Partying Like It's 1425

Love�s Labor�s Lost at Actors� Gang, plus Hamlet al fresco

Comments (0) By Steven Leigh Morris Wednesday, Aug 2 2006

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There are also charismatic performances by Andrew E. Wheeler, as the ladies’ attendant; Mary Eileen O’Donnell, in a gleeful turn in drag as the manic schoolmaster, Holofernes; and Toni Torres, who fills her country maid with a pleasing blend of sultriness and sass.

On the open-air, bare stage of Barnsdall Park, Cassandra Johnson’s modern-dress staging of Hamlet returns from last season a bit frayed around the edges but nonetheless assertive and bold, by necessity. As Melissa Chalsma, who plays a gut-wrenched Ophelia, points out in a preshow address, with all the noise from helicopters and sirens that accompanies the show, it doesn’t really matter whether or not patrons silence their cell phones. In a staging lit by instruments hanging from four poles, nuance is not the point. Here the aim is to spit out the words clearly, with conviction and with some good cheer — all of which are largely accomplished. David Melville plays Hamlet as a bleached-blond, south-of-England standup, bemused by his relatives’ betrayals of his dad. He just can’t believe that so shortly after his father’s funeral, his mother, Gertrude (director Johnson stepping in for Bernadette Sullivan), would wed Uncle Claudius (Michael Keith Morgan). No brooding here. More like stunned amazement, from which a cynical jocularity melds into a jocular cynicism. After having stabbed Polonius (David Nathan Schwartz) by accident while the old windbag (“To thine own self be true,” “For the apparel oft proclaims the man,” etc.) was hiding in Gertrude’s bedchamber (with no set, the poor victim has to hold a blanket in front of himself), Hamlet drags away the corpse by its feet, chirping cheerily to his mum, “Goodnight, mother!”

Lace under fire: Love�s Labor�s Lost (Photo by Jean-Louis Darville)

To be or not to be � whatever (Photo by Mike Ditz)

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The production falls somewhere between the play and a parody of it, which is just fine. Claudius is a bit stiff — even before he’s offed — and Schwartz’s Polonius appears to have grown slightly more sedate since last year (maybe it’s from having been stabbed so often, and for so little purpose), but the ensemble delivers. The production still gets to the Big Question: What’s it all for? Love’s Labor’s Lost asks whether it’s possible to love, or not to love. You know what Hamlet asks. And Shakespeare’s not answering either question.?

LOVE’S LABOR’S LOST| By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Presented by the Actors’ Gang at the Ivy Substation, 9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City | Through September 16 | (310) 838-4264 or www.theactorsgang.com

HAMLET| By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE | Presented by Independent Shakespeare Company at the Great Lawn of Barnsdall Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles | Through August 12 | (818) 710-6306 or ?www.independentshakespeare.com