Shakespeare in the Park: Hamlet

What an undertaking it is to get tickets to Shakespeare in the Park. Last year, I enlisted my visitor Kim to try and get us tickets, but we underestimated the Bard's New York fan base and were denied entry. So this year, Alison was taking no chances and I decided it was now or never.

So Alison and I woke at 8:00 on a Sunday morning, tired but determined. Our slightly late partner in crime was Autumn and we hunkered down for four hours of waiting in line just to get the damn tickets. It wasn't so bad until it started pouring down rain. Did Alison and bring an umbrella? Ha! That would have been smart. Luckily Autumn had come prepared with an umbrella, not to mention a towel for us to sit on, and not just any towel, a MTV Room Raiders towel. So we all huddled under the one tiny umbrella, wet and shaking. We finally made it through the rain and got tickets so it was worth it.

We returned to the Delacorte and found a beautiful evening for Shakespeare. The production's marquee names included Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under, Can't Hardly Wait) as Ophelia, Sam Waterson (Law and Order) as Polonius and Margret Colin (Gossip Girl, Independence Day!) as the Queen. The production used strange 19th century, mostly military dress and the set was constructed to look like a great hull on a ship, which doubled as a kind of prison. Denmark = Prison, in case you've forgotten your Hamlet. I thought the actor ( Michael Stuhlbarg) that played Hamlet was really good. Committed to his mania, which is how I prefer my Hamlets, he spit out each line with contempt. However, semi-raping the queen was, I felt, unnecessary.

Ambrose is his equal as Ophelia loses her mind (and her hair!). Waterson is a perfect putting old fool, going so far as to convince Alison that he flubbed a line, but according to the New York Times, that was just a calculated lapse meant to showcase Polonius' ridiculousness. The Times went on to call it the "one breathtakingly poignant moment" in the entire production. Hmm, I thought he just flubbed his line, but what do I know?

As my first Shakespeare in the Park experience ended, I realized a play like Hamlet doesn't really serve the surroundings of Central Park. Give me A Midsummer Night's Dream or a Romeo and Juliet (which they did last year) to play off the park's beauty. Hell even Twelfth Night would have been better in an outdoor setting. Hamlet just feels too stuffy for the setting, but overall Shakespeare in the Park deserves its reputation as an iconic New York experience.