Great Lakes’ ‘Hamlet’ worth seeing twice Bob Abelman Cleveland Jewish News, The News Herald, The Morning Journal Member, International Association of Theatre Critics God hath given you one face, and you make yourself another. “Hamlet,” Act III, Scene I By featuring male and female twins in two of his comedies, “The Comedy of Errors” and “Twelfth Night,” Shakespeare capitalized on the humor that comes from mistaken identity and misdirection and the provocation found in issues grounded in gender roles and social politics. By double-casting the title character in “Hamlet” with a male (Jonathan Dyrud) and a female (Laura Welsh Berg) actor in alternating performances, the only thing Great Lakes Theater director Charlie Fee meant to capitalize on was his deep and diverse talent pool of performers. Women have appeared in Shakespeare’s plays since 1660, once Charles II officially granted permission to do so for two theater companies in London. And women have been earning critical acclaim for their portrayal of Hamlet since 1775, when the young Sarah Siddons toured the British provinces in the Prince of Denmark’s codpiece and fine hosiery. Though this be madness, yet there is method in't, for casting Hamlet in the feminine allows the character to weep more unabashedly over the death of his father, reveal more emotion while plotting the revenge he seeks by killing his murderous uncle, and more boldly bare his vulnerabilities to the audience in splendidly penned soliloquies. And such casting forces audiences to look at and listen to this classic play more closely and from a different vantage point, which may reveal a new understanding of the historic text as well as contemporary attitudes toward gender. All this happens in the Great Lakes Theater production but, for Fee, the play’s the thing and his only concern about having a male and a female Hamlet is how well they manage to play him. For more of this review, go to www.clevelandjewishnews.com/columnists/.