Hamlet, presented by the Oakland Theater Project
514 Fourth Street, San Rafael CA
September 5-21, 2025
With a fascinating variety of takes on Shakespeare’s Hamlet over the past four-plus centuries, it’s not a question of “to be” — this bloody tragedy is a mainstay —, but rather how to be. With the anagrammatic character name Amleth, the protean Alexander Skarsgård sought revenge in Viking array in Robert Eggers’s 2022 film The Northman. The character focus was shifted to Hamlet’s college buddies in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, (directed by the playwright for the 1990 filmed production) and to Ophelia in Claire McCarthy's 2018 film of that name. And Michael Almereyda, in his 2000 film, substituted contemporary corporate New York City for Shakespeare's setting in Denmark, somewhere between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
The Oakland Theater Project’s mission, stated on its website, is “to create exquisite theatrical experiences to inspire compassion and forge bonds across socio-economic and racial barriers.” The troupe’s goal of diversity (which may be part of why our own power-crazed ruler is threatening Oakland) is realized in the casting in this OTP production, not only in its multiraciality. Two male characters, Barnardo and Cornelius, are played by women. And Fortinbras, the occupying prince of Norway, is depicted in women’s garb by the energetic Myles Bell.
Other attempts to render the play relevant to our times include the costuming (by Alexia Dominique Rodriguez). Hamlet takes to the stage in white business casual and delivers the aforementioned existential speech (“to be”) much earlier than its third-act positioning by the Bard. His mother Gertrude wears cocktail attire, befitting her perpetual indulgent tippling. The fated Polonius, father to Ophelia and Laertes, is garbed in a white Nehru jacket. Despite the updating, the characters adhere mostly to Shakespearean language, save for some extra lines (uncredited) spoken as introduction by two black players in black sweatsuits and berets (Nikki Lee and William Oliver III) and socio-political commentary inserted near the end of the production.
Diversity aside, the casting here seems quite apt. That actor Dean Linnard seems to enjoy the sound of his own voice talking to himself fits his depiction of Hamlet, whether or not Linnard would act similarly in different roles or offstage. As Polonius, Robert Parsons is appropriately frail, nervous, obsequious, and a bit scattered. Parsons’s sincerity is shared by his stage offspring; Regina Morones’s Ophelia, whom we first see in a white sort-of nun’s habit, is credibly crazed by her crush on the title character, and is particularly moving in her interactions with her brother and with Gertrude, and Nathaniel Andalis’s Laertes is engaging both with Ophelia and in his related rage towards Hamlet. The friendship extended Hamlet by Horatio is affectingly conveyed by James Mercer II in that role; it was a relief to find someone so easily likeable in this production.
Credibility is less certain with some of the other roles. But critics should wonder whether the fault lies not in the co-stars but rather in an overall dilemma of this production: it felt at many points throughout the performance that director and OTP co-founder Michael Socrates Moran seems not to have had to make up his mind whether he’s presenting a tragedy, or a comedy. The Bard did a good job writing both, with plenty of cross-over scenes, but I believe he wanted the spotlight in Hamlet directed more on the tragic tropes of treachery, revenge, and madness than on generating chortles.
Of course, audiences share a responsibility in how a piece of live theater comes off, not unlike the responsibility they share more covertly while watching and applauding countless violent movies and tv series and then walking away from their screens to condemn bad behavior in real life. Throughout the performance there was repeated chuckling at Lisa Ramirez’s channeling of Gerturde’s drunkenness and pill-popping, stumbling across the stage or slouching, glass in hand. Do folks really still find alcoholism funny? The insincerity of Claudius, her now husband and former brother-in-law, seems sadly insincere as delivered by Dov Hassan, so that we’re never really able to assess his relationship with either Gertrude or Hamlet. Hassan and several other actors (at times including Linnard) handicap their intelligibility by shouting dialogue at a rapid rate, even though the acoustics of the Marin theater are actually quite benign for unamplified sound.
Aspects of design and staging are innovative, though it isn’t always easy to determine their intention. There are elements of Noh theater, including masks and long sticks (in place of rapier and dagger), and the Ghost of Hamlet’s father is here portrayed in a choreographed, non-speaking role, impressively, by Erik Wagner, painted white from head to foot. Partway in the production, a rectangular pool is exposed at center stage, occupied at different times by Hamlet or Ophelia. Perhaps the shallow liquid in the pool is meant to be tears.
Similarly puzzling are the gimmicky interpolations of contemporary gestures (palm-tickling handshakes) and a choreographed production number quoting Lady Gaga’s “Abracadabra”. The latter is accompanied by a sign beckoning APPLAUSE, superfluous because these are obvious solicitations of audience reactions in the genre of comedy. Bear Graham’s choreography is more impressive in the deployment of groups of the ensemble around the stage as danced commentary on the action, or as the Norwegian troops of Fortinbras.
Does this qualify as entertainment? Possibly. But that depends on what each of you is looking for in live Shakespeare. To some degree, this production seems to want to qualify as lampoon. And after six decades of my admiring the Bard through the wisdom and insight of his texts, that leaves me rather queasy.
