New York Theater Buying Guide Review of Hamlet

HAMLET

Sanford Meisner Theatre
164 Eleventh Avenue
(between 22nd and 23rd Streets)

Performance dates and times,
and ticket information, including Group Sales,
at end. CLOSES JULY 9.

Review by Ronald Gross
New York Theater Buying Guide

BOTTOM LINE: A superb production of the greatest play in the English
language, with an unforgettable Hamlet, in a true "Off-Off-Broadway" venue -- within
walking distance of the Javitz Center.   Our highest recommendation!

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Here's a HAMLET right in your lap!   Tyler Woods' Reduxion Theatre Company
gives us the greatest play in the English language, in a comfortible theater
seating 74 people, and using no more sets than three square black blocks on the
stage. Yet the rotten world of Elsinore springs to life, replete with ghosts,
usurpers, burials, swordplay, and spiritual yearnings.

As Hamlet, Richard Bolster prowls the stage like an agile leopard, and his
face and voice give us the full range of the hero's moods, from sardonic to
enraged, from thoughtful to impulsive.   He rises to every challenge of this most
demanding role, never flagging in his energy, focus, or effectiveness.
It's one of the joys of theater-going to see a promising actor emerge in a great
role.

The rest of the company does outstanding work too, with each taking multiple
roles (as they often did in Shakesepare's theater, which had only a dozen
actors).   Erin Anderson brilliantly jumps genders to masterfully deliver the
roles of Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Fortinbras and a couple of other characters;
Michael Cherry is equally versatile as Polonius, Osric, and the "churlish priest"
at Ophelia's funeral.; Kenric Green segues from the placid Horatio to the
declamatory lead Player of the visiting theater company; Sean Logan builds
solidly to top off his Laertes with stunning emotion; and Robert Michael McClure
is excellent as Claudius and the Ghost of Hamlet's father, which nicely teases
us with the question of whether there are similarities as well as
differences between these two characters who Hamlet sees as so competely
incompatible.

"We know that our patrons are ready for a journey of passion and
intelligence," declares the Reduxion Theatre Company. "And we are ready to provide
that
experience every time we set foot on that most special area: the stage."

They certainly fulfill that promise here.

For an experience of New York "Off-off-Broadway" theater (I prefer the newest
term, Indie Theater!), see this Hamlet.

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This Production Closed on July 9th, 2006