If I haven't made it abundantly clear in the past, I think Hamlet is the greatest piece of dramatic literature ever written, its only competition being the Biblical book of Job. (It's a musical. I promise. Look it up.) It's also one of the most intimidating works in the canon, wrapping themes as heady as divine intervention and the meaning of life into a pulpy adventure with swordfights, pirates and ghosts. After a stellar production of As You Like It last spring, director James Van Leishout must've felt his burgeoning South Puget Sound Community College actors were up to Shakespeare's challenge. I disagree but think some high notes get hit along the way.

Let's start with the melancholy Dane himself, assayed here by up-and-comer Xander Layden, last seen in Olympia Little Theatre's Night Must Fall. Layden has a deep, sonorous voice, Tim Burton's coiffure, and a knack for swordplay. (More on that in a minute.) In most respects, his Hamlet is textbook. I do wish, however, he'd found some way to let us inside the armor; his performance is so stoic and cool that we never get a peek at Hamlet's vulnerable heart. Instead, we watch Darien Springer's Horatio try, with no more success than we, to figure him out.

Van Leishout's an experienced director, and the duel he choreographed, between Layden and Tavis Williams's raw Laertes, is among the best I've seen in any production, at any scale. All too often, stage fighters aim at each other's swords. This is one of the few stage duels I've seen in which the duelists are lunging at each other. It's so good, in fact, that it calls into question why so few elements of the play appear finished. I saw this show at its final dress rehearsal, a well-attended preview performance, and it simply wasn't ready to be seen. The set was unfinished, other than five light-up columns bearing text from the play - an interesting idea, except it's all but impossible to read ornate script on a cylinder. The costumes don't fit into the same world. Ophelia, for example, looks ready to can-can.

I played Claudius last summer, and I can tell you it took months to learn the role. Replacement actor Marvin Young had six days, and it wasn't enough. That's not his fault, of course, but I suspect he'll be carrying his sides the whole run. As actors I've directed will note with dismay, I love underscoring, but not when it's so loud it drowns out the actors. I was sitting in the fifth row but couldn't hear the last line of the play. Kudos, however, to Rick Pearlstein's businesslike Polonius, Gabriel Pack's Scottish lowlands burr, and Samuel Johnson (!) and Maxwell Schilling as a pair of English upper-class twits.

This production stresses Hamlet's "words, words, words." What it needed was time, time, time.

SOUTH PUGET SOUND COMMUNITY COLLEGE, HAMLET, THROUGH MARCH 3, 8 P.M. THURSDAY-SATURDAY, 2 P.M. SUNDAY, $10-$15, 2011 MOTTMAN ROAD SW, OLYMPIA, 360.753.8586