[NoHo Arts District, CA] – A NoHo Arts theatre review of the Kingsmen Shakespeare Company production of Hamlet, directed by Michael J. Arndt, under the stars for its 30th anniversary season.
The Kingsmen Shakespeare Company is a jewel. Nestled in the gorgeous park-like grounds of California Lutheran University, the company is in its 30th year and it’s an absolutely brilliant one! A Midsummer Night’s Dream was their season’s perfect opener, as well as being their first play 30 years ago, which was a lovely piece of symmetry. They close their season with Hamlet, which is actually my favorite of Shakespeare’s tragedies.
In a perfect production of this genius, profound and heartbreaking play, the story unfolds in waves of wonderful. In 15th-ish century Denmark, a Prince has just lost his beloved father and, in his grief, begins to believe his uncle murdered the King to take his throne and marry his wife, Hamlet’s mother. As the truth of this horror unfolds, it becomes clearer and clearer that what seems to be the rantings of a grieving son are, in fact, shockingly real. The world crumbles around the inhabitants of the kingdom, ghosts walk the earth and loves are lost beyond all hope.
It is an utterly beautiful and haunting story filled with some of Shakespeare’s greatest plot points and most repeated lines. However, as great as this play is, widely considered to be Shakespeare’s best and one of the greatest plays ever written, its greatness can create quite a challenge. How can one attempt something so extraordinary? How can anyone do such a play justice?
You have to have nerves of steel, quite frankly, and it seems to me that The Kingsmen has just that…and more to boot.
This production of Hamlet is absolutely the best I have seen on stage, and I have seen a few! They have perfected the balance of characters, the fierce energy of the piece, the brooding heart of it, and without reducing Hamlet to a petulant pouting prince. He is complex and bereft, but he is also clever and focused and driven, a little too driven perhaps. He is so hellbent on exposing his uncle’s plans that he forgets the consequences of his singular and all-consuming purpose on those he most loves. Death follows him even as he seeks justice for it.
All this tightly wound story is in the words written, and yet so often Hamlet is turned into a revenge piece, or the story of a man turned mad. But wouldn’t you be incensed if you knew your father was dead at the hand of your creepy uncle busy bedding your mum and taking over your kingdom? I know I would be. But this Hamlet is stealthy. He has a plan, if a little unhinged. The tragedy really isn’t his father’s death to me, rather, it is in Ophelia’s, and the destruction of so much of his world to prove a truth. That’s my theory anyway.
This production is so beautiful. Told in the cool night air of Thousand Oaks, with a gorgeous statuesque Hamlet and a petite and enchanting Ophelia who seems to shrink within herself as the play continues. It is filled with laughter as well as riveting, powerful moment after moment. And also positively the best sword fight I have seen on stage between Hamlet and Ophelia’s grieving brother Laertes, who once was Hamlet’s closest friend. Two wonderful actors flying about the stage with swords, Hamlet trying not to harm Laertes, Laertes filled with the loss of his own father by Hamlet’s hand, although accidental and Ophelia’s suicide within a week.
The Kingsmen’s production of Hamlet had me and everyone else in the audience holding our breath through the entire play. The setting under the trees with the chorus of frogs from the nearby brook was bewitching as usual and felt like a constant soundtrack of foreboding.
The Kingsmen’s Hamlet was absolutely wonderful. Another triumph for their 30th season and a must-see for anyone who loves Shakespeare and the saddest Prince in all the land.
It has only one more weekend, and I urge you to see it. It’s a fitting play for our turbulent times. A reminder that everything around us may change over the centuries, but the lust for power is as constant as death and just as inevitable.
Where:
California Lutheran University
60 W Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91360
When:
July 10, 11, 12, 17, 18, 19, 24, 25, 26, 2026
Friday-Sunday, 8:00 p.m. – Park opens at 5:30pm