A king is poisoned by his brother. That brother marries his sister-in-law and takes the throne. The dead king's son sees his father's ghost, who pleads for revenge. And everyone thinks the son is crazy.
This is the premise of "Hamlet," but three local actors have turned the revered drama inside-out and brought forth its inner tabloid.
The Elsinore Diaries," a comedic retelling of Shakespeare's greatest work, plays in Olympia and Seattle in August after a two-year hiatus from the stage.
Exploiting the questions
Frank Lawler, Jason Marr and Daniel Flint came up with "Elsinore" while they were acting together for the first time in "The Lonesome West" in Olympia in early 2003. While commuting from Seattle to Olympia, the actors began talking about some of the plot holes and anomalies in "Hamlet."
"Obviously it's brilliant, but there are interesting tidbits that hadn't been exploited," Lawler said, such as the death of Ophelia, Hamlet's object of affection. There's a long description of her drowning that's basically an eyewitness account, he said.
"Why didn't someone go in and save her?" asked Lawler, a Madison Valley resident and former Microsoft project manager. "There's more conspiracy going on than at first blush."
So maybe Ophelia was pushed in. And maybe Claudius, the usurping brother, is a pawn of Polonius. Transform Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, whom Claudius hires to keep tabs on Hamlet, into Freudian psychologists, and you end up with a whole new story.
Marr said that it was intimidating to tinker with Shakespeare. He didn't want the audience to be able to tell when the script switched from Shakespeare's dialogue to theirs.
"Hopefully you would lose track of where that happened," Marr said.
The trio also decided that while the other characters could have new dialogue, anything Hamlet would say had to come from the original. "Shakespeare would help ground our production," Marr explained.
An amusing take on the Bard
Whether the new dialogue can compare with the Bard's, the American satire is funnier than the Anglo-Saxon original. When it premiered at the 2003 Seattle Fringe Festival, "Elsinore" won the Sold-Out Performances Award. But the writing trio couldn't reap the benefits of their success because the Fringe declared bankruptcy in 2004.
With the help of a recent fund-raiser, however, and a partnership with Olympia-based Harlequin Productions, the show is back on its feet. Other than a staged reading last year by cast members of a Harlequin run of "Hamlet," this will be the first staging of "Elsinore" since the Fringe Festival.
"We simply believe in this one," said Harlequin artistic director Linda Whitney. "It's an incredibly funny and very entertaining interpretation of Hamlet.... It's like the National Enquirer's take on what was really going on behind the scenes."
The changes
The writing trio made additional changes for the upcoming run. With Harlequin's help, the production has a larger budget than it had for the Fringe Festival, video components for a documentary aspect and expanded and changed characters.
"In Fringe, we had to make a lot of shortcuts," Lawler said. "Some of the characters got watered down.... [We wanted to] turn them into people rather than just cardboard."
The show also has been lengthened from 90 minutes to about two hours.
Lawler and Flint, himself a contractor, made most of the revisions because Marr was busy getting his massage-therapist certification. Marr played Hamlet last time, but because he has taken the leading role in "Henry V" for GreenStage this summer, he won't act in the upcoming run of "Elsinore."
As in the premiere run, Lawler and Flint will take multiple roles. Lawler will play Claudius, the historian and the player king. Flint takes on the roles of Polonius, Horatio and Bernardo.
Although Marr will be missing from this staging, the trio has formed 1 Lump or 2 Productions, and they plan to forge new works together. According to Lawler, 4Culture, the former King County Arts Commission, has awarded their production company a grant to put on their upcoming play, "Neighborhoodlum," a story about homeless teens.
"The Elsinore Diaries" will play at the Seattle Center's Center Theater Aug. 18 through 28. Ticket information is available at www.elsinorediaries.com.
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