REVIEW: A Room in the Castle (Folger)

How well do you know Hamlet?

I, admittedly, don’t know it that deeply beyond its plot and some characters. It’s a Bard classic for sure, but not one I see a lot myself. (Do we count Lion King?)

In Folger’s newest production, A Room in the Castle, the action takes place between the lines of said play. Particularly, it follows three named characters from the more famous source material — all women—as they react to the whole murder/fratricide situation happening around them. It’s a premise worth exploring, even if it’s territory well-explored before, but the production relies too much on the assumption of a scholarly level of audience awareness to succeed in it.

Book

Lauren M. Gunderson’s book essentially follows the trajectories of the original piece, but via the perspectives of three women: Ophelia and Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s suitor and mother respectively, plus Ophelia’s nurse Anna, a new character. The action all takes place in Ophelia’s room, the room in the castle, save for some asides Gertrude conjures without explanation here and there on the upper level of the stage. From our point of view, things begin as Ophelia frets about her suitability to wed the Prince of Denmark and her potential relationship with his mother. As Anna consoles, the Queen arrives, and they work through initial tension to form a positive bond. The bond deteriorates as Hamlet grows ever-mad in over the course of the 85-minute runtime, as does the foundation of the writing. While Room never breaks a mold as it establishes itself as a feminist retelling of a male-dominated work, the characters are still written creatively enough to avoid outright boredom (though Anna is underused). Yet, the intrigue somehow untangles around the time where Hamlet murders Polonius; subsequently, Room becomes the narrative equivalent of an Indiana Jones-esque jungle bridge, the type whose planks fall into the river below when one steps on it. The scenes begin to feel disconnected and breathy, and suddenly including a supernaturally-assisted fourth-wall break. Just when you think it reaches a conclusion like that, it keeps going. The result is that this ends up feeling much longer than it is, overstaying its welcome and leaving you wondering when it will return to its smart premise and leave behind the shuffle of all these abrupt transitions. 3/10

Acting

Sabrina Lynne Sawyer is one of the DMV’s more prolific actresses, for good reason, as anyone who saw her in Sea Mink-ettes or Exception to the Rule will tell you. Yet, in this production as Ophelia I found her distant and unemotive, far from the range she is known for. Similarly, her co-stars hovered around the same levels, though each had their moments: Burgess Byrd (Anna) had genial scenes of physical acting to enhance her comic relief, and there are parts where Oneika Phillips (Gertrude) sheds her cold demeanor for a moment to allow more of a personality to come through. 4/10

Production

Remember when I asked how well you knew Hamlet? In a lot of ways, Room feels like a pop quiz on the topic. Kaja Dunn’s direction relies on projections to set the scene and establish non-spoken dialogue. This choice may work well for the Bard scholars at Folger, or for the very seriously-invested thespian, but for most it materializes as a form of pretention: “Setting: between Act IV Scene 5 and Act VII Scene 3” means nothing to me when I don’t have the dramaturgical knowledge of the piece, and the staging takes place in one room. But while this can be mildly overlooked with the context provided by the characters, it does not excuse the sections where these characters will take their asides in Shakespearean verbatim, only to be met with “Hamlet speaks.” on a projector. This could be seen as highlighting their voices over that of the central male characters, but by including the dialogue she speaks over for context, one could analyze the dynamic further. Projection use like this reduces the impact substantially.

The production falls short visually as well. The solitary staging isn’t too inspiring, nor the costumes, for the most part — Anna is inexplicably dressed like a pirate for most of it — save for Gertrude’s gorgeous, satiny periwinkle that she is introduced in. Where the production does succeed the most is in Max Doolittle’s stormy lighting, which in use is excellent in its mood creation. 2/10

Viz

There is a room, and it presumably is in a castle. The scrum will tell, or at least imply, this, but its program/key art in diverts from this secrecy as to what you may find in this room, and in which castle, by the sly inclusion of a skull among some flowers. The medieval décor of the staging should clue you into the time period well enough, too; “Put it together”, it all tells you. 5/10

Verdict

A Room in the Castle is a downtrodden attempt at a potentially insightful take on Hamlet, plagued by storytelling that falls apart and production values that stumble. 14/40