Sock production gets feet wet

by Anne R. Childe
Wierd Woman

Socko Sockerson stars in DUMSL's production of Hamlet.

The DUMSL melodrama department kicked off their first season with a rather unusual, but not unexpected, choice giving their limited budget. They invited the El Cheapo Sock Puppet Company to present their production of "Hamlet," which resulted in poor performances, a shoddy production, and a silly take on Shakespeare's classic. While the idea may have worked on a cute level, the production definitely left something to be desired.

As Hamlet, Socko Sockerson portrayed the presumed insanity of the character with his hysterics in the right place. But, his Mickey-Mouse-combined-with-Pikachu-on-helium voice proved a hindrance in such dialogue such as his "To Be or Not to Be" speech and the "Get Thee to a Nunnery" scene.

Captain Sigmund Cloyd gave a meek performance as the villainous Claudius. His soft fatherly voice was a problem in most of his speeches. He may as well have been giving Hamlet sage advice instead of plotting to do away with his brother's family.

The women's performances came off much worse than the men's. As Gertrude, Anna Graham was nothing more than a jumble of hysteria. None of her lines could be understood because of her insistence on shrieking or bawling them. Lolly Pop's Ophelia was so ingratiatingly sweet that the audience hoped that she would drown herself before she did. Also, annoying were Pop's little girl braids that continuously fell off her face when she turned her head.

While it was an interesting touch to have Hamlet's father return as a large lizard, some of the script changes came off from a Teletubbies episode on LSD.

During the climactic swordfight scene between Hamlet and Laertes (Gerry Atric), Sockerson and Atric got so much into their performances that their plastic swords fell from their mouths and hit a small child in the front row.

In another incident, Lizzard hit Hamlet so hard that he knocked Sockerson off of his performer's arm.

The sock puppet performance of Hamlet was silly and puerile. Maybe, next time the melodrama department could perform it with real actors.