It all began with a lost sock at a laundromat in Texas. Eventually, the sock returned, ghostlike, pale and floating.
“Looks it not like my sock? Mark it, Harold. Speak to it,” said the sock’s owner, Julius.
So begins Something Is Rotten, a rendition of Hamlet that is ludicrous even by Buntport Theater standards. And while the company’s creative standards have prevailed in recent serious fare, it’s a joy to see this group of seven return to high comic form.
Julius (Evan Weissman) and Harold (Erik Edborg) have teamed up with a narcoleptic thespian, George (Brian Colonna) after that sock convinces them to stage a production of Hamlet. The problem: Harold and Julius aren’t actors, and George can’t stay awake long enough to make it through his own soliloquies.
The result may be the best bad theater you ever see.
What makes this more than just a parody of bad theater are the carefully drawn characterizations. Some of the funniest moments come in the first 10 minutes, as Julius and Harold awkwardly try to set up their performance. In black pants and a turtleneck, Harold tries – and fails – to be commanding and professional. Both are tense, trying to forge ahead while George lies unconscious on the floor.
In his tassel loafers, tennis socks, fanny pack and shorts, Weissman makes a visual punch line, increased as his character preens in the light of newfound fame.
They forge ahead, trying to present the show while George naps, a show that would be much better, Harold says, “under normal circumstances, which are rare.”
Buntport’s normal ingenuity – supplemented offstage by Samantha Schmitz, Matt Petraglia and Erin Rollman – makes itself evident in this production, where puppetry is extended beyond just a sock puppet as Hamlet’s father. A Teddy Ruxpin doll with pre-recorded tapes plays Polonius; Laertes is a toy truck; Ophelia is a live goldfish. For the two-faced Gertrude and Claudius, Edborg dons a double-sided costume, one half a giant mask of the king that flips over to become Gertrude’s flowing locks while her body spills out of a tiny suitcase.
Colonna fades in and out of narcoleptic attacks to take on the role of Hamlet (it seems this was supposed to be a one-man show), pouring himself into the role until the actor and the character are equally unstrung.
Two-thirds through, the jest loses some momentum, but it’s a brief fade until the show comes bounding back to a bloody finish.
The evening’s frivolity is introduced by Hannah Duggan as Janice Haversham, “local” performer here to prepare us for the tale of Hamlet. With appalling folk songs and the quality of a local public radio personality, she moves from a desperation to be liked to just plain desperation in a well written and performed curtain opener.
-Lisa Bornstein, September 22, 2006, Rocky Mountain News