By Cheryl Klein
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
The Pressed Ham Theater Company’s answering machine invites
callers to listen to a scene from their current production, "Oh,
Hamlet!" Rather than the "To be or not to be" cliche, listeners get
an earful of clanking swords, followed by a game show
announcer-style voice asking, "Who will win? Who was fighting? Were
they really fighting or just tapping? And if they were just
tapping, who will win?"
This is the prevailing tone for the folks at Pressed Ham – an
ability to laugh at themselves and, through Oct. 12, at good old
Bill Shakespeare. "Oh, Hamlet!," now playing at Glaxa Studios in
Silverlake, is a small but feisty musical, put on by a group of
college students who decided it was time to let the public in on
their cleverness.
"It started when a lot of us were in the same high school
English class up in Humboldt," says Matt Kresling, the show’s
director and principle writer. "We would sit in the back and learn
all this stuff about Hamlet and Shakespeare. There are lots of
opportunities for gags, you know, iambic pentameter gags and
stuff," he explains.
"I realized that my friends are really talented people. They’re
comical, artists, musicians. So we decided to exploit whatever
talents we had and write a musical."
It wasn’t quite that simple, however. Pressed Ham ran smoothly
when its members were up north during vacations and resources were
at their fingertips in a familiar community. Now, though the
company has grown to include students from UCLA, USC and several
other local colleges, Kresling has several complaints about the
Southern California venue.
"This is our first show in L.A. and it’s so hard. Everything is
really expensive and so spread out! There’s the problem of how to
rent a theater and how to get to the theater. We have to wait for
the actors who are riding the bus to get there," he says.
Kresling tries to elaborate on what was fun about putting the
production together, but the stress seems to momentarily overshadow
him.
"What’s fun? Looking back on it will be fun," he jokes. "We
questioned it while we were preparing the play. It was a logistical
nightmare. No, but what is fun is doing it. The last few nights
we’ve been getting pretty big audiences and it’s great when they
laugh – when they really get it."
Matt Harris, a fourth-year UCLA student studying Italian and
special fields in film, alias Rosencranz, agrees heartily.
"It gives anyone interested in theater an opportunity to be
creative, to express themselves," Harris says. "I’m not in it for
an acting career. I just enjoy the environment and I like
entertaining people."
Though many of the cast and crew aren’t looking to squeeze into
show biz, Kresling asserts that participating in a student-run
production is advantageous to those who are.
"Actors are tools, " Kresling says. "They always go around
trying to get employed when what they should be doing is making
their own work. We’re the writers, directors and stars. Everyone
plays a million different roles. Sometimes we pull the musicians up
on stage. We all worked to build the set. We just forced ourselves
to learn fast," he says.
If you’re not your own boss, Kresling warns, the road to stardom
can be difficult. "You have to go through all that nonsense of
working your way up in the hierarchy. I started this because I
never got cast in anything."
But just because Kresiling didn’t make it big as an actor
doesn’t mean his writing lacks the wit and energy it takes to
satirize one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies.
"He’s brilliant," Harris says of his pal. "He’s gonna be famous,
so save your ticket stubs because they might be worth a lot
someday."
Kresling does give in to the acting bug by playing a series of
minor characters. "I’m in a lot of the scenes where I couldn’t find
enough actors. At one point, I pop out of a tiny suitcase."
As intriguing as the suitcase bit sounds, Harris cites one of
"Oh, Hamlet!’s" musical numbers as his favorite funny moment.
"Hamlet and Horatio sing a duet where Hamlet tells Horatio about
his plan to feign madness. They play the ukulele and do a little
dance," Harris says.
Few people would automatically associate Broadway-style song and
dance with Shakespearean tragedy, but Kresling insists that it was
meant to be.
"It has lines that lend themselves perfectly to being a musical.
Like ‘the skull had a tongue in it and could sing once.’ Musicals
are really cornball. It’s like ‘Oh, Jesus, another song.’ It’s a
musical parody, but at the same time the music is really good,"
Kresling says.
Harris explains that "Oh, Hamlet!" gains a comedic tone by
playing down the tragic deaths and lost love – instead elaborating
on Shakespeare’s low-brow B-plots.
"We play up elements of the common and bawdy by putting in lots
of sword fights and dancing around and music," Harris says. "I
think that’s what the original audiences wanted from Shakespeare
anyway. It was like going to the movies – they just wanted to laugh
and have a good time."
A good time and a fresh look at an old play is just what "Oh,
Hamlet!" hopes to offer, again drawing on the student angle.
"You know how adults are," Kresling says. "They’re dull. But we
turn conventions upside down the way only kids can do."
"Seeing people your age do something like this can be
inspiring," adds Harris. "Plus it’s more economical than seeing a
play at one of the big theaters."
Kresling says that there is a student discount, then pauses.
"What’s a good student rate? Let me make one up." Just another
benefit of having your own theater company.
THEATER: "Oh, Hamlet!" is put on by the Pressed
Ham Theater Company and runs through Oct. 12 at Galaxa Studios
located at 3707 Sunset Blvd. in Silverlake. TIX: $10, $7 for
students. For more info call (213) 735-9284.