Fortinbras
Hypocrites
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At first blush Fortinbras seems like Blessing’s version of a Stoppard play–“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern… Lite,” a jokey sequel to Hamlet in which a marginal character takes center stage and battles with his betters for control of the story. But it blossoms into a thoughtful consideration of whether truth is worth the trouble. Fortinbras thinks not, and it takes the combined efforts of most of Hamlet’s characters, living and dead, to bring him around. Director Justin Fletcher and his ensemble handle Blessing’s allusions (to Hamlet, to Waiting for Godot, to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead) and his own jokes with equal facility. Ophelia (Katherine Ripley in an electric performance) tells the smitten Fortinbras, “Women don’t reach their sexual peak until they’re dead.” Defiant artistic director Jim Slonina is appropriately smarmy as Osric, John Harrell wonderfully earnest as Horatio, and Jason Kae in command of every nuance as Fortinbras. Richard Ragsdale makes Polonius’s postmortem silence more eloquent than the old man could ever have hoped to be in life. As Hamlet, John Sanders ably bridges the play’s serious and comic aspects, though much of his performance is seen only on television.
The comment on illusion and truth embodied in the TV Hamlet hits home, particularly after a broadcast week consisting of heads mouthing solemn-sounding gibberish in response to the unspeakable. Likewise, Fortinbras’s casual tailoring of facts, coupled with his reasonable point that what the story is depends on who you are, will resonate with those who wonder whether calling mass murder an “act of war” commits us to a reaction whose agenda is hidden behind the rubric of justified self-defense like Polonius behind the arras. When Fortinbras says, “How can we be heroes if we can’t even see what we’ve triumphed over?…We need someone to hate,” it’s hard not to draw parallels with current events.
But it’s the playwright’s lack of love–in the New Testament sense of charity–that’s the real culprit. While displaying his own erudition in multitudinous references to mathematics, literary history, and philosophy, Stoppard condemns others’ search for knowledge as futile. Shaw would have made short work of that kind of pretension.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photos/Arlo Brian Guthrie/Margaret Lakin.
