My first and last experience with Hamlet was reading it in high school, when I found Hamlet’s wittering indecisiveness deeply off-putting. Sure, in real life I might be a wittering and indecisive person myself, but with the severity of youth, I expected better of my fictional characters. Action, resolve, purpose, monologues about how we gotta kill Caesar swiftly followed by Caesar’s actual death.
But many years have elapsed since then, and on Friday I finally the opportunity to see Hamlet on the stage. (I think this is the first time I’ve seen it, although I also have a vague memory of a version which started with Claudius and Gertrude rolling around together on stage. But when and where this was, and whether it WAS in fact Claudius and Gertrude and not another “oh God have you no decency” stage couple, is lost in the mists of time.)
This production was by a company of five (who also did A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year, and now I’m SO sorry I missed that) who each play three or more parts, showing who they are in this scene by means of quick costume changes. Hamlet turns into Fortinbras by taking off his blazer so you can see the Norwegian flag tied around his shoulder! Ophelia changes to Laertes by putting on a cap! Gertrude slings a scarf round her shoulders and turns into Horatio! Ophelia/Laertes and Gertrude/Horatio also play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in matching dark flat caps, slouching around the stage with their hands in their pockets.
The staging is similarly simple. There was a rope on the stage, which was moved around to show the size of the space: a long straight line shows we’re on the ramparts, a box to show we’re in Gertrude’s closet now. There’s a suitcase which characters lug along when they’re going on a journey, and the swords and daggers are simple wooden dowels.
I was particularly struck by Hamlet’s father’s ghost (played by the guy who also plays Polonius). He first appears on a darkened stage, with a dark shawl over his head and a red light under his chin, opening and closing his mouth soundlessly like a fish. Very simply and creepy and evocative.
On a technical level, I loved the production, 10/10 for masterful use of simple materials. For the play itself: I did find Hamlet more sympathetic this time around (but also I think the production may have abridged some of the wittering, as the play was only a little more than two hours long). And I was really struck by the richness of the secondary characters, which didn’t penetrate my haze of irritation in high school. Poor Ophelia, pulled in all directions, definitely courted and maybe seduced by Hamlet and then abandoned, and then he kills her father and she goes mad…
And Laertes comes home to find that his sister is now dead TOO, and the man who is responsible for killing his entire family (Ophelia indirectly) has the AUDACITY to jump in her grave and insist he loved Ophelia more than Laertes did! No wonder Laertes thinks stabbing Hamlet with a poisoned blade is the way to go.
And poor Horatio just came up here to support his college bro and it all gets SO out of hand and suddenly he’s in a room full of dead bodies? ROUGH. Could it all have been avoided if Claudius and Gertrude let Hamlet go back to college, as he wanted to do at the beginning of the play? We’ll never know.
***
In a burst of synchonity,![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants and genarti ALSO saw a Hamlet last Friday, in what sounds like an amazing ballet performance. I’ve seen a couple of Shakespeare ballets (A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet), and he seems to translate to the format really well—maybe because I already know the stories, maybe because he deals with the kind of Big Emotions that display well in dance? Anyway, highly recommend any and all Shakespeare ballets if you have the chance.
But many years have elapsed since then, and on Friday I finally the opportunity to see Hamlet on the stage. (I think this is the first time I’ve seen it, although I also have a vague memory of a version which started with Claudius and Gertrude rolling around together on stage. But when and where this was, and whether it WAS in fact Claudius and Gertrude and not another “oh God have you no decency” stage couple, is lost in the mists of time.)
This production was by a company of five (who also did A Midsummer Night’s Dream last year, and now I’m SO sorry I missed that) who each play three or more parts, showing who they are in this scene by means of quick costume changes. Hamlet turns into Fortinbras by taking off his blazer so you can see the Norwegian flag tied around his shoulder! Ophelia changes to Laertes by putting on a cap! Gertrude slings a scarf round her shoulders and turns into Horatio! Ophelia/Laertes and Gertrude/Horatio also play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in matching dark flat caps, slouching around the stage with their hands in their pockets.
The staging is similarly simple. There was a rope on the stage, which was moved around to show the size of the space: a long straight line shows we’re on the ramparts, a box to show we’re in Gertrude’s closet now. There’s a suitcase which characters lug along when they’re going on a journey, and the swords and daggers are simple wooden dowels.
I was particularly struck by Hamlet’s father’s ghost (played by the guy who also plays Polonius). He first appears on a darkened stage, with a dark shawl over his head and a red light under his chin, opening and closing his mouth soundlessly like a fish. Very simply and creepy and evocative.
On a technical level, I loved the production, 10/10 for masterful use of simple materials. For the play itself: I did find Hamlet more sympathetic this time around (but also I think the production may have abridged some of the wittering, as the play was only a little more than two hours long). And I was really struck by the richness of the secondary characters, which didn’t penetrate my haze of irritation in high school. Poor Ophelia, pulled in all directions, definitely courted and maybe seduced by Hamlet and then abandoned, and then he kills her father and she goes mad…
And Laertes comes home to find that his sister is now dead TOO, and the man who is responsible for killing his entire family (Ophelia indirectly) has the AUDACITY to jump in her grave and insist he loved Ophelia more than Laertes did! No wonder Laertes thinks stabbing Hamlet with a poisoned blade is the way to go.
And poor Horatio just came up here to support his college bro and it all gets SO out of hand and suddenly he’s in a room full of dead bodies? ROUGH. Could it all have been avoided if Claudius and Gertrude let Hamlet go back to college, as he wanted to do at the beginning of the play? We’ll never know.
***
In a burst of synchonity,
skygiants and genarti ALSO saw a Hamlet last Friday, in what sounds like an amazing ballet performance. I’ve seen a couple of Shakespeare ballets (A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet), and he seems to translate to the format really well—maybe because I already know the stories, maybe because he deals with the kind of Big Emotions that display well in dance? Anyway, highly recommend any and all Shakespeare ballets if you have the chance.
