The Bold Magic Hamlet

Adapted and directed by Mark Prascak

At the Currier House Dining Hall

Through this weekend

BEFORE The Bald Magic Hamlet begins, director Mark Prascak explains that his adaptation--which combines Eugene Ionesco's The Bald Soprano, Mozart's The Magic Flute and Shakespeare's Hamlet-- means to show that the plays are related through "parallel mythic structures" and that the three authors were probably drunk "and you should be too." Then he offers each member of the audience a beer.

You may laugh, but beer is one of the running motifs of Prascak's production, one of the few things that unites the three plays. Flute's Queen of the Night (Lee Ann Einert) rules over the proceedings with a can of Rolling Rock in her outstretched hand. Soprano's bourgeois Londoners drink the stuff, too. And Hamlet's (Elijah Aron) famous soliloquy now begins, "To drink beer or not to drink beer...."

As for mythic parallels, it is possible that there are similarities between Hamlet and Flute's Tamino (also played by Aron) or between Hamlet's Queen Gertrude and the Queen of the Night. However, the play doesn't really explore these similarities, and the decision to unite these three works remains a mystery.

Characters from all three works cavort simultaneously amidst the vegetation of the Currier House dining hall's terrarium, wearing tie-dyed clothing (and tie-dyed faces) and uttering clever, non sequitur one-liners. A strobe light gradually speeds up throughout the play. In the background plays what sounds like Satan's own version of the score from Flute, diced and spliced, with an electronic drum track. Every half-minute or so, the music becomes so loud that the actors stop talking and start dancing.

What does it all mean? Prascak defies his audience to find any meaning, which seems to be part of the point. Despite Prascak's claim that the principle behind his direction is "what the fuck," the play is far from random, but it avoids such conventions as plot and character development. This is confrontational theater, not for the faint of heart or the closed-minded. Though the show is little more than an hour long, few theatergoers would be willing to withstand more than a few minutes of it, even under alcoholic sedation.

Some viewers will find The Bald Magic Hamlet silly. Some will be outraged; most will be confused. These are probably the reactions that Prascak wants.

Knock Knock

Written by Jules Feiffer

Directed by Zoe Mulford

At the Quincy House Cage

Through this weekend

WRITTEN by political cartoonist and occasional screenwriter Jules Feiffer, Knock Knock is described by its producers as "a manic farce about Joan of Arc and two other guys."