The 6th Act Presents: “Hamlet”

Desiree Mee Jung and Jonathan Medina star in THE 6TH ACT production of William Shakespeare’s “HAMLET” - directed by Matthew Leavitt and now playing at the New American Theatre in Hollywood.

Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Matthew Leavitt

Running March 21 through March 31, Fridays 7 Saturdays at 8pm, Sunday at 3pm

The New American Theatre, 1312 North Wilton Place, Los Angeles, CA 90028

It’s tough to put a new spin on any Shakespeare play.

By now, unless you open a theatre on the moon and the cast is made up entirely of moon-mans, it’s all been done before…At least, I thought it had…

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Desiree Mee Jung and Luke McClure star in THE 6TH ACT production of William Shakespeare’s “HAMLET”

The 6th Act have indeed found something new and it’s not just a gimmick, it’s a revelation. Hamlet is played by an entirely different actor in every act. With four women and two men in the cast all jumping genders, each of them playing other roles and morphing into Hamlet seemingly as easily as putting on a different hat.

Of course it takes some nerve and some exceptional skills to pull this off and this brilliant company of actors have those in bucket loads. I saw their version of Betrayal last year and was astonished at their utterly sublime production, bringing inspiration to Othello and Pinter’s Betrayal and now this!

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Jonathan Medina, Luke McClure and June Carryl star in THE 6TH ACT production of William Shakespeare’s “HAMLET”

Hamlet is a play that most actors would point to as being the pinnacle of perfection, full of roles to revel in and the most magnificent monologues to trip off the tongue. But so many actors have forged the role of Hamlet in their own image it’s an interesting choice to experiment with like this. Perhaps our minds have been so warped by Branagh, Gibson, Olivier, Redgrave, Whishaw, Tennant, Law and Kinnear, Rylance, Peake, Scott and Cumberbatch that we need to separate the role from the man…or woman. Whatever it is, Hamlet is such a unique role in that it truly and completely becomes the actor. Hamlet is elusive and ephemeral, a character who’s deepest thoughts and fears are spoken only to us, the audience, to the rest of the characters in the play he is only a lover, son, friend and madman…to us he is bereft and angry and sadly understood. How ingenious to give him to us in five such different people, in five such different souls.

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Luke McClure and Jonathan Medina star in THE 6TH ACT production of William Shakespeare’s “HAMLET”

Matthew Leavitt directs and to him I will be eternally grateful for this beautiful piece of theatre.

Somehow I saw Hamlet so much more clearly than I had before. Through five lenses, through five sets of eyes and five beating hearts.

The players are absolutely wonderful and all their roles truthfully, fiercely and impeccably played, with humor and tenderness and soulfulness and brevity. If Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare’s love, then Hamlet is his loss and isn’t life so completely composed of those two things?

I highly recommend The 6th Act’s “Hamlet,” this gorgeous production, so simply staged and yet so rich and full, gives the actors the space and the time they need to be all they can in every role. This play breathes, it feels, it moves through the story with grace and intelligence and total acceptance of the world created by Shakespeare. Good lord, where would we be without him…Bravo!!!