Labyrinth Theater opened a very funny production of Paul Rudnick's farce, I Hate Hamlet. Inspired by an ad the playwright answered in the New York Times real estate section to lease a "medieval duplex" once occupied by John Barrymore, Rudnick let his imagination run wild.
As the play opens, realtor Felicia Dantine (Phyllis Cicero) enters the apartment with the new tenant, Andrew Rally (Joel McDonald), who plays the lead doctor in a TV series. Felicia is gushing all over the place about how this is the perfect apartment for Andrew; while he is having serious second thoughts. It seems that Felicia, in her zeal, has misrepresented the accommodation to Andrew, and he has taken the apartment sight unseen. Just as Felicia is trying dramatically to convince Andrew: "I want you to be happy! You belong here," his girlfriend, Deirdre (Anastasia Munoz) arrives. The starstruck Deirdre is emoting all over the place about just being in the space of "his walls, his floor, the staircase to his roof, and the air he breathed."
Within minutes, Andrew's agent, Lillian (Juli Erickson) arrives. She is a German woman of a certain age who once had a dalliance with Barrymore in the '40s. Lillian has managed to get Andrew an audition, and ultimately the lead, in Hamlet at the New York Shakespeare Festival .
The flaky Deirdre hears a church bell in the distance and shrieks: "Oh my God! Just like in Hamlet. Right before the ghost of Hamlet's father appears." Deirdre thinks this is an omen that Barrymore is trying to contact them.
It just so happens that Felicia is a psychic, and a seance ensues. And that is when the action really gets going. Adding to all the hi-jinks is the fact that Deirdre, at age twenty-nine, is a virgin and is not about to relent until "the time is right" which Andrew is beginning to believe is never.
Also thrown into this zany mix is Gary Peter Lefkowitz (Jeff Swearingen), Andrew's hip, tres chic best bud from L.A., who has gotten a network commitment for Andrew for a pilot and five episodes on a new TV show at a salary of 3M. Gary's obliviousness to live theater leads to some riotous dialogue.
Of course this cast would not be complete without John Barrymore in the
earthly form of Miles Brennan, who plays Barrymore to the hilt, sword and all.
I Hate Hamlet is replete with insider theatrical jokes. Among them is a protracted scene in which Andrew is doing his warm-up exercises, a staple of every actor's repertoire, and throwing in a spoof on The Method (the technique employed at the time by the famous Group Theater in New York.)
One-liners abound, as when Deirdre asks Andrew: "Do you think Hamlet slept with Ophelia?" and Barrymore (who is invisible to all but Andrew in this scene) replies: "Only in the Chicago company." Another inside quip comes as Gary says: "Are you in trouble, Andrew?", to which Andrew replies: "You guessed it; Joe Papp (Founder of the New York Shakespeare Festival) has my parents."
The cast is uniformly talented with McDonald carrying the lion's share of the play. Munoz, a relative newcomer to the Dallas theater scene, turned in a very good performance, and Dallas audiences will, no doubt, see more of her in the future. Cicero, as always, has a finely honed comic flair which she utilized to its fullest.
Ably directed by Stephanie Wulfe Epstein, this show also had some of Labyrinth's best set designs (Kevin Ash and David Piper) and costume designs (Deborah Gerard) to date. Labyrinth seems to be paying more attention to the technical aspects of this production than to those in years past, and it shows.
