Hamlet: The Bad Ass Quarto, Uncut by William Shakespeare (review)

One wonders if there was as much laughter when Yorick brought merriment to the Danish court as there was in the audience during this surprisingly and sometimes awkwardly humorous production of Hamlet. This stripped-down version unveiled the humor and camp inherent in the melodrama of Shakespeare's most famous tragedy. By employing deprecating self-awareness and laughter, the production delivered a full-frontal assault on the moroseness of the Danish prince and his trademark angst. The success of such an alternative approach to the traditional solemnity associated with Hamlet was due to two visions of what it means to be modern: early modern textuality and postmodern rebelliousness. The amateur acting troupe, Taffety Punk, which is inspired by punk-music aesthetics, appropriated the rarely performed Bad Quarto version of Hamlet and infused it with the raw energy of a rock concert so as to rejuvenate the oft-performed tragedy. The result was an untraditional presentation that laid bare the humor and vitality of a play often weighed down by its own gravitas.

The Washington, D.C.-based Taffety Punk Theatre Company injects a punk-rock mood to performances of classic plays. The company stages three or four productions each year, with the essence of its characteristic style—nonnormative, energetic, and affordable—epitomized in its annual Bootleg Shakespeare spectacle. Despite its establishment setting in the Folger Shakespeare Library Theatre, this annual performance exudes a countercultural vibe because the cast meets to rehearse only once: at 10:00 in the morning on the day of the performance. All of the spontaneous energy that such a format creates bodes better for a genuinely exciting night at the theatre than for a formal engagement with a Renaissance-era tragedy. Humor arises from the zest of the occasional forgotten line and the tongue-in-cheek appreciation of the Bad Quarto's taciturn length.

Many productions of Hamlet wrestle with what lines to cut. Taffety Punk made such decisions easy for itself by showcasing the Bad Quarto version, based on the 1603 First Quarto. This mutation of the tragedy is approximately 1,600 lines shorter than either the Second Quarto or the First Folio version of Hamlet. Theories abound as to why this version exists: for example, a memorial reconstruction by the actor who played Marcellus; a pirated copy based on shorthand reporters in the audience; a draft by Shakespeare; or a shortened version for a touring performance featuring fewer actors. The validity of this last proposal, known as the "deliberate abridgment" theory, was emboldened by the vivacity exhibited onstage by the mix of amateur and professional actors of Taffety Punk. Just as an Elizabethan traveling troupe did not consider the full script sacrosanct, Taffety Punk's edgy approach to Hamlet homed in on the absurd humor of melodrama that can be so easily parodied. However, the performance did so from within the original Bad Quarto script—as if with Shakespeare's permission. The company's mission to present a humorously alternative view of the Bard's masterpiece manifested itself in various details in respect to character development, wardrobe, and line delivery.

Tonya Beckman (Gilderstone) and Joe Brack (Rossencraft) speak with Marcus Kyd (Hamlet) in Hamlet: The Bad Ass Quarto, Uncut. (Photo: Colin Hovde.)

For example, Marcus Kyd (Hamlet) encapsulated some of the young prince's various personas as a grieving son, smart-ass anti-authoritarian, and disillusioned lover with aplomb. Kyd delivered his lines with genuine tenacity and excitement for the part as he fluidly shot off lines with the hyperactivity of an adolescent bursting with ADD-riddled energy and shuttled from one side of the stage to the other. Such a frenzied presentation of Hamlet lacked the aura of a brooding intellectual wrestling with the issues of revenge, loyalty, and spirituality so common in the majority of productions. Because of this off-kilter presentation, Kyd's rambunctious Hamlet gelled well with the company's overall mission. After...