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I Hate Casting Hamlet
Mar. 27th, 2007 12:41 pmSo, I've seen eight actors on Saturday, one on Sunday, nine last night, and I have one more to see this afternoon for Ian W. Hill's Hamlet.
I will have nine men to cast for seven roles (having already cast 5 of the 12 total already), and ten women for six roles.
On paper (or rather spreadsheet), I've set down the five men of those nine I'm sure I want in the show, so I'll have to cut two of the four remaining. Two very good actors.
I've boldfaced three of the ten women, because I know for sure I want them in the show, but I'm not yet sure for what parts. Of the remaining women, I'll be cutting four. Four very good actors.
Everyone I've seen -- since I only asked good actors I know and wanted to work with -- has been excellent and a distinct possibility for several parts. There have only been three people who came in and so nailed something that they just HAD to get a specific part.
Which means that for all the other parts, I've seen multiple takes, all good possibilities. Now, it's up to me (with a great deal of discussion with and input from Berit) to figure out the sound of the ensemble.
Two actors would be equally good in one role, in different ways, but one is a trumpet and the other is a cello, and I had the cello in mind . . . but what if the actor who is to play many scenes with him brings her own string section with her, and the trumpet would sound better against it?
This is my 50th show. For almost all of the others I went in with an idea in my head as to what my "ideal" cast would be from the actors I know and like, asked them to do my show, and if they didn't, I had another in mind to take the part. Occasionally I had to read people for a part or two if my ideal actors weren't available and I had no one of the right type around. As with Temptation, I didn't have very many preconceived ideas going in to this Hamlet - there were five actors I was sure of, including myself, and they all are in - and I have wound up with even more of an embarrassment of riches for the rest than I did on the Havel.
Even worse, after the auditions on the Havel, I had my mind changed in a lot of cases about what I was looking for, but to a pretty obvious solution. Here, I have read people for roles that I was pretty sure they were wrong for, and that someone else had in the bag, and they aced them. So now I just have more and more choices.
One of my Excel casting spreadsheets now has the 39 roles of the play down the left side column, with the nine actors I'm sure of in their assigned roles. Across the rest of the screen, all the other rows have several possibilities stretching to the right. Now it's mix and match time. Or rather, it will be later tonight, after the last audition. I'm keeping as open a mind as I can until then. Then Berit and I can go at it, and tomorrow I can send the first request emails out.
At a stressful time like this, I am somehow comforted by the nostalgic beauty of something like this Flickr photoset: pictures from the construction and first few years of operation of Disneyland. This is all before my time, of course, but my mother and I went there in the mid-70s, and all that wonderful 1950s design was mostly still there -- I'm told it's pretty much gone now.
I've also decided to go back to many of the books and films I've looked at for research in the years I've been thinking about this production -- which started with seeing Chris Sanderson's production at NYU in 1989 (actually, just seeing a full rehearsal of it in Tompkins Square Park) with Michael Laurence (now on Bway in Talk Radio) as Hamlet. Then, around '92 or so, I started my work on the script. Steven Berkoff's book I Am Hamlet has been very valuable at times, so I'll reread it. David Finkelstein loaned me a book about Papp's version with Martin Sheen that I'll reread, and Michael Gardner is going to loan me a book about John Geilgud/Richard Burton's 1964 production, which I once skimmed at a friend's parent's apartment.
Then, thanks to Netflix and The Brooklyn Public Library, I have ten filmed/taped versions of the play coming to me: Laurence Olivier, Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Richard Burton, Derek Jacobi, Mel Gibson, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Ethan Hawke, Adrian Lester, and William Houston.
I will probably also rewatch, for fun, the MST3K version of the TV version with Maximilian Schell (with Claudius dubbed into English by Ricardo Montalban). Unfortunately, there seems to be no way through my sources of getting the Nicol Williamson or Campbell Scott videos. Oh, well.
I had considered, hell, just figured I would be, avoiding all these other Hamlets while I was at this point, but I think I need some other ones to argue with while building mine. I've been thinking so long about this production that it runs the risk of simply being a smart, well-crafted production with no real blood in it. I have to look at all the others, all of which, good as some of them are, have been unsatisfying to me for all these years and made this production a necessity for me. I need to get angry, combative, and determined about this production again.
The Olivier and Kline versions will be showing up here first. That should do it.
I will have nine men to cast for seven roles (having already cast 5 of the 12 total already), and ten women for six roles.
On paper (or rather spreadsheet), I've set down the five men of those nine I'm sure I want in the show, so I'll have to cut two of the four remaining. Two very good actors.
I've boldfaced three of the ten women, because I know for sure I want them in the show, but I'm not yet sure for what parts. Of the remaining women, I'll be cutting four. Four very good actors.
Everyone I've seen -- since I only asked good actors I know and wanted to work with -- has been excellent and a distinct possibility for several parts. There have only been three people who came in and so nailed something that they just HAD to get a specific part.
Which means that for all the other parts, I've seen multiple takes, all good possibilities. Now, it's up to me (with a great deal of discussion with and input from Berit) to figure out the sound of the ensemble.
Two actors would be equally good in one role, in different ways, but one is a trumpet and the other is a cello, and I had the cello in mind . . . but what if the actor who is to play many scenes with him brings her own string section with her, and the trumpet would sound better against it?
This is my 50th show. For almost all of the others I went in with an idea in my head as to what my "ideal" cast would be from the actors I know and like, asked them to do my show, and if they didn't, I had another in mind to take the part. Occasionally I had to read people for a part or two if my ideal actors weren't available and I had no one of the right type around. As with Temptation, I didn't have very many preconceived ideas going in to this Hamlet - there were five actors I was sure of, including myself, and they all are in - and I have wound up with even more of an embarrassment of riches for the rest than I did on the Havel.
Even worse, after the auditions on the Havel, I had my mind changed in a lot of cases about what I was looking for, but to a pretty obvious solution. Here, I have read people for roles that I was pretty sure they were wrong for, and that someone else had in the bag, and they aced them. So now I just have more and more choices.
One of my Excel casting spreadsheets now has the 39 roles of the play down the left side column, with the nine actors I'm sure of in their assigned roles. Across the rest of the screen, all the other rows have several possibilities stretching to the right. Now it's mix and match time. Or rather, it will be later tonight, after the last audition. I'm keeping as open a mind as I can until then. Then Berit and I can go at it, and tomorrow I can send the first request emails out.
At a stressful time like this, I am somehow comforted by the nostalgic beauty of something like this Flickr photoset: pictures from the construction and first few years of operation of Disneyland. This is all before my time, of course, but my mother and I went there in the mid-70s, and all that wonderful 1950s design was mostly still there -- I'm told it's pretty much gone now.
I've also decided to go back to many of the books and films I've looked at for research in the years I've been thinking about this production -- which started with seeing Chris Sanderson's production at NYU in 1989 (actually, just seeing a full rehearsal of it in Tompkins Square Park) with Michael Laurence (now on Bway in Talk Radio) as Hamlet. Then, around '92 or so, I started my work on the script. Steven Berkoff's book I Am Hamlet has been very valuable at times, so I'll reread it. David Finkelstein loaned me a book about Papp's version with Martin Sheen that I'll reread, and Michael Gardner is going to loan me a book about John Geilgud/Richard Burton's 1964 production, which I once skimmed at a friend's parent's apartment.
Then, thanks to Netflix and The Brooklyn Public Library, I have ten filmed/taped versions of the play coming to me: Laurence Olivier, Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Richard Burton, Derek Jacobi, Mel Gibson, Kevin Kline, Kenneth Branagh, Ethan Hawke, Adrian Lester, and William Houston.
I will probably also rewatch, for fun, the MST3K version of the TV version with Maximilian Schell (with Claudius dubbed into English by Ricardo Montalban). Unfortunately, there seems to be no way through my sources of getting the Nicol Williamson or Campbell Scott videos. Oh, well.
I had considered, hell, just figured I would be, avoiding all these other Hamlets while I was at this point, but I think I need some other ones to argue with while building mine. I've been thinking so long about this production that it runs the risk of simply being a smart, well-crafted production with no real blood in it. I have to look at all the others, all of which, good as some of them are, have been unsatisfying to me for all these years and made this production a necessity for me. I need to get angry, combative, and determined about this production again.
The Olivier and Kline versions will be showing up here first. That should do it.
