Lost in translation

"This is perhaps what happened in the latest production of Hamlet, by The Actors Studio last week. It was staged in Bahasa Malaysia, and set in a contemporary setting (.22 calibres rather than rapiers and sabres). The fact that it was staged in Bahasa Malaysia seemed to have overshadowed everything else. And that's a problem when some of the actors seem to focus more on the language rather than the story itself. The result was like a pilot flying blind in the middle of a snowstorm, with hardly any contact with the control tower."