Kung Fu Hamlet
Seeing as there are no clubs worth going to with any kind of regularity in S&G, many of my friends and I frequent Midnight Kungfu Theatre on Fridays to forget we're dateless losers. When my friend called mee and told mee a theatre downtown was doing a production of Hamlet preformed entirely by martial artists spoofing kungfu movies I asked him if he had been smoking crack. When the urine came back negative I agreed to attend. A descision I do not regret making.
To illustrate what we knew about the play, the flyer was blank except for the words "KUNG FU HAMLET, what more do yoo need to know..." and then the time and theatre and that's all.
Never until tonight had I seen a play in which the opening line received an uproar leading to a standing ovation of laughter. The line was "My father is dead!" dubbed by an actor offstage. In addition to the dubbing of the entire play (and intentially dubbed very poorly with frantic hand gestures and everything), one of the voices offstage made cheesy sound effects for all the action scenes.
It was quite interesting because although the names and plot remained the same, the lines were drasticly different almost as if it was written in one night by two of my motorhead dojo-buddies after a night at the bar and an 8-ball. The only times actualy lines from Hamlet were used it was incidental for comedic value:
"Kill me? Yor dreaming!"
"Ha ha ha! And what dreams may come, Hamlet! Yoo will die!"
The costumes were traditional Chinese outfits and there was constant talk of who's kungfu was the greatest in all of Denmark. In one fight scene the actors did a slow-motion montague of Hamlet delivering a death strike (a hard kick to the balls) to Horatio. There was also an entirely pointless scene where two extras (probably Rosenkratz and Gildensten) walk onto stage dressed in gis holding a boombox and break dance for a few minutes.
Also in addition to a fairly well choreographed and very well executed fight in nearly every scene (the play was only about 45 minutes long) the play was not limited to kungfu. Near the end when Hamlet takes on Polonius, Polonius proferms some faily impressive capoeira with Hamlet keeping-up with him using kungfu.
All said, it was certainly worth my $8. My only critique being that all of the characters fought using kungfu at least once in the play except for Hamlet's uncle (I forget his name. okay okay, so I don't know Shakespere that well, now I feel stupid). I was really anticipating the final showdown between the tragic hero and the villan who until the very end boasts about his kungfu talent only to end with a big impressive fight. This did not happen. It really would have been better if it had. Otherwise, my sincerest props to the No Refunds Theatre Company. Added: Tuesday, August 06, 2002 Reviewer: Dosidicus Gigas Score: Hits: 957
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