On May 30, the sun will set over Forest Park, and a new world—that of Hamlet, reimagined—will take over Shakespeare Glen.
“People are filing in. They’re eating, drinking, talking,” Tom Ridgely, the producing artistic director at St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, says. There’s a note of awe in his voice, even after seven years of producing Shakespeare in the Park. “Then the play begins, and the sun finally sets. It gets darker and cooler. People put on their sweaters and snuggle up under their blankets. They give themselves over to this story that was written 400-odd years ago, on the other side of the ocean…that’s an incredible thing.”
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William Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy Hamlet will grace the glen from May 28 to June 22. Lovers of Shakespeare in the Park are familiar with its recharacterizations of the original plays, and this season, director Michael Sexton—a native New Yorker—has put a midcentury Manhattan spin on the tale of the Danish prince.
Ridgely calls it a “stylish” production. To replace the royal halls of Hamlet’s Denmark, they’ve pulled inspiration from jazz, abstract expressionism, and Sexton’s own brushes with East Coast high society.
“My father was a corporate lawyer with an office on Park Avenue,” Sexton says. “So, in a way, that steel-and-glass, international-style architecture holds a place in my imagination of impressiveness, taste, power, and money.”
What Shakespeare in the Park lovers won’t be familiar with is a 50-foot thrust jutting from the proscenium stage. For the first time in Glen history, attendees can surround the stage on three sides as actors parade up and down a catwalk-esque stretch, bringing the action right into the crowd. The team’s first attempt at the new stage was heavily damaged during the May 16 storms that destroyed parts of Forest Park, but crews worked tirelessly to restore it and get it ready for preview performances on May 28.
Both Ridgely and Sexton say there’s a certain rightness to using a thrust for Hamlet. The lead character, Hamlet, is well-known in the dramatic world for his soliloquies, where he spills out his innermost thoughts for the audience. “Hamlet has five of the most beautiful, incredible soliloquies,” Sexton says.
There’s an intimacy, he says, to being only a few feet away during Hamlet’s great speeches. To feel your ears perk up at, “To be or not to be, that is the question…” and see the actor right in front of you. (And yes, of course, there will be a skull.)
This deepened intimacy isn’t only felt by the audience, but also by the actors. Actress Jennifer Ikeda, who plays Gertrude, says performing on a thrust stage can be particularly challenging and just as rewarding.
“It forces you to consider dynamic blocking in the show,” Ikeda says. “You want to make sure you don’t sit in any one configuration for too long, otherwise a huge portion of the audience is getting your back. It requires a third eye. Personally, I just really enjoy it. It forces you to be a lot more creative and imaginative.”
While this performance style is new to St. Louis’ Shakespeare Glen, it isn’t new to Shakespeare. The bard’s plays were originally depicted in a similar fashion at London’s Globe Theatre.
“It’s the way these plays are written to be performed,” Sexton says. “This play in particular was written for an outdoor theater, for a theater where people surrounded the stage on three sides, where actors were very close to the audience.”
Another fresh addition to this year’s set is a moving, motorized room which can roll up or down the stage on tracks, “like a remote-control car,” Ridgely says. St. Louis audiences may have seen similar set pieces at The Muny or The Fox, but it’s groundbreaking for the Glen. (Hamlet’s Act 3, Scene 4 looks to be an exciting moment for this set design. If you’re not familiar with the play, let yourself be surprised.)
If you’d like to be in the middle of the action for an all-new Shakespeare in the Park experience, make your seating game plan early and don’t forget your blankets or lawn chairs.
25 years of Shakespeare in the Park
This is the 25th summer of picnic blankets, imagination, and iambic pentameter in Shakespeare Glen. It’s the second production of Hamlet—the last being in 2010, for the organization’s 10th season. “Apparently every time we have a big anniversary, we bust out Hamlet,” Ridgely jokes.
The quarter-century anniversary isn’t lost on those behind the scenes. Hamlet, with its action and humor and famous lines, was specifically picked with the anniversary in mind, and Ridgely is excited to have Sexton—whom he calls “one of the great Shakespeareans of our time”—in the director’s chair.
Since the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s inception in 1999 and its first season of Shakespeare in the Park in 2001, the event has grown into a beloved St. Louis tradition that attracts tens of thousands every year. Nearly 40,000 people meander into Shakespeare Glen each summer, set up for the evening, and take in a play.
Ridgely believes St. Louis, in terms of a single night, may have the largest gathering for a Shakespeare show of anywhere in the world. Due to the open nature of Shakespeare Glen, five or six thousand people are able to watch a play at once. New York City’s Shakespeare in the Park at Delacorte Theater can seat 1,800 people; Shakespeare’s Globe in London can seat just 1,500.
“If there are three, four, five thousand people out there in the Glen, I don’t know where there’s more people coming to see Shakespeare,” Ridgely says.
Sexton’s wife is a native St. Louisan, so he’s no stranger to the city. Still, he says he has gotten to know this place better during his stay, and he’s been given an up-close look at the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s “commitment to its community and commitment to excellence.”
“For the festival to not only survive for 25 years, but really build into an important cultural institution—and one that has a beautiful relationship with its community—is really moving,” Sexton says.
For Ikeda, the 25th season brings a special reminder of the past. In 2001, during Shakespeare in the Park’s inaugural show—Romeo and Juliet, of course—Ikeda took the stage as Juliet. It was her first role out of college, and it earned her her actor’s equity card.
All these years later, she’s back.
“It’s a full-circle moment,” Ikeda says. “I came here as a baby, just trying to figure out what I was doing. And now I’m getting to come back, and I’m seasoned. I’m a veteran in my own way, now.”
She doesn’t remember much from that performance as Juliet, thanks to the hustle and bustle of rehearsals and a single-minded desire to perform well. But she does remember the view of the Glen. “That’s something that made an indelible impression,” she says.
To see or not to see
As always, Shakespeare in the Park is free and open to the public. The cast is a mix of St. Louis locals and actors from afar—several pulled from New York. Brady Lewis, a trumpet player from East St. Louis, will join the troupe, and Ridgely speaks highly of his musical addition to the cast.
For Ridgely, Hamlet is about wealth, aristocracy, and questions like, “Who is truly fulfilling their purpose on this earth? What, deep down, should I be doing that could completely change my life?” For Sexton, Hamlet is about a group of young people’s journey of exploration and discovery in a world that is often disappointing.
Whatever way you take it, Hamlet is a classic of English literature. “It’s got everything,” Ridgely says. “You wish people wrote plays like that, still.”
Sexton hopes St. Louis is ready for revenge plots, humor, and a good ghost story.
Opening day for Hamlet is Friday, May 30, though there will be two preview shows earlier in the week. Shakespeare Glen opens at 6:30 p.m., and the show starts at 8 p.m. For more information, go to stlshakes.org.
