‘Hamlet,”Stones in His Pockets,”Les Miserables’ on Utah Shakespeare Festival’s fall season lineup

There's no such thing as too much of a good thing.

At least not at this year's Utah Shakespeare Festival, which technically launches its fall season Saturday in Cedar City.

But the festival's summer season never really ended - because the blockbuster musical "Les Miserables," which opened June 30, has been running ever since.

Five of USF's six summer shows closed Aug. 31. But "Les Mis" proved such a draw that it's been playing Friday and Saturday nights during the traditional break between summer and fall seasons.

Starting next week, USF adds Monday-night performances of "Les Mis" to the mix.

Festival officials also extended the fall season by a week; the curtain descends on USF's 51st season Oct. 27.

That gives audiences even more time to catch "Les Mis" and two other favorites sharing the stage of the Randall L. Jones Theatre: William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and Marie Jones' "Stones in His Pockets."

Shakespeare's "Hamlet" needs no introduction - especially not at USF, which presented the classic tragedy its first season and has been staging it, every six or seven years, ever since.

"Stones in His Pockets," by contrast, captivated Utah audiences in 2005 with its tale of two Irish lads working as extras on a Hollywood movie filming in their small town.

It didn't hurt that the lads (and a baker's dozen other characters) were brought to life by festival favorites David Ivers and Brian Vaughn, who reprise their roles for director J.R. Sullivan. In their "spare" time, Ivers and Vaughn now serve as the festival's artistic directors.

Although "it just seems like yesterday" since the comedy-drama's first production, "Stones" ranks as "the most requested play of every one we have ever done," according to R. Scott Phillips, USF executive director. "More than 'Hamlet,' more than "Midsummer Night's Dream.' "

And while Ivers and Vaughn have performed their multiple roles before, they have "different life experiences they're now bringing to the play," Phillips notes.

"Oh, boy, it's got that sparkle," adds Fred C. Adams, festival founder and executive producer emeritus, who sat in on a recent "Stones" rehearsal. "There is something so innovative and all-encompassing about it," enabling audience members to feel "an ownership, a sense of belonging, a sense of participation."

USF audiences aren't the only ones who'll be a part of this "Stones" production, either.

Next spring, Ivers and Vaughn will re-create their roles at Chicago's award-winning Northlight Theatre.

It's USF's "first chance to do a full co-production," Phillips says, and he hopes the five-week run will introduce the Tony-winning Cedar City festival to audiences in Chicago, one of America's most vibrant theater towns.

Festival audiences who think they know "Hamlet," meanwhile, might be prompted to think again after seeing this fall's staging.

For one thing, "it's not an Elizabethan-looking production," says USF veteran Phil Hubbard, who's playing Claudius. (When he's not onstage in Cedar City, Hubbard heads the master of fine arts acting program at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.)

This "Hamlet's" costuming is haute couture, giving the production a modern look - and a contemporary edge.

That contemporary quality extends to Hubbard's character, Claudius. (The actor previously played Claudius a decade ago in a Nevada Conservatory Theatre production at UNLV.)

Prince Hamlet's uncle, Claudius has taken his late brother's place as Denmark's king - and husband to Hamlet's mother, the queen.

Little wonder, then, that Hamlet's return to Denmark prompts feelings of confusion, suspicion - and, ultimately, revenge - as he ponders his father's death, and his uncle's possible role in it.

Claudius may be a villain, but he's a "charming, persuasive" one, "skilled with language," Hubbard observes - qualities that seem especially appropriate "in this political season."

And while the action takes place in 14th-century Elsinore Castle, the castle's "decaying, under repair," Hubbard notes. "There's a sense they're remodeling." (After all, something is rotten in the state of Denmark.)

Overall, "there's a mixture of freshness and new and decay" that sparks a "quite electrifying production," Phillips says.

Also electrifying, in Adams' view: Hamlet himself, alias actor Danforth Comins , who performed in Cedar City (in everything from Shakespeare's "Two Gentlemen of Verona" to Eugene O'Neill's "Ah, Wilderness!") before heading to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland for nine seasons. (Comins previously played Hamlet at California's Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts Theaterfest.)

Another Cedar City veteran, Marco Baricelli , directs this fall's production of "Hamlet." Currently artistic director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz, Baricelli (another Ashland alumnus) played Stanley Kowalski in the 1994 USF production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" and the witty Berowne in Shakespeare's "Love's Labour's Lost."

For Hubbard, the festival returnees signal that "Cedar City has become a nexus" for actors, calling this year "one of the best overall collaborative seasons" in his memory - and "one of the very strongest acting companies they've ever had in my time."

Like most of his "Hamlet" castmates, Hubbard also appears in "Les Mis."

And, he points out, this fall's USF season includes not only "the most famous play ever" but "arguably the world's most famous musical," both of which qualify as "incredibly compelling stories - and journeys."

In Adams' view, "Les Mis" served as "the carrot that brought a lot of people" to Cedar City this season. "People are loving it."

And after they've seen "Les Mis," those audiences are "going to the ticket office and buying more tickets" to other USF productions, Adams adds. "That's an extraordinary compliment."

Contact reporter Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.