Hamlet (review)

Alcatraz Island—known familiarly as "The Rock"—is a unique place. Historically, it has served as an army fortress and military prison, but it is most well known as the maximum-security federal penitentiary from which very few prisoners ever managed to escape. Although the prison closed in 1963, many of the buildings and structures remain, in various stages of decay. Now, it is a nationally protected park that serves as the breeding ground for flocks of endangered birds. Because of its history, Alcatraz has an eerie atmosphere. The empty cell-blocks and towers, the morgue and recreation yard, seem haunted by the ghosts of the men who lived out their dismal and desperate lives there. The air smells of bird excrement and the bay. It is a place that seems halfway between this living world and one that exists somehow beyond death. What better setting for Hamlet, Shakespeare's brooding meditation on death, madness, grief, and revenge?

Early in the play, Hamlet tells Guildenstern, "Denmark's a prison." It seems that he means this metaphorically, as he goes on to explain, " . . . there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. To me, it's a prison." This notion, that the mind can imprison itself, is one of the central themes in Hamlet. But in a play that constantly oscillates between conviction and un-decidability, larger questions about humanity loom: What are the contours of these dungeons of the mind? How much do we ourselves control our own enslavement? Ava Roy's idea to stage a Hamlet using the ruined prison buildings on Alcatraz—and the island itself—as its set, enlivened and invigorated such questions.

On a blustery, rainy day in late October, the ferry pulled into Sally Port and a Shakespearean adventure began. Before we had disembarked from the boat, the frantic opening scene of Hamlet unfolded. Led by docents and strolling musicians, the audience followed the players off the ferry and around the island, pausing at various sites (including some areas normally off-limits to regular visitors) to experience the performance. We craned our necks to glimpse the ghost, which was eerily rendered by several actors identically dressed in dark suits with white stockings over their faces. The audience's attention constantly shifted from one ghost to another as they seemed to appear and disappear around the railings of the decrepit cell-blocks and guard towers, creating the supernatural effect that the ghost could materialize at will. "After Hamlet!" the docent cried. And the audience of about 60 members eagerly trotted along behind the character as he chased the ghost. At one point, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, played exuberantly by Kevin Singer and Ross Travis, made their entrances by bounding through the crowd, greeting the audience. All of this infused the play with excitement—the audience eager to see what would happen next and thinking about how they might best position themselves to enjoy whatever that would be.

Through much of the play, actors and audience alike contended not only with wind and occasional rain, but the curious stench of this island—populated now only by flocks of cormorants and terns. Something was indeed "rotten" in this Denmark. Visitors not expecting to walk into a Shakespeare play also proved a minor distraction. But these challenges and distractions were braved phenomenally well by the actors—particularly Andrus Nichols, who played the Danish Prince. Appropriately, the graveyard scene was rendered in a soaking rain, the...