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Boiler Room's Shakespeare parody falls flat, despite the cast's best efforts
Boiler Room Theatre's staging of Hamlet! The Musical (The Melancholy Dane), a spoof on the Bard's most famous tragedy, is a remounting of a show originally presented locally about 10 years ago. The setup is similar to BRT's previous Shakespearean romp, McBeth! The Musical.
Somehow, the Scottish play lends itself more readily to the outrageous comedic approach. This production, despite the expenditure of huge amounts of energy, falls short of its intended mark. Hamlet (the original) is an intense, psychologically driven work, and, while the players here make every attempt to lampoon the famous script and its singular characters, the proceedings take on a one-note tone that gives way to labored musical numbers, which hammer home the story with a humor that grows tiresome.
The opening tableau is eye-catching and lively, and it appears that the audience is off to an evening of fractured fun, with plenty of dancing girls, intentionally two-bit portrayals of the well-known dramatis personae, and a score that derives from Rodgers and Hammerstein, Grease and other popular musical styles. There's no dearth of over-the-top folderol, but we get the gist early on.
Some of BRT's best and most familiar performers are in the cast, including Stephen Henry, Marc Mazzone, Megan Murphy, Lauri Bright and Lisa Gillespie. Everyone sings and hams it up with enthusiasm, and there are moments when the colorful costumes blend engagingly with lights and music to genuinely entertain. Dan McGeachy plays Hamlet, and Lewis Kempfer is Ophelia, re-creating a drag role he has played previously. Kempfer gets laughs (both legit and cheap), and McGeachy spares nothing in his bombastic singing and overplayed recitations. Alas, there's ultimately too much ado about nothing.
Jamey Green, in his usual triple-threat role—director, musical director and actor—meets with mixed success. His stagings seem less than precise this time around, and actress Bright's accompanying choreography reads the same way. Yet Green (who also composed the music) is funny in his bit acting role, and he plays up a storm on the keyboards.
With all the good voices here—not to mention the sheer vitality projected by the entire ensemble—this production should have been better. Unfortunately, the material often requires the audience to work harder than the cast.
Hamlet! The Musical runs through June 12 at The Factory at Franklin.
—Martin Brady
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