Theater Review: "I Hate Hamlet" at Music Theatre of Connecticut

By Nancy Sasso Janis

Norwalk - Music Theatre of Connecticut Main Stage, Fairfield County's professional theater company continues their 36th MainStage Season with “I Hate Hamlet,” a comedy-drama written by Paul Rudnick in 1991. Kevin Connors directs the talented Equity cast.

This one-of-a-kind play is full of fun comedy, sword fighting, seances, some Shakespeare, and even the ghost of John Barrymore. The playwright somehow makes it all come together in this fun piece.

“I Hate Hamlet,” set in the mid-90s, introduces us to Andrew Rally, a young and successful television star who relocates to New York, where he rents a marvelous, gothic apartment. With his television career in limbo, the actor is offered the opportunity to play Hamlet onstage in Central Park, but he has no desire to play Hamlet. When Andrew’s agent visits him, she reminisces about her brief romance with actor infamous John Barrymore, which prompts a séance to summon his ghost. From the moment Barrymore returns, Andrew’s life is no longer his own.

“Shakespeare is algebra on stage.”

Rudnick set the play in John Barrymore's old apartment in New York City, which at the time he wrote it was the author's real-life home. The playwright won an Obie for his play “Jeffrey,” wrote the screenplay for “Addams Family Values,” and he “is rumored to be quite close to Premiere magazine’s film critic, Libby Gelman-Waxner.

Music Theatre’s strong Equity cast is wonderfully led by young Constantine Pappas (National Tour of “Phantom of the Opera,” Off Broadway in “Penelope”) in the role of Andrew. Pappas has a charming stage presence and displays excellent comic timing throughout his performance. He also gets to perform part of the “To be, or not to be” soliloquy.

Dan O’Driscoll (“The Pirates of Penzance” Off-Broadway) shines in the role of John Barrymore.The ghost, fortified by champagne and ego, presses Andrew to accept the part of Hamlet and fulfill his actor’s destiny. O’Driscoll commands the stage whenever he becomes part of a scene as Barrymore. The actor was the fight/intimacy director for both “Lend Me A Tenor” and “Sunset Boulevard” at Music Theatre. The swordplay that O’Driscoll choreographed for the end of act one fits into the space and is still convincing up close.

New York native Elena Ramos Pascullo, who appeared in “The Buddy Holly Story” at Music Theatre, is luminous as Andy’s rich, beautiful girlfriend Deirdre, who is clinging to her virginity with unyielding conviction.

Liliane Klein makes her Music Theatre debut as Felicia, a psychic real estate broker. Klein, who has appeared at Long Wharf and Ivoryton Playhouse, has a marvelous stage presence that fits this quirky role.

Robert Anthony Jones (“Finding Neverland” on Broadway, National Tour of “Phantom of the Opera") plays Gary, a producer with a very big personality.

Veteran actor Jo Anne Parady, who appeared at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in “Othello,” elegantly portrays Lillian, a glamorous German woman who is Andrew’s devoted agent.

During the intermission, the bare-bones apartment set designed by Sean Sanford is given a moved-in look. RJ Romeo is the director of production and the lighting and projection designer. The costumes designed by Diane Vanderkroef beautifully range from Elizabethan to 90s contemporary day and evening wear. The clothes worn by Andrew’s chaste girlfriend might have done more to suggest that she was rich.

In order to be inclusive of everyone’s health and safety concerns, the theater has allocated two performances of the show as “Masks Required” performances. At the performances on Friday at 8 p.m. and Feb. 18 at 2 p.m., all audience members and staff are required to wear masks while inside the building. Actors on stage will not wear masks.

There is some foul language and sexual innuendo in the script. The specialty cocktail is “The Ophelia.” Performances continue through Feb. 19 on Fridays at 8 p.m, Saturdays at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m.Tickets online musictheatreofct.com/i-hate-hamlet or over the phone (203-454-3883). MTC MainStage is located at 509 Westport Avenue in Norwalk.

Nancy Sasso Janis, writing theatre reviews since 2012 as a way to support local venues, posts well over 100 reviews each year. In 2016, her membership in the Connecticut Critics Circle began and her contributions of theatrical reviews, previews, and audition notices are posted not only in the Naugatuck Patch but also on the Patch sites closest to the venue. She recently became a contributor to the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper. Her weekly column and theatre reviews appear in the Thursday Weekend section of the paper.

Follow the reviewer on her Facebook pages Nancy Sasso Janis: Theatre Reviewer and Connecticut Theatre Previews and on Twitter @nancysjanis417 Check out the NEW CCC Facebook page.