CEDAR CITY — You can’t lose by spending time at the Utah Shakespearean Festival on the campus of Southern Utah University this summer. The Tony Award-winning Festival offers six plays: three by the Bard, "Antony and Cleopatra," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and "Hamlet;" one delightfully campy Gilbert and Sullivan, "H.M.S. Pinafore;" "On Golden Pond" by Ernest Thompson the way it is supposed to be staged; and the hysterically funny "Room Service" by John Murray and Allen Boretz about a theater group attempting to produce a play without even the money to pay for their hotel rooms. But if you must limit yourself to just one show, "Hamlet" is not to be missed. If, by chance, you can see all six shows, more the better. See "Hamlet" twice." Directed by J.R. Sullivan, the story, taken from an old Norse legend, about Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, who comes home to bury his murdered father to find that his father’s ghost is stirring. The spectral figure is pacing the castle ramparts crying out for the truth. Hamlet (in a stunning performance by Festival favorite Brian Vaughn) learns his father’s murderer is none other than his uncle, Claudius (Bill Christ), his father’s brother and now king of Denmark, and that Claudius has hurriedly married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude (Leslie Brott). Heartbroken, shocked, and grieved, Hamlet seeks justice, but first he must expose his uncle. Finding that Claudius has been working to turn even his closest friends against him, Hamlet first tries to explain the truth to his mother, who believes Hamlet is simply mad with grief. Believing the murderer King is behind the tapestry in his mother’s room, Hamlet takes a sword to it, killing instead Polonius (Kieran Connolly) father of Hamlet’s love, the fragile Ophelia (Emily Trask). Claudius banishes Hamlet to England (conspiring with two of Hamlet’s friends, Rosencrans and Guildenstern to have Hamlet killed there), but Hamlet outsmarts them all. Returning to Denmark in secret, Hamlet learns that Ophelia, distraught at her father’s death and Hamlet’s banishment, has drowned, and calls on a troupe of itinerate actors to tell the story of his father’s death on stage before the king and queen. Claudius, plotting still, encourages Laertes (Ashley Smith) grieving brother of Ophelia and son of Polonius, to engage Hamlet in a playful fencing match with a foile tipped with poison. Just to be certain every situation is covered, Claudius also poisons the wine in one goblet, planning to coax Hamlet to drink it. Everything goes downhill from there. Laertes manages to wound Hamlet, but is then stabbed with the poisoned foile, Gertrude drinks the wrong cup of wine and is poisoned, and Hamlet barely gets to take his revenge on Claudius before he dies himself. Sullivan makes generous use of Vaughn’s intensity. He’s staged this production with only the barest of necessary people, set pieces, and props. All attention is riveted on the emotionally tumultuous Hamlet. The stage belongs to Vaughn, and he never abuses it. Even his well planned gestures are economical. Vaughn, whom Festival Founder Fred C. Adams said has been training for this role all his life, gives us a Hamlet caught up in the rise and fall of his uncle’s evil. It takes everything from him, first his father, then his friends, then Ophelia, then his mother, and last, his life itself. Along with the grief and confusion Vaughn brings to the character is a true measure of exhaustion, the kind that great loss brings. His Hamlet is real, accessible, and utterly believable. Only one person, the valiant Horatio (John-Patrick Driscoll) stands by Hamlet throughout, everyone else siding with Claudius out of fear or for political reasons. Even Gertrude, who, as a mother should at least struggle between Claudius and her son, opts to patronize Hamlet instead of sympathize with him. Thus, Hamlet’s loneliness and isolation also bear witness to Claudius’ evil. This is a strong production that sets the bar high for other productions of the same play to follow. For further information or to reserve tickets call 1-435-586-7880, or go to www.bard.org.
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