HAMLET (1986)
Performed at:
February 18th - May 11th 1986
NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL,
ESTELLE R. NEWMAN THEATRE,
PUBLIC THEATRE,
NYC
Cast (in alphabetical order):
Marcellus...
Mario Arrambide
Polonius...
Leonardo Cimino
Player Queen...
Lynn Cohen
Guildenstern...
David Cromwell
Francisco/Fortinbras...
Peter Crook
Second Gravedigger/Old Gentleman...
William Duell
Voltemand ...
Ron Faber
Horatio...
Richard Frank
Ophelia...
Harriet Harris
Bernardo/Second Sailor...
Richard Michael Hughes
Cornelius...
Garry Kemp
Hamlet...
Kevin Kline
Rosencrantz...
Randle Mell
Laertes...
David Pierce
Gertrude...
Priscilla Smith
First Sailor/Danish Officer...
Marco St. John
First Gravedigger/Gentleman...
Peter Van Norden
Reynaldo/Second Valet...
Paul Walker
Priest/Minister of Finance...
Joseph Warren
Ghost/Player King/Osric...
Jeff Weiss
Claudius...
Harris Yulin
Synopsis:
Hamlet (Kline) is in all kinds of existential grief after the death of his father, King Hamlet. Old Hamlet's ghost appears and says his brother Claudius (the awesome Harris Yulin - he was in Buffy you know!) murdered him in order to take the throne and marry old Hamlet's widow, Gertrude. Hamlet wants to avenge his father but it turns out to be a bit more complicated than that.
This we would have killed to see: a stellar cast performing Shakespeare's most complex, possibly most brilliant and certainly most deranged play. And it ends with DHP and Kevin Kline fencing!
David's role:
"I found every single laugh as Laertes that you can find and only realized later that you really shouldn't find any at all."
David Hyde Pierce
Well, he does lose his entire family and end up killed ...
Laertes is the more impetuous, less thoughtful version of Hamlet, who gets right down to revenging when his father Polonius and sister Ophelia die, largely due to Hamlet's meddling.
The New York Times complained that Laertes and Opehlia's relationship was "too fond by half." Ah yes - always best to pack as much incest into Hamlet as possible. (Niles and Bebe though - what genius.)
What the critics said:
"David Pierce's Laertes is a petulant prep-school boy in beret and velvet collar."