I absolutely loved the beginning of Fortinbras, a Lee Blessing play that essentially begins where Hamlet leaves off. Which invites comparison with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which is too bad, as they are doing very very different things. And Lee Blessing is a marvelous formal playwright; he has a tremendous sense of theatrical possibility. So I would be cranky about people dismissing Fortinbras because it isn’t as good as the Stoppard. It just isn’t as good as its first few scenes.
Fortinbras isn’t very bright, but he is politically savvy enough to know that the whole Hamlet story isn’t very plausible. He doesn’t want to go to the electors, as a foreigner, and tell them that the whole Royal Family of Denmark, together with the prime councilor and his son and daughter, have just killed each other in a series of tragic accidents and assassinations coincidentally just before he arrived with a largish army. So he claims that it was a Polish spy, and then sends the army back to fight the Poles. Very plausible. Horatio is greatly offended, but then, who is going to believe Horatio? Particularly when Osric is absolutely willing to go along with whatever King-Elect Fortinbras says, and particularly when the news of victory in Poland comes in.
Sadly, both Fortinbras and the play deteriorate from there. I suppose they have to. What begins as a comic spoof on a dimwitted goon who thinks he is savvy winds up a battle between the principles of Truth and Falsehood.
Also sadly, there is a needlessly difficult bit where Hamlet is confined within a television set on a rolling cart. It means a tricky special effect (when he escapes) which puts the thing beyond the capability of most little-theater groups. Otherwise, it would work just fine. And even with the deterioration over the course of the play, it’s still a good combination of new and familiar, exciting enough to the cast but not alienating for the ticket-buying audience. But the moment that TV set rolls in, the board rules it out.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.
Oddly enough, I did see this play performed by a small-theater group in Santa Barbara many many years ago. I’m surprised that Hamlet’s Eye In A TV is actually in the script — I had a faint sense of this company’s other work and it seemed like the kind of thing they would throw in.
I remember so little of it, which is a shame. “Don’t mess with Denway. Or Normark.” And isn’t there something towards the end about — um. wait. Should I avoid spoilers?
Still, I remember feeling well-disposed towards the play, and the idea of the play, and feeling that the weakness was in the execution, especially post-intermission. But I’m no theater expert, and it’s entirely possible that what I actually saw was a play that starts out strong but gets either weaker or weirder in a way that makes it hard on the company.