Little Theatre admirably tackles challenge of Bard

By DAVID B. BOYCE, Standard-Times correspondent

The play is indeed the thing, the core reason for, and focus of, any group of players to assemble and collaborate on their art form. And not for a minute do I doubt the high aims of The Little Theatre of Fall River, to mount their first-ever production of a work by Shakespeare. For a theater organization that has existed for 67 years, it has been a long time to wait.

In many respects, they are to be commended for that long period of gestation, yet I cannot help but wonder why they chose one of the Bard's tragedies over a comedy. The latter would seem a more certain audience-grabber, and one that would still have provided the obvious challenges desired by the company. Comedy isn't easy either, but for a group best known for their mountings of musical comedies, the lighter genre seems a more logical and practical choice. And the principal characters of Shakespeare's comedies, to make a sweeping generalization, are not as emotionally complex and nuanced as those of his darker works.

That being said, the production of "Hamlet" presented in the Jackson Arts Center of BCC by the Little Theatre of Fall River under the direction of James Tavares Jr., is a safely traditional one, and abridged to run about 3 hours with one intermission. There's no reinvention, reinterpretation, or updating here to make the tale's messages more accessible to modern audiences.

This presentation's physical production employs a setting that is a slight reconfiguration of the one used for the BCC Theatre Rep's "Romeo and Juliet," and while it provides a diverse though symmetrical array of playing areas and levels, they could have been more creatively utilized, especially at its highest tier. The lighting plot felt designed to underscore character, mood and speech, sometimes to the point of cliché, more than any attempt to replicate naturalism. But even within that legitimate choice, there were unexplainable inconsistencies, abrupt and radical shifts, and questionable selections of color.

That the ghost of King Hamlet appears consistently in a red spotlight rather than a more dispassionate blue or green seemed odd, especially when Ophelia is soon wrapped in the same aura, and well before her descent to madness. Sound amplification was excessively loud in such an acoustically well-designed facility, and should have been unnecessary. Are performers no longer instructed how to properly project their voices? Several appeared untrained in the use of the costume-affixed microphones. And speaking of costumes, no character, even one with only the most fleeting of moments upon the stage, should ever be allowed to wear sneakers in Renaissance-era Denmark.

This may all sound like nitpicking, but inattention to these kinds of details, especially required in classic play productions, distract the eye and undercut a viewer's faith in a company's serious intentions. If a theater company expects recognition for a well-done job, these kinds of details must be attended to.

Among the cast of principal players, David Mello as Polonius best exemplified an untrained performer with good theatrical instincts for character, presence and appropriate body movement, vocal fluidity of language, and believable interaction with his fellow performers.

Generally speaking, J.C. Wallace in the demanding title role did an admirable job, though at times, his interpretive choices were unnecessarily clichéd or over-emoted. His physical performance, however, had strength and vitality with a superb sense of projecting Hamlet's emotional states using appropriate and effectively personalized body language.

Ray Veary as King Claudius was sometimes too rapid in his delivery, and too repetitively predictable in his gestures, though his performance grew increasingly believable as Claudius's veneer fractured and cracked. As Gertrude, Nancy Leary was clear-spoken yet oddly cheery for a character who's a recently widowed adulteress in an incestuous relationship. Beneath what should be a veneer of respectability, she seemed to lack a sense of having participated in anything questionable.

Nora McGilvray made a strong Ophelia, if sometimes too strident. Mr. Tavares opted for obviousness in her mad scene, without much variation or subtlety, yet Ms. McGilvray managed to let some pathetic humanity seep through.

The remaining cast ran a gamut from solidly appropriate (Timothy Reid as Laertes, Joseph Luca as Horatio, Rebecca Paiva as the Player Queen, William Soares as Guildenstern, and Elizabeth Teixeira-Ward as the Gravedigger), to adequate or less-than, but such is to be expected in a community endeavor. Nevertheless, that they all got through it as well as they did speaks volumes.

The Fall River Little Theatre' production of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" will be repeated at 8 tonight and 2 p.m. tomorrow at BCC, 777 Elsbree St., Fall River. Tickets are $12, with discounts for senior citizens, students and groups of 20 or more. Call (508) 675-1852.

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