The Last Five Years

Hamlet X: The Tragedy of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz
Rainier Valley Cultural Center; ends Sun., Oct. 2

You can wrap Hamlet around an adaptation, or find Hamlet in that which you're adapting, but either way, you'd better bring something new to the table—it's late in the game. The historical figure of Malcolm X isn't such an obvious fit for the Dane, until you start thinking in broad, abstract strokes, both about the play and the person inserted into the title role. Director Tyrone Brown, who also adapted The Tragedy of El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz from the original Shakespeare, locates the dramatic tension in Malcolm X's ambivalent relationship both to Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad and to the political uses of violence in general. Perhaps to suit this purpose, Brown also compresses the action, honing the play to its essence (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not only dead here, they never even existed).

David Hsieh

Gavino and Glynn have Five Years.

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The story of Malcolm X is defined largely by conflict and progression— from criminal to hero, addiction to independence, division to cohesion—and Brown explores this dialectic by steeping Shakespeare's language in charged political rhetoric. Infusing the dialogue with the religious and political fervor of Malcolm X's distinctive oratory style (a seductive combination of sermon and call to arms), Brown's adaptation becomes almost exclusively a meditation on choice, which finds its roots in conflict and resolves itself in action. This Hamlet is less existential than he is messianic; Brown transforms the character's tragedy into a form of martyrdom.

Obviously, none of it would work without a very strong actor in the lead. Joseph Mascerello proves himself more than capable of merging fact and fiction. His Hamlet X is conflicted yet quietly powerful, a figure of simmering charisma beset by outside forces compelling him to act. Turning traditional readings on their heads, Mascerello delivers Hamlet's most famous soliloquy as a stump speech, an exhortation purged of all doubt. It's a stunning moment.

Unfortunately, not all of the Bard's text proves as elastic to Brown's intent—especially the play's final act, which reveals the limitations of absolute fidelity to the original. Malcolm X's assassination was tragic, but not tragic in the Shakespearean sense, and one wishes that here Brown had veered more toward historic truth.

Such discordance, however, is a minor flaw. Along with Mascerello, Marcel Davis gives a fantastic rendition of Minister Polonius, and William Wheeler and Patricia Henderson are lovably sinister as the Honorable Claudius and Mother Gertrude. And Brown, for his part, is a talented and gutsy playwright—his is a production rich in innovation and spirit. RICHARD MORIN