From the Archives: I May Hate Hamlet But I Love Barrymore

This blog returns after a long winter's nap and as the downpour of spring continues what have we but Fort Lee history budding and blooming amidst the youth of Fort Lee High School this week.  Just as the lilacs of Fort Lee, long dotting our cliff top home each spring, give forth their blooms, so too do our youth bring forth art and culture and history, a sort of  Fort Lee spring elixir.

Last I wrote here we good folk at the Fort Lee Film Commission celebrated acclaimed thespian John Barrymore's birthday in February as a fundraiser for the Fort Lee High School Drama Department and its student actors.  Each February 15th we raise awareness of the Fort Lee link to this most famous of all American acting clans, the Barrymore’s as  that magical family claimed Fort Lee as their home from the mid 1890s until the death of the Barrymore patriarch Maurice in 1905.  As stated in previous columns, Maurice was not just the most famous of Broadway stage actors, but he was a resident of the Coytesville section of Fort Lee and a member of the Coytesville Fire Department, today Fort Lee Fire Company #2.  Maurice raised funds for both the construction of a firehouse (that building still stands on Washington Avenue) and the purchase of uniforms.  In order to raise funds Maurice staged a play for the community at Buchkheister’s Hotel on the corner of Main Street and Central Road.  The year was 1900 and that very special year was the one year Maurice had his youngest child, John.  You see Maurice's daughter Ethel dropped off her young brother John to Maurice's Coytesville residence so he could get to know his father.  Maurice’s wife Georgiana died young and John's grandmother raised him so the only real time he spent with his dad was the year he lived with him in Fort Lee.  Young John came to Maurice wanting to be an artist but left an actor plying the family trade for the rest of his life.   Maurice directed John in his stage debut in this firehouse fundraiser on Main Street and Lemoine Avenue.  Artifacts from this time exist and are on display in Fire House #2 on Lemoine Avenue in the Coytesville section of Fort Lee and presently in the Fort Lee Museum in the Fort Lee Historical Society exhibit “Coytesville NJ: Home of the Barrymore’s.”  The run of this exhibit has been extended through October based on new artifacts being added and more coming into our possession.  Visit www.thefortleehistoricalsociety.org for more info on this exhibit and museum hours and special events.

This rather lengthy but necessary preamble leads me to the promotion of our program this weekend.  Our good friend, Fort Lee Drama Department teacher Jodi Etra, is directing this very special play I Hate Hamlet with a cast and crew of her students.  The Fort Lee Film Commission serves as the producer of this fundraising vehicle for the student actors of Fort Lee High School.  This follows our previous programs with Ms. Etra and her student actors such as the 2012 production of Mack & Mabel.  The Fort Lee Film Commission is most interested in support of these wonderful students but we also hope that these plays and programs allow the students to live this Fort Lee history and breathe life into the memory here of John Barrymore and the Barrymore family.

I Hate Hamlet, a rather Barrymoreesque title, is a dramatic comedy written in 1991 by Paul Rudnick.  The locale of the play is John Barrymore’s old apartment in Manhattan.  The content of the play involves a  TV actor who lives in this dwelling while he prepares to take on his dream role of Hamlet.  The ghost of John Barrymore appears dressed in costume as Hamlet to urge this actor to take on the role of a lifetime.  What more  could you ask for in a play!

So this weekend please come out to support our student actors of Fort Lee High School and open yourself up to experience the presence of one time resident John Barrymore as he once again trods a Fort Lee stage- this one at Fort Lee High school (3000 Lemoine Avenue).  Show times are Friday, May 16th at 7 PM, Saturday, May 17th at 7 PM and Sunday, May 18th at 2 PM.  Tickets are $10, $5 for Senior Citizens and students.  Call the Fort Lee Film Commission at (201) 693-2763 for further info or visit www.fortleefilm.org.