Hamlet vows to avenge his father’s death by exposing the puppet king and murdering him.

Throughout this first part of the play, O’Hara makes deep cuts to the text and adds modern, sexual references. But more than halfway through the play, O’Hara abruptly drops any attempt at being faithful to the text and turns Hamlet into an uninspired detective mystery, with an investigator (also played by Chrest) questioning the survivors of the bloodbath in the castle.

O’Hara appears to be questioning some of the original’s play’s subtext, such as his “close” friendship with Horatio (Jakeem Powell), and plot holes, such as why a man Hamlet’s age is still in college and acting like a petulant child. He also turns Denmark into a corporation, making its leaders warring CEOs instead of royalty. Turning Elsinore into a movie studio gives the excuse for the film noir visuals and the ending, but ultimately it all devolves into crass, un-Shakespearean B-movie melodrama.

The actors take everything they’re given and run with it, creating cohesion where the text fails them. Ball is good at feigning insanity and skittishness while projecting confidence and perseverance. Shafir is delightfully pompous as the coked-up king who makes off-the-cuff decisions and seems about to shatter from his drug-fueled blood.

Torres lights a fire in her later scenes as she displays a lioness safeguarding her country when the king deteriorates. Ramiz Monsef’s unctuous portrayal of Polonius turns him into a duplicitous film executive attempting to manipulate everyone for his own gain but ultimately winding up out of his league. The adapted script robs Ophelia of any sustainable traits, leaving Coral Peña adrift.

Creatively, there are some production highlights. Clint Ramos’s set works seamlessly with Yee Eun Nam’s bloody, psychedelic projections. Lindsay Jones’s score evokes the famous ’40s noir music of Franz Waxman and Bernard Herrmann. Dede Ayite’s costumes are stunning mock-ups of Valentino and Halston, styled to perfection.

In the end, though, that’s not enough. A fresh take on the four-century-old Hamlet is always welcome. But this latest version by Robert O’Hara feels misguided, unclear in purpose, and lacking the scope of Shakespeare’s most famous play. To be or not to be? Without question, this should have been the latter.