What I liked
I appreciated the natural warmth of the chemistry between the three performers. There is an ease to the performances that really invests the audience from the first scene. The simple but effective staging allows the words and the intentions to really come alive. The performances are strong across the board, and the lighting design – particularly when it’s showcasing the back and forth of the mental illness – is really something.
What I didn't like
I would have enjoyed a bit more relationship building between the characters. I felt, at times, like I was seeing the real life relationships between the actors more than the fictional relationships between the characters and the latter is what I needed to see more of, to be entirely effective.
My overall impression
Typically, when I think of “Shakespeare adaptations”, I cringe. Productions either do too much or too little and never find that sweet spot, the middle ground. “Laertes Loves Hamlet Loves Ophelia” isn’t so much an adaptation as a re-imagining of the play’s three young protagonists, placing them in an apartment together as they sort out the drama surrounding the recent death of Hamlet’s father and his accusations of murder most foul.
