Guild Hall Players presents a streamlined ‘Hamlet’

The unedited version of William Shakepeare’s “Hamlet” clocks in at four to five hours.

Guild Hall Players’ running time for its performances next weekend is a more reasonable 2 ½ hours, thanks to Joseph Urick, who also is associate professor of drama at Wichita State.

“He has a very smart, streamlined adaptation of the script,” Guild Hall artistic director Phil Speary said.

“The thing about ‘Hamlet’ adaptations that I see is that if you dump some things, you lose some important characters, characters that people really like, like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern or Fortinbras or the gravediggers. One of the things I wanted to do was balance streamlining the play and not cutting any of those characters,” said Urick, who condensed the tragedy in six to eight months, cutting the characters from 25 to 16.

“The stuff that we have streamlined are some scenes that the original play kind of jumped from one scene to the next,” he continued. “We’ve taken some of those scenes and merged them together. We’ve also interwoven some of the soliloquies in between chunks of dialogue as if they’re a commentary on the scene. Not only does it frame the whole scene well, it puts the soliloquies into perspective.”

Alas, poor Urick also plays the title role.

“He suckered me into it,” he said of Speary. “This is a big ol’ challenge to play the Dane. I think every actor, no matter what gender identity they have, wants to play Hamlet. It’s kind of the Mount Rushmore of bucket list roles. I wasn’t anticipating this, but Phil and I had a passing conversation – I was interested, he was interested, so we said why not.”

Urick has directed his condensed version of “Hamlet” at a community college where he taught in Houston, prior to landing at WSU in 2023. He has choreographed fight scenes in five productions, ranging from high school to Shakespeare companies, and the only other time he acted in “Hamlet,” he played Laertes, who duels Hamlet.

Actress Karen Harpenau, who plays Ophelia, is performing in her first Shakespeare, after establishing herself as a musical comedy performer in shows such as “Rent” and “Little Shop of Horrors” overseas.

“It’s a lot of work, but it’s good work,” she said. “It’s been very eye-opening for me to do something like this, because it’s not my norm. I know there’s a lot of people who have made this an absolute study and I can see where all their work lies, but I feel really good about this. I’m excited to explore this with these guys.”

Speary praised her performance.

“Karen’s background in musical theater translates to Shakespeare better than actresses who have only done realistic, modern plays,” he said. “She understands the music of it. Shakespeare’s language is very rhythmic and musical, and also the heightened nature of it relates to musical theater more easily.”

Speary said the setting will be minimalistic, with no scenery and only furniture on stage at St. James Episcopal Church. The costumes will jump a few centuries, reminiscent of the Gilded Age of the late 1800s.

“People think they know ‘Hamlet’ and don’t,” he said. “This costuming will help people who aren’t really familiar with the play, with who the characters are and their relationships, rather than period costumes.”

‘HAMLET’ BY GUILD PLAYERS

When: 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, March 19-21; 7 p.m. Sunday, March 22

Where: St. James Episcopal Church, 3750 E. Douglas, Wichita

Tickets: $12, $10 for students, from 316-683-5686