'Hamlet' offers an opportunity to learn

The play is set in modern times.
By GUY D'ASTOLFO
VINDICATOR ENTERTAINMENT WRITER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Youngstown State University's production of "Hamlet" has become a learning experience for hundreds.
The theater department at YSU invited Mahoning Valley high school students to attend a Shakespeare workshop in conjunction with the play, which opens Thursday. The response was overwhelming.
All 360 openings were filled, and scores more had to be turned away for lack of space, said Dr. Dennis Henneman, theater professor and director of the production.
The workshop, the first in at least five years YSU has held for high schoolers, will be March 1. It will include hands-on lessons in Elizabethan acting, stage combat, Shakespeare appreciation and scenery, lighting and costuming. All lessons will be conducted by YSU faculty and staff, and the cast and crew of "Hamlet."
Cut to two hours
"Hamlet," notes Henneman, "is perhaps the most famous play in the history of English-speaking theater." To do it justice, Henneman collaborated with Dr. Timothy Francisco of YSU's English faculty, and Christopher Martin, a New York actor-director, in preparing a performance text that will come in at two hours.
If done in its original form, "Hamlet" takes between four and five hours, Henneman said, noting that Shakespeare himself probably never staged the play in its uncut version.
The YSU production will focus on the human story of Hamlet, and eliminates most of the political references. It also dispenses with the trappings of Elizabethan trappings, as the setting has been shifted to the mid- to late-20th century.
The personal aspects of the play are being highlighted "in hopes of appealing to a wide spectrum of theatergoers," according to Francisco's dramaturgical notes. "The modern dress and sets ... convey our feeling that that while Shakespeare's play is, of course, grounded in specific historical contexts, the genius of the work is that it also somehow seems thoroughly contemporary and, perhaps, surprisingly relevant."
The role of Hamlet is being played by Jonathan Yurco. B.J. Wilkes is Polonius; Andrew Kim is Horatio, and also serves as fight director; Elizabeth Rubino is Gertrude; and Anthony Scarsella is King Claudius.
Dedication
The production is being dedicated to Barrie Stavis, a leading American playwright who had become a friend to YSU's theater. Stavis died Feb. 2 at the age of 100.
"Stavis took people at the vortex of important moments in history" whose ideas eventually prevailed, said Henneman.
Stavis was an artist-in-residence at YSU in 1988 for the production of "Harper's Ferry," which is about freedom fighter John Brown. Though up in age at the time, the energetic Stavis ran rings around the youthful cast, said Henneman.
After leaving YSU, Stavis remained a friend of the theater department and "always spoke highly of our program during his long and distinguished career," said Henneman.