Impossible to work

So the other week Sarah sent out an email to some friends asking if anybody wanted to go see Tiny Ninja Hamlet on Monday. I (spending a great deal of my time online) was the first to respond, so I got to go see a bunch of tiny ninjas perform Hamlet. I did not realize that it was possible to make Hamlet work with tiny ninjas. Then again, I didn’t think it was possible to edit Hamlet to keep only the humor and still keep most of the plot all while keeping the running time down to about an hour. It is possible. I’ve seen it.

I’m told that originally the show was only performed for very small audiences. Now, using cameras and projectors, the show fits nicely in a theater seating around 150 (at least, it fit nicely into the upstairs theater at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater). It’s very funny, though difficult to follow at times. Like many shows where one person voices all of the characters, it was difficult to tell them apart. I personally forgot which tiny ninja was Horatio about 10 minutes in and didn’t realize which one was Horatio again until the very end. Polonius”^a1a” and Laertes were very muddled. It was easier to remember the lines than it was to identify the character at times. In spite of that, it’s still very funny and well worth seeing.
It runs through the 18th, so you still have a chance to see it. You can even buy tickets online.

1. who is not called that in the 1603 “Bad Quarto” that provided the text of Hamlet used in this production aaa