 The Very Little Theatre continues its 78th season with a four-week run of Fortinbras, a cheeky, modern-day sequel to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
Written by Lee Blessing, Fortinbras is a comedy that opens on the final scene of Hamlet: Claudius, Gertrude, Hamlet, and Laertes lie dead and Fortinbras, the son of the late Norwegian king, has entered to learn that he now rules Denmark with Hamlet’s blessing. Solemnly surveying the human carnage, the young prince of Norway says,
"What the heck happened here?”
Young Fortinbras is an Ugly Norwegian, genial but pigheaded, who dismisses Horatio’s version of all the dead bodies as too unrealistic, and instead creates a more believable story in order to ensure his crowning as king. Fortinbras (with Horatio as his reluctant public relations lackey) reinvents all those deaths as Poland’s Revenge; he demands a Polish “spy” as a scapegoat and orders his armies to march into Poland just for a bit of saber-rattling and—surprise—his plan spirals out of control. The ghosts of Claudius, Ophelia, Gertrude, Laertes, and Hamlet advise Fortinbras to tell the truth and set things right, but their pleas fall on deaf (and dumb) ears.
Blessing has taken Shakespeare’s plot and injected his own 20th-century zaniness, right down to Hamlet being mysteriously trapped inside a television with Ophelia holding the remote control! Whether or not you enjoy Shakespeare, you’ll get a kick out of Fortinbras! |
