Madness meets method: Backstage at Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’

Sportswriters will tell you that one of the golden rules of covering baseball is to stay away from the pitcher on the days he’s starting. He’s focused, he’s in the zone, and the last thing he wants to do is exchange inanities with some out-of-shape writer who’s never competed for anything other than snagging the last jelly doughnut at the office. 

When I was invited to hang out backstage at a Santa Cruz Shakespeare performance of “Hamlet,” I assumed the same kind of deference applied. This is live theater, with professional actors, in front of a paying audience. On top of that, this is “Hamlet,” the theater equivalent to — if you’ll excuse another sports analogy — an armstand double back-flip somersault with a half-pike and a twist.

As I was driving to the Audrey Stanley Grove in DeLaveaga Park two hours before curtain, I envisioned a backstage vibe with the anxiety and tension of a World War II foxhole, actors bent over scripts, mumbling half-remembered lines, jumping around trying to dissipate nervous energy, laboring to hold back an emotional meltdown. If it were me about to go on stage and open up a verbal fire hydrant of precise Shakespearean poetry, I’d surely be puking in the bushes, sweating like a sinner, eyeing a getaway or all three. 

But, to my astonishment, what I saw was nothing like that. Charles Pasternak, who is not only running the company as its artistic director but is also playing the title character in “Hamlet,” greets me with the kind of effortless grace you’d expect from Fred Astaire at a Palm Springs pool party. I feel compelled to remind him, “You do know that you have to perform maybe the most challenging role in the English language tonight, right?” But he’s as cool as George Clooney in “Ocean’s Eleven.” 

“Hamlet” is Shakespeare’s longest play, with more than 30,000 words, a huge chunk of them delivered by the title character. Yet, halfway through Act 2, I spy Pasternak, as Hamlet, sitting on the steps right behind the stage waiting for his cue. On stage, Polonius is delivering the “brevity is the soul of wit” speech, and Pasternak is amusing himself by silently mouthing the lines as he hears them. Yep, the guy responsible for delivering about 40% of the lines in Shakespeare’s longest play somehow has the capacity to memorize other characters’ lines! 

Whether or not Pasternak’s casual élan is setting the tone for the rest of his cast, the actors for the most part seem poised and relaxed as they mingle in the small backstage area (it’s better described as a “below stage” area, as the stage is a good 10 feet above our heads). Their makeup and dressing rooms are in makeshift trailers a two-minute walk away, so there are very few actors appearing in the immediate backstage area until the “places” call five minutes before curtain. On a props table sits, among other intriguing items, poor Yorick’s famous skull. 

Mike Ryan, who retired as artistic director at SCS last year, is back at the Grove, this time purely as an actor. An hour before showtime, he engages in a vocalizing ritual on the stage, consisting of laughs, exclamations, tongue-twisters and various other orations — “hey-yeeeeeee,” “numma-numma-numma” — a method that might look like madness outside this context. As Claudius, the usurper to the throne of Denmark in Hamlet’s eyes, Ryan shows up much later in full costume, unrecognizable in 1970s-style anchorman hair. (The Age of Aquarius hair in this production is its own phenomenon. One of the characters sports an impressive hair-helmet look that might be the safest bet of a hairdo destined to never come back in style. “She’s our Margaret Thatcher,” says one cast member.)

While the play is unfolding on stage, the actors in the backstage area know not to talk too much. They sit or pace in their dazzling outfits, silently acknowledging how fabulous each other looks. (That’s an unheralded talent of actors.) A small curtained booth that allows for quick costume changes is off to one side. The choreography of actors coming up and down the back stairs proceeds like a Busby Berkeley pool scene. There is no drill-sergeant stage manager pushing people around. Everyone is where they need to be when they need to be there. No one seems particularly anxious as they ascend the steps to their moments on stage. No one coming down the steps after their scene collapses in exhaustion and relief.

The cast for this play numbers 20, which is a big number, the biggest that Santa Cruz Shakespeare can safely manage. They’re each intricately costumed, bewigged and wired up for sound, and engaged in presenting maybe the greatest play in theater history. At one point, shortly before the play began, Marion Adler, an accomplished actor playing Gertrude, Hamlet’s callous mother, strolls casually over to me to engage in conversation. Dressed head-to-toe in a bold and ravishing shade of aquamarine, she is as lovely and at ease as if we were at a Sunday brunch.

I was hoping that a visit backstage at a production of “Hamlet” might expose the sweat and strain that such an endeavor requires. But what I saw was what happens when preparation and professionalism meet a commitment to enjoy the work and, gasp, even have fun — which applied to everyone I met backstage — except, alas, poor Yorick. 

William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” plays alongside “As You Like It” and Oscar Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest” at Santa Cruz Shakespeare. “Hamlet” closes Aug. 31.

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