Seattle Shakespeare Company plans to kick off their 20th season with a big number–Hamlet, starring fifteen Northwest actors, with staging by John Langs. The show opens October 27, so you have time to pick up the play and read it if you want, or research the sociopolitical history of Denmark as it appears in Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum.
There, our hero makes out considerably better than at Shakespeare’s hands: “Amleth, triumphant, made a great plundering, seized the spoils of Britain, and went back with his wives to his own land.” (Who knew Arnold’s version–see video–hewed so close to the original?)
Your Hamlet will be Darragh Kennan (Twelfth Night, Electra), and you also get Charles Leggett (The Merchant of Venice, King Lear), Richard Ziman (Henry IV, Part 1 & 2, Chamber Richard III), Mary Ewald (a founding member of New City Theatre), David Pichette (Henry IV, Part 1 & 2), and Brenda Joyner (Twelfth Night, Much Ado About Nothing with Wooden O).
John Langs’ Merchant of Venice at SSC was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen in Seattle, so if you’re shopping for theatre tickets, you could feel confident in snapping up these now.
John Langs also directed “Louis Slotin Sonata” at the Empty Space, which is one of my favorite Seattle shows ever. The man isn’t kidding around. (Except when he is, in which cases it’s hilarious.) Word is SSC is backing him up with a stellar design team including Jennifer Zeyl, Rob Witmer, Geoff Korf, and Pete Rush. If anybody can make the Center House look and sound like a million bucks, it’s these guys.
Well, come on. It’s HAMLET.