Fortinbras
Firstborn Productions

The rarely produced Fortinbras is a big-cast play with big ideas--public gullibility, the corrupting temptation of power, life (and sex) after death. Fortinbras is of course the Norwegian officer who arrives at Elsinore Castle to find Hamlet and most of the Danish court slain, and in Lee Blessing's speculative sequel the involuntary monarch pro tem immediately lays out a self-serving version of events.


3/9/98 - 4/26/98


?The rarely produced Fortinbras is a big-cast play with big ideas--public gullibility, the corrupting temptation of power, life (and sex) after death. Mary Shen Barnidge, Chicago Reader March 27, 1998

Fortinbras is of course the Norwegian officer who arrives at Elsinore Castle to find Hamlet and most of the Danish court slain, and in Lee Blessing's speculative sequel the involuntary monarch pro tem immediately lays out a self-serving version of events. Soon the only citizens still concerned with the truth are Horatio and a bevy of extremely troublesome ghosts.

Veering widely in tone between philosophy and farce, Blessing's text could quickly degenerate into slapstick satire, but the Firstborn cast have a firm grip on their characters' goals and motives, which keeps the narrative coherent and cleanly paced. At the center of the intrigue is Kirk Gillman's engaging Fortinbras, a humble everyman at a loss to explain his sudden fortune ("Something about this place makes me want to talk to myself," he says before launching into a soliloquy). At his side are Robert Angus's fickle Osric and Jason Jones's stalwart Horatio, who are all but upstaged by the mischievous ghosts, led by David Beninati's bad-boy Hamlet and Andrea Washburn's Valley-girl Ophelia.

For audiences who like their murder in a more overtly modern context, there's Blessing's Down the Road, in which a pair of journalists question their morality while interviewing a serial killer who may be writing his own work of fiction, though the victims are real. Director Stefanie Neuhauser makes some interesting choices in her interpretation of this popular script--most notably the casting of bantamweight Frank Fowle in the role of the homicidal William Reach. But Marc Jablon and Deanna Cooke come off a bit too ingenuous to be believable as professional thrillmongers. Their vulnerability to Reach's manipulative tactics is apparent from the very beginning, making for little suspense.?

"Hamlet" is always ripe for literary revisionism. Lawrence Bommer, Chicago Tribune March 20, 1998

Tom Stoppard pioneered that approach with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead." Lee Blessing's sardonically updated 1991 "Fortinbras," opening Friday (it was first presented in Chicago by Interplay in 1993), examines the Prince of Denmark from the point of view of the title character. A postmodern, media-friendly conqueror,

Fortinbras sees "Hamlet" as merely a prelude to his own tale. But, returning from the beyond, the principals in Shakespeare's tragedy have their own agenda. Mark Reynolds' staging combines political spin-doctoring, literary wit and ghostly high jinks.?

Author
Lee Blessing

Director
Kirk Gillman

Performers
Kirk Gillman, Robert Angus, Jason Jones, David Beninati , Andrea Washburn

Tags: Theater, Rest Of The World, 1998