Hamlet Shut Up

How do you interpret Shakespeare's lengthy soliloquies, impassioned dialogue, and intricate plots without words? In "Hamlet Shut Up," the solution is a few strokes of wit, a reliance on physical comedy, and a lot of grunting.

L.A.'s Sacred Fools Theater Company attempts to revamp the classic tragedy as a wordless comedy, but the jokes are easy marks and often fall flat. Characters are illustrated by one attribute: Gertrude (Kimberly Atkinson) is merely a drunk; Polonius (Jay Bogdanowitsch) is always on the phone. Everyone pantomimes sex. Strangely, silent moments—such as the key surreptitious poisoning—are nearly unintelligible.

There are some bright ideas that render Shakespeare's script wackily visible: a revenge-o-meter gets a workout, switching back and forth to match the prince's vacillations. Josh Senick's piano underscoring makes subtler jokes, drawing on everything from "Murder She Wrote" to "Unchained Melody." And it helps that Derek Mehn's Hamlet is charming as well as good-looking, like the silent screen actors of yore.



Presented by Sacred Fools Theater Company as part of the New York International Fringe Festival at La MaMa ETC, 66-68 E. Fourth St., NYC. Aug. 14–21. Remaining performances: Mon., Aug. 16, 2:30 p.m.; Wed., Aug. 18, 9:45 p.m.; Fri., Aug. 20, 8:15 p.m.; Sat., Aug. 21, 2:30 p.m. (866) 468-7619 or www.fringenyc.org.