Let's face it. On some level, don't we all hate Hamlet, just a little bit? Even if we love it? Nobody likes being intimidated, and English literature doesn't get much more intimidating than Shakespeare's master tragedy. Fortunately, the Brandeis Players in Saturday's production of I Hate Hamlet were happy to help the audience work through their anger-Hamlet therapy, if you will.I Hate Hamlet is the story of Andrew Rally (Brian Melcher '10), a young television actor who is forced to choose between playing the melancholy Dane in the New York City theater series Shakespeare in the Park or heading back to Hollywood to make millions as the lead in a trashy primetime thriller. As if that weren't enough, poor Rally is also haunted by the ghost of classic Shakespearean actor and legendary womanizer John Barrymore, who offers him unwanted advice about the role- and about his virginal, Shakespeare-loving girlfriend (Caroline Capello '11).

If this show is Hamlet therapy, then it's clear that writer Paul Rudnick believes laughter is the best medicine. From the show's first moments, when Rally's real estate agent (Annie Chiorazzi '11) walks on set and has a silent but massive heart attack, the audience was cracking up: loud and often, that is.

But the laughter doesn't really get going until Barrymore's ghost appears onstage, played to perfection by Ernest Paulin '09. Everything that Paulin does is funny. Everything. Every tilted eyebrow, every self-satisfied smirk, every otherwise unimportant one-word line is ridiculous, charming and hilarious.

To say that the rest of the cast can keep up with him is to offer them the highest praise. All six actors were uniformly excellent, and if it's true that they rarely displayed any great subtlety, it's also true that the play itself does not ask the performers for much in the way of emotional nuance. The comedy is broad, and the characters are two-dimensional at best, but that's all that's needed for some rip-roaring laughs.

Unfortunately, the play's second half attempts to work the same magic in a more heavy-handed dramatic vein. Rally and Barrymore exhibit almost as much angst as the Danish prince himself-but without the benefit of Shakespeare's immortal verse. In an interview before the show, director David Pepose '08 said that the play was "about taking risks and making a choice" and the conflict "between risk and security," but from the first minute, the play's ending is never really in doubt. Some very well-acted, agonized soul-searching is wasted on the audience members, who already know what the outcome will be and are wondering where all the jokes went.

Fortunately, the play ends with a bang and plenty of laughter, and all the characters get the happy ending that they deserve, proving Pepose's point that this is "a comedy with heart." Particularly praiseworthy is the touching scene between Barrymore's ghost and his former flame, Rally's elderly and irascible agent (Rachel Kurnos '08), a bright spot of unsentimental reconciliation in an otherwise overwrought section of the play.

Of course, it would be remiss not to mention the excellent technical production of the show-the set flexible and visually exciting, the lighting carefully complementary and never obtrusive and the costumes perfectly in touch with the zany but grounded tone of the play.

Even when the material was uneven, cast and crew alike put their hearts into this production, and it shows. Whether you love Hamlet, hate Hamlet, or, like the Prince himself, are torn by indecision, you can't help but love I Hate Hamlet.