By LOU HARRY
Prior to a performance, most theaters share a short list of expected behaviors. Turn off those cell phones.
Unwrap those candies. Note the exits.
However, for Hamlet, staged at Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the list is significantly different.
The first rule for Exodus Ensemble’s immersive, collaboratively created production is that audience members are expected to wear black. (Side note: Unprepared for that rule, I’m thankful for the nearby Double Take Consignment Shop where a black shirt was procured.)
Other rules: If there’s a white chair, your instructions are to park yourself in it. If a character holds a green light, you need to get up and follow. And don’t talk to Hamlet, even if she speaks to you.
Those rules alone should give you a hint of what’s in store from Exodus Ensemble, a company of creatives who met at DePaul University and found a home in Santa Fe during the lockdown. There they began developing original theatrical experiences, launching publicly in 2020 with an adaptation of Chekhov’s Ivanov for an audience of one.
Just as Chekhov’s name didn’t appear on the promo art for later iterations of Ivanov, you’d be hard pressed to find William Shakespeare mentioned in association with Exodus’ Hamlet.
The Bard’s basic structure forms the show’s spine – adult child returns home after father’s death, is told by pop’s spirit that the uncle did it, and wrestles with if and how to follow the avenge order. But neither Shakespeare’s text nor many of his characters are seen or heard in this update. MIAs are Laertes and Polonius, while Gertrude is just name-checked in a brief voice-only spot as the office secretary at the construction business that substitutes for Denmark.
Here, Hamlet (Kya T. Brickhouse) is a woman with a troubled psyche whose indecision manifests long before she gets her ghostly mandate. Horatio (Mason Azbill) is brought onto the scene to keep an eye on Hamlet only to get lost in a web of conspiracy theories. Hamlet’s lover Ophelia (Gracie Meier) is a drug dealer but she insists it’s only pot. And there’s legit uncertainty for much of the play as to whether or not Claudius (Patrick Agada, also serving as the ghost) had anything to do with his brother’s death.
The audience of only about fifteen follows that green light in and out of spaces – some detailed, some minimally designed – and there are compelling, fresh drama and visuals around nearly every corner. Horatio arrives dramatically by car at a loading dock. The ghost is first glimpsed in a tight hallway. Attendees are invited to take advantage of a self-serve bar at the senior Hamlet’s memorial service. On a scaffold in the woods (Sr. owned a construction company), Hamlet relives the moment when her father died in her arms.
The initial meeting between Ophelia and Horatio – with Hamlet in the middle – is funny, awkward, and truthful while also effectively establishing all three characters. The soliloquy that loosely subs for “To be or not to be” – proves intimate, thoughtful, and riveting. And the effects – including some quick Senior/Claudius changes, and a chilling view of the ghost through a large window – combine the theatrical with the poetic.
Not every choice is successful. “Mission: Impossible” and “The Pink Panther” themes played as Horatio and Hamlet try to find incriminating documents feels out of sync with the rest; and projecting Laurence Olivier’s “Hamlet” into a scene comes across as distractingly, self-consciously meta, while Horatio’s conspiracy descent feels imposed rather than organic.
But those are minor issues outweighed by what this production does achieve. By freeing itself from Shakespearean requirements and taking only what the team feels is necessary to engage, it reinstalls a sense of dread and psychological mystery to a story that even casual theatergoers often can’t help but see as a series of checkpoints. And it does that through a quartet of three-dimensional characters in nuanced emotional struggles with each other.
Confession: While I’ve seen more than a half dozen Hamlets on stage, I’ve never really been caught up in its climactic action.
In the hands of the Exodus Ensemble, I was on the edge of my (white) chair most of the time.
I just wish I could spend more time in Santa Fe and see more work by this company-to-watch.
Note: Exodus Ensemble is committed to not charging for tickets. Instead, company members make a pitch after the show for audience members to pay what they can, whether that’s $10 or $1000, to keep this fully professional company producing.
