Theater: “Hamlet” @ Shakespeare in the Park

When a play is written in the year 1601 and has been performed in 197 countries ever since, one had better figure out a way to keep it current. And every summer, Shakespeare in the Park has a gift for doing just that.

The SITP 2023 production of “Hamlet” does not disappoint. The setting is a modern-day upscale suburban home, complete with a Ford Explorer parked in the driveway and a “Stacey Abrams 2020” sign posted on the lawn. The Hiphop-ish musical numbers and costumes would not seem out of place in a Cardi B video. When Hamlet (Ato Blankson-Wood) wants to show something to his mother Gertrude (Lorraine Toussaint), he whips out a cell phone.

But the true test of a production is not the trappings, it is the talent. Ato Blankson-Wood (“Slave Play”) offers us a Prince of Denmark who seems truly possessed, if not completely off his rocker. His quiet stage presence builds throughout the performance, and rises to a fever pitch at the finale. While he does not dominate the production like Oscar Isaac did in the 2017 staging of Hamlet at the Public, he does convey the paranoia of a son who feels betrayed by his mother’s marriage to his unscrupulous uncle Claudius (John Douglas Thompson).

Some of the minor characters are standouts, starting with the lovely young Solea Pfeiffer as Ophelia. She delivers a mad scene that is, in the parlance of millennials, mad great. I also liked Daniel Pearce who plays Polonius for laughs—neither a lender nor borrower be, but a comedian, it seems, is perfectly fine. Nick Rehberger (“The Glass Menagerie”) is a terrific Laertes, and his expertly choreographed fencing scene with Hamlet adds some oomph to the finale.

“Brevity is the soul of wit” is one of the most famous lines from “Hamlet,” but Shakespeare obviously did not observe that dictum: At 29,551 words, it is his longest drama. No matter. Most of the words remain immortal, which makes baking for 3 hours in the heat of a June-evening-that-feels-like-August slightly more bearable. To go or not to go? That is the question, and if you do snag a free ticket, try the frozen rose beforehand. Very helpful.

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