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HAMLET WITH MARIONETTES ON AN ANTIQUE CAROUSEL
Recommended for audiences aged 8 to 108.
Deborah Beshaw as Gertrude, Queen of Denmark; Nat Cassidy as Hamlet, on Jane's Carousel, DUMBO, Brooklyn. Photo by Jonathan Slaff. To share its 1997-2002 hit with a larger audience, Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater will revive its distinctive production of "Hamlet, Prince of Denmark," directed by Vit Horejs and Pavel Dobrusky, from November 1 to 25, 2007 on Jane's Carousel, 56 Water Street (DUMBO), Brooklyn. In its debut year, the production earned accolades at The Vineyard 26 Theatre and Karagoz International Festival in Bursa, Turkey. It was revived in 2002 at Jan Hus Playhouse, 351 E 74th Street, Manhattan, but it has not since been performed in New York. It features a cast of five actors and scores of marionettes and stages the play's famous soliloquies as musical songs.
The initial 1997 jewel box production of this "Hamlet" introduced hundreds of New Yorkers to Czech puppetry, inspired a Time Magazine article and filled the Vineyard's 26th Street Theatre with audiences of all ages. At the time, Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theater was regarded as a "rising star" theater company; but its ingenuity and conceptual skill were not as widely recognized as they were after its La MaMa production of "Golem" was chosen for the 1998 Jim Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater and "Rusalka, the Little Rivermaid" (1999) filled La MaMa's large Annex Theater for both its opening run and return engagement.
The play is directed by Vit Horejs and Pavel Dobrusky. Josh Adler and Nat Cassidy will alternate as Hamlet. The other performers are Deborah Beshaw, Vit Horejs and Theresa Linnihan. Costumes are by Magdalena Vavakova and Theresa Linnihan. The set is the carousel. Additional set and lighting design are by Pavel Dobrusky.
