Hamlet: Heads or Tails: Something is Rotten in the State of Denmark

Loud Mouth Theatre Company’s latest production is a novel take on the story of perhaps the most dysfunctional family in the history of theatre. Hamlet is playing at Pop-Up Theatre 1 in Murray Street, Hobart – a properly grungy, but intriguing and atmospheric space entirely in sync with the character of the fledging company.

The fun starts with the players tossing coins in pairs to decide who will take each part. On Friday, our Hamlet was Loud Mouth co-artistic director, Campbell McKenzie, with his thespian partner, Maeve MacGregor taking the part of Laertes.

This is warts and all Shakespeare – slightly abbreviated but replete with ponderous 17th century language. Like many, I studied Hamlet in high school and I must confess, its point escaped me entirely. Having never seen it performed, except perhaps for a school excursion to see a film version, the details of which have long since evaporated from my conscious memory, I was a genuine Hamlet virgin.

A few minutes in, to my genuine wonderment, the dialogue began to make sense. Who would have thought it – but give a bunch of talented, intelligent actors a dense, impenetrable, ancient script, and miraculously, they bring its themes and emotions to dazzling life. With casual, eclectic costuming and an up-close, theatre in the round style, this is Shakespeare at its most accessible.

And I recognised a heap of fabulous lines – like ‘this above all, to thine own self be true’ and ‘brevity is the soul of wit’ and ‘sweets to the sweet’. Who knew they came from Hamlet? I do now!

The performances are uniformly assured, as is the production, but the standouts are McKenzie’s mentally and emotionally disintegrating Hamlet, and Sara Pensalfini’s brilliant Polonius. Mr McKenzie delivers a nuanced interpretation of a man – a son, a nephew, a lover and a friend – falling inexorably into a solitary madness. And, Ms Pensalfini has a facility with the Shakespearean dialect that is utterly breathtaking – Polonius’ complex part is delivered, rapid-fire, with perfect clarity and intonation. Fantastic!

Ms Macgregor’s blood-soaked Laertes, and Mr Bannister’s dry, understated, psychopathic uber-villian – the murderous Claudius – are both confident and appropriate, as are the remainder of the performances. The enthusiastic audience applause at the play’s close was thoroughly deserved.

With an onsite bar, and some tasty treats after the show, Hamlet is a top night out. It may be clichéd to say the Loud Mouth Theatre Company is going places, but what the heck – they surely are.

Hamlet: Heads or Tails is playing at the Pop-Up Theatre One, 130 Murray Street, Hobart from September 12 to 20. See http://www.loud-mouth.co
Bronwyn Williams. Pub: Sept 14