Transforming ‘Hamlet’ Into a Radical Modern Experience

With its set, cast, and script stripped down to the core, the Harvard-Radcliffe Dramatic Club’s modernized rendition of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” strives to make the iconic story more accessible than ever. The play, which will run in the Loeb Ex at 8 p.m. on Oct. 13 to 14 and Oct. 18 to 20, is cut down to only 90 minutes and seven characters while focusing on the original work’s central themes in order to be as relatable as possible for its college audience.

“We wanted to do a very contemporary and modern version of ‘Hamlet,’” co-producer and lighting designer Chloe I. Yu ’21 says. “I think a lot of times people feel alienated from Shakespeare because of the language and its [setting] in the 1600s, but I think the themes of mental illness and sexual assault and suicide are really relevant to modern times. We wanted to try to bring life back into one of the best tragedies and put it on at Harvard.”

One element that transforms this adaptation is its gender-blind cast. Director Isaiah O. Michalski ’21 wants to explore the altered character dynamics in “Hamlet” with a male Ophelia, a female Horatio, a female Laertes, and a nonbinary Polonius. Benjamin A. K. Topa ’21, who plays Hamlet, also hopes that the casting furthers the show’s universality.

“I think [the gender blind casting] makes it more accessible,” Topa says. “I hope there are more people in the audience who I hope will say: That’s me. This means something to me, this is not someone else. This is today, and I see reflections of myself on stage. I think that’s beautiful, and it’s important to have people understand what we are hoping to be able to communicate.”

Co-producer Leo A. Garcia ’21 explains that the show’s technical elements are another unique component of the adaptation.

“In order to modernize it, the locations and whatnot are a little more ambiguous,” Garcia says. Set designer Byron S. Hurlbut ’21 spent a lot of time conceptualizing what needed to be on stage and in what ways the set could be used to differentiate between scenes without having to change too much. Costume designer Nikole L. Naloy ’21 dressed the cast in all white costumes except for Hamlet, revealing that the protagonist’s mask of purity — which is represented by the white — is visibly tarnished. These details come together to produce a unique yet cohesive design for the entire show.

As different as this production is from Shakespeare’s original play, the cast and crew still anticipate that viewers with various degrees of familiarity with the work will be able to engage with it.

“For those people who are very well versed in ‘Hamlet,’ they’ll recognize a lot of the smaller references that we have throughout in costumes and blocking….I think because of the gender switch and some of the editing to the script, it’ll feel like watching a new play a bit to those who have seen it before. To those who haven’t seen it before, it will be a good way to enter the world of ‘Hamlet’ because we have tried to make it as entertaining but also as accessible as possible and as urgent as possible,” Michalski says.

The cast and crews’ ultimate aim is to create an emotional and challenging experience that communicates the play’s themes.

“I want to perform Hamlet in a way that is accessible, so people can see themselves in Hamlet, even if that’s not a comfortable thing….People would like to think they'd never get here, but I think the way ‘Hamlet’ is written shows how dangerous you yourself can be, and how dangerous feelings can be even if they’re ‘just feelings,’” Topa says.

The modernization of the play is rooted in the themes of the original.

“[This] may be the most famous play ever written, and I think that’s because the issues that are examined in the play are issues that everyone experiences in their own life: the questions of mortality, of agency, of generational conflict,” Michalski says. With this interpretation, the cast and crew hope to reinvent a classic, making its central conversations accessible to an even broader audience.