NOTE: “Today” and “tonight” refer to Friday, Sept. 4.
SEQUIM — We have here Sir Tom Stoppard, playwright who plays expertly with words, and that other smart English guy called William Shakespeare.
They’re leaping onto the stage together tonight in a pair of shorts: “The Real Inspector Hound,” Stoppard’s comedy whodunit, and “The 15-Minute Hamlet,” his faster, funnier version of the Shakespearean tragedy.
The two start the new season at Olympic Theatre Arts, with opening night this evening and shows continuing through Sept. 20 at the playhouse, 414 N. Sequim Ave. That’s the typical run. The rest of the story, though, is not your usual fare.
“The Real Inspector Hound,” a play within a play about two theater critics who get all mixed up with the production they’re watching, stars a mix of familiar actors and new faces. Colby Thomas is the inspector while Kai Lavatai makes his OTA debut as the sneaky Simon Gascoyne. Jennifer Horton, who played Truvy in “Steel Magnolias” last spring, is Felicity, a love interest, and Dynara Rystrom is Cynthia, another romantic figure.
The theater critics, Moon and Birdboot, are portrayed by E.J. Anderson and K. MacGregor, respectively.
They spar, kiss and frolic across the set in this antic mystery, under the direction of Lily Carignan, one of Stoppard’s legion of fans.
She explains the story like this: While watching the play inside the play, the two critics’ conversation turns to their personal grievances, fears, jealousies, and passions. Then all of that gets mixed up with the conversation happening on stage.
Carignan said. Naturally, the results are high comedy.
But hold on to your seat. There’s more. The actors in charge of “Hound’s” hilarity reappear in “The 15-Minute Hamlet,” with Thomas in the title role. And Rystrom is Ophelia; Anderson is Laertes, bearer of the poisoned sword; Lavatai is Horatio; MacGregor is Claudius and Horton plays multiple roles including the Gravedigger. Veteran performer Peter Greene is here too, portraying Magnus in “Hound” and Polonius in “Hamlet,” while newcomer Ingrid Voorheis plays the maid Mrs. Drudge in the former and the prince’s mother Gertrude in the latter.
Yes, this is a live Cliffs Notes version of “Hamlet,” said Carignan. Those familiar with the story will revel in having an inside track, she figures; it’ll be like watching a movie of a well-loved book. But if you’re not a “Hamlet” veteran, see this and you will be able to impress your friends at parties with your newfound knowledge of classic theater.
Stoppard and the bard have a long relationship. Stoppard, who’s penned hit productions including “The Real Thing,” “Arcadia” and “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” cowrote the screenplay for the 1998 movie “Shakespeare in Love.” He and collaborator Marc Norman won an Academy Award for their script, while the film also won the Best Picture Oscar.
“The Real Inspector Hound” and “The 15-Minute Hamlet” are “definitely lighthearted comedies,” said Anderson, who’s appeared in a variety of OTA shows, from “Little Shop of Horrors” to “Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure.”
“For the intellectuals out there,” he added, “the writing is just amazing” in Stoppard’s pair of plays.
But is “Hamlet” really just 15 minutes?
“Sometimes it’s 14,” said Thomas. Depends on how fast on their feet he and his fellow players are. The whole evening of theater, he said, clocks in at two hours with an intermission.
Stoppard “takes us on a journey through miscommunication,” added Carignan, “all the while poking fun at how we perceive ourselves, how others perceive us and how the world is perceived in general.
“As one of the critics in ‘Hound’ states, it’s ‘a rollicking good evening out.’ ”
