The Wilma’s production of Hamlet has been widely publicized for having a black woman in the title role, but this is not color-blind or gender-blind casting. Rather, those elements are used deliberately.
Zainab Jah is a young black woman, and the obvious intent was to emphasize Hamlet’s separateness from the Danish court. Her skin color and African accent (such as pronouncing melancholy as melan-cawly) accentuate her difference from everyone else. This relates to the idea that Hamlet feels like an alien in Claudius’s kingdom. Yet there’s a persuasive counter-argument. Hamlet, after all, was born and raised in Denmark where his father was a beloved monarch until one month before. As his father’s only child, he was the Prince of Denmark and the heir apparent. He may be an inconvenience to King Claudius, but he is not an outsider and, therefore, it is distracting to have him look and sound so alien.
Jah’s Hamlet exists in a different world from the rest of the cast. Everyone else projects their lines externally, fulfilling what many would say is the first essential in Shakespeare: to articulate the words so the Bard’s language can be understood. They do so with tones focused in the “mask” (the forehead area between the eyes). Jah’s speech is soft, not as resonant, and focused more internally. Then too, she uses broad gestures with far-flung arm movements that suggest commedia dell’arte more than naturalistic human drama. I don’t agree with this choice, but I respect its validity, and the grand sweep of the production places it among the handful of best Hamlets in my memory.
Blanka Zizka directs a production with a set by Matt Saunders that uses the considerable width and depth of the stage, plus platforms on various levels, to add spacious dimension to the story. Vivid sound and light effects separate the areas of action and create cinematic effects. Zizka highlights political intrigue and international events that sometimes have been soft-pedaled by other directors. Shakespeare wrote a scene where the king questions Hamlet about the whereabouts of Polonius; in this production, it becomes a harsh interrogation—a chilling reminder that Claudius was running a police state.
Zizka’s creativity with the troupe of traveling actors adds humor to the scene where Hamlet gives them instructions. The duel between Laertes and Hamlet is intricately choreographed by Ian Rose and excitingly enacted by Brian Ratcliffe and Jah. Another nice touch is bringing Horatio out into the audience at the end, to start retelling the story as Hamlet has asked him to do.
The cast is excellent, projecting incisively (except for Jeh, as described above) and providing insights into their characters. Some of them reveal traits that often have been submerged. Steven Rishard’s Claudius, for example, is not the stereotypical villain. Here he is suave, authoritative, capable of handling international diplomacy. This additional depth of character makes him a more challenging opponent of Hamlet. Joe Guzman’s Polonius, meanwhile, is a duplicitous man trying to please all factions—in short, a politician—rather than a risible fool.
A bit of related history is the fact that this company got its name because co-founders Blanka and Jiri Zizka wanted theater-goers to imagine a feminine counterpart to Shakespeare; in other words, what if William had been Wilma?
