Thursday, February 27, 1997
THEATER:
UCLA student brings intense visual flair to Müller's six-page playBy Vanessa VanderZanden
Daily Bruin Contributor
"I was Hamlet," wails a voice in a rich falsetto. "I was Hamlet," he wails again. Madness overtakes the central figure, who, seated in a chair, stares intently at his twiddling fingers. Soon, various characters rush the sparse stage, repeating muddled line after muddled line of heavily loaded, senseless jargon against the taped recording of vacuous audio static.
This intense artistic chaos will undoubtedly spawn rich discussion from theatergoers from all walks of life. Opening this Friday in Macgowan Hall's Little Theater, Heiner Müller's "Hamletmachine" spins through a plethora of social and political issues under the direction of master of fine arts student Nicolas House.
Drawing on sources as varied as Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and the Manson family murders, House's production runs unlike any of this script ever performed.
"Heiner Müller, the playwright, had the idea that anyone can do the play anywhere and whatever you bring to it is what you bring to it," House says. "Certainly, there are very specific references that pertain directly to Müller, but in terms of a public use, anyone can do anything they want with the play. Any production of this piece is like a fingerprint; it will never be like another production."
Operating within the confines of a mere six-page script, House and his cast rely on visuals to re-interpret the work's larger implications. The two main characters, Hamlet and Ophelia, each recite a monologue throughout the play's course, yet at times it can be difficult to distinguish who performs the lead. All actors become Hamlet and all actresses Ophelia in a swarming mass of disconnected line deliveries.
"The way Hamlet is represented in this play is as an archetypal character," explains House. "He has existed throughout history in different forms. He may exist as a Richard III from Shakespeare, or Raskolnikov from Dostoevsky.
"They all derive from Hamlet because we in the modern Western world have decided that he was a tragic hero, that his character is someone that we look up to and aspire to be. Especially those of us who have gone to higher education because he's someone who's young, intelligent, very conscious and yet he is not a great person. He's a misogynist, he's a murderer, and that's the duality of the world that we live in."
However, even without a firm understanding of Shakespeare's work, one can derive greater meanings from the references made in "Hamletmachine." Having added some poetry of Sylvia Plath to the script as well as a "Snow White" song and Mr. Rogers allusions, House hopes to connect audiences to the work and perhaps a new way of viewing those contemporary figures will emerge as well.
"In the kind of world we live in, everything is taken out of context," says House. "It's the kind of play that someone might have to read like 100 times to get all of the references. But that's a challenge, too, that what the actors are doing isn't so abstract that the audience feels disconnected to it."
House goes on to explain how various literary devices add to "Hamletmachine"'s avant garde performance style.
"The way the play is written is with a lot of irony and dichotomy and parallel. So, you may see this play and hear three different people do one sentence throughout its course, and through the actions that go along with that sentence or those phrases, three entirely different phrases emerge based on the context of what the sentence means."
"But aside from the intellectual approach, we only respond to what goes on in the play emotionally and that's raw and that's real."
As a product of Nazi Germany, Heiner Müller's issues revolve around the atrocities of World War II and the aftermath of a fascist regime. At one point, the Nazis pursued his Marxist father and the underground communist group to which he belonged. Though the guilt Müller felt over the entire situation sparked the birth of this 1977 play, the work speaks to all members of humanity in their varied social conditions.
"As an African American, I felt I could respond in a theatrical way to some of the implications that were made in the text, because the play is essentially about oppression," House says. "Everyone who auditioned responded to something in the text that immediately grabbed them, based on just the language and the words in the play. They didn't necessarily know how to articulate what it was that they were responding to, but there was something there.
In this way, House narrowed down the initial auditioning group of 85 to a cast of 13. Though the vague script could have involved any number of performers, House looked for an ability to move, speak and understand the work when deciding upon collaborators.
Working improvisationally from the actors, the process proved tedious, yet resulted in a gratifying experience for both director and actor alike.
"It's not often in traditional regional theater that you get a chance to do something like this," explains actor Adam Shive. "This is the first time I think that this work has ever been performed on the West Coast. So, that alone intrigued me. Plus, I'd played Hamlet before, so the whole idea of playing something to compare to that was interesting. And, I'd heard some things about Nick (House), who's an amazing visualist."
Working off Müller's vision that we live in a society of fragmented images, infused with television's 30-second commercial spots, House's production seeks to carry through that idea. Through brief scenes of characters in constant movement, rehashing sharp line after sharp line of broken phrases, the show caters to short attention spans. Yet, at the same time, this unique style translates best to the theater, providing viewers an experience unattainable through other forms of media.
"The actors are very excited about the play because there's a sense of a freedom in doing it," House explains. "With only six pages, you get to do whatever you want with it. But, in that way, there's almost too much freedom because last week I'm sitting there and I'm like, wow. I didn't cover all the bases I really wanted to because the play is that dense."
THEATER: "Hamletmachine" opens Friday at the Little Theater in Macgowan Hall. Tickets are $12, $6 for students. For more information, call 825-2101.
BAHMAN FARAHDEL
Adam Shive is one of several actors who portray Hamlet in Heiner Müller's "Hamletmachine."