Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – PTP’s revival of Tom Stoppard’s zany DOGG’S HAMLET, CAHOOT’S MACBETH is a mostly successful endeavor

• By drediman
• July 22, 2019
• No Comments

Connor Wright, Zach Varriccione, and Madeleine Russel in Potomac Theatre Company’s production of “Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth” by Tom Stoppard at Atlantic Stage 2. Photo by Stan Barouh.

For some serious theater during the summertime, you can typically count on Potomac Theatre Project to provoke and challenge. That continues to be the case with their revival of Tom Stoppard’s rarely-performed Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth, which is currently playing Off-Broadway at Atlantic Stage 2. Surprisingly, the theater company’s New York summer programming does not include any works by the prolific Howard Barker (The Castle, Scenes from an Execution), a playwright the folks at PTP have long championed (Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s plays in repertory with Havel: The Passion of Thought, a program of five short plays by Vaclav Havel, Harold Pinter, and Samuel Beckett).

Mr. Stoppard – one of the world’s preeminent living playwrights – here has written two short plays which use two popular Shakespeare plays as a springboard for hilariously experimenting with the theatrical possibilities of language and wordplay (Dogg’s Hamlet), as well as playfully exploring circumstances of repression of artistic expression by a political regime (Cahoot’s Macbeth). The two plays were designed to be performed together and are conjoined in an ingenious fashion (no spoilers here). The double bill will immediately draw comparisons to Mr. Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the 1966 play that put the playwright on the map. However, thematically and conceptually, inspiration from the Bard is where the similarities begin and end.

Cheryl Faraone’s production is game for taking on the not insignificant challenges of staging Mr. Stoppard’s witty, loopy plays. She’s more successful in realizing the zany shenanigans of Dogg’s Hamlet, the first play on the bill. She does well to escalate the hilarity by keeping the pacing lithe and the visual gags coming. Ms. Farone is less successful with the specificity of Cahoot’s Macbeth, which is a bit of a let down after the infectious delights of Dogg’s Hamlet. As with previous PTP productions, Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth features a young, eager cast who are more than well-equipped to deliver Stoppard’s tricky dialogue, even if their youth works against them in the second play.

RECOMMENDED

DOGG’S HAMLET, CAHOOT’S MACBETH
Off-Broadway Play
Potomac Theatre Project / Atlantic Stage 2
1 hour, 45 minutes (with one intermission)
Through August 3 (in repertory with Havel: The Passion of Thought)