Ian W. Hill's Hamlet - First Reading

Last night, we had the first reading of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet at one of the rehearsal rooms at Theatre 5 on 43rd Street.


16 members of the company of 19 were present:





front, kneeling: Maggie Cino (Second Clown, etc.), Christiaan Koop (Voltimand); standing: Aaron Baker (Francisco, Priest, etc.), Danny Bowes (Gravedigger, etc.), Ken Simon (Bernardo, etc.), Edward Einhorn (Guildenstern), Daniel Kleinfeld (Rosencrantz), Ian W. Hill (director, Hamlet), Adam Swiderski (Laertes), Bryan Enk (Polonius), Carrie Johnson (Marcella), Jerry Marsini (Claudius), Peter Bean Brown (First Player, Reynaldo); on chairs, rear: Rasheed Hinds (Horatio), Jessi Gotta (Ophelia); behind camera: Berit Johnson (design/direction/management collaboration); missing: Gyda Arber (Norwegian Captain, English Ambassador, etc.), Stacia French (Gertrude), Roger Nasser (Osric).


Swell cast there, folks (sorry 'bout the so-so picture on some of them - we had three shots and all of them had blurs or blinks - this was the best).


A good first reading in many ways. The voices work as I hoped they would. The cast got to meet, or rather re-meet -- most of us have worked together quite a bit before, but in some cases it's been a few years. Good bonding and rebonding. I don't see many of these people between shows, unfortunately; just the way it is. So I have these short-duration, very intense, work-friendships that become very important to me.


I think it was important to have this reading, and the next, right at the start, to hear this cutting with these voices -- not even so much for me, but for the whole cast. I know what the tone and mood of the show is going to be, and I tried to get that across in the stage directions I put into the production script we're all working from, but I think that hearing it really got across to everyone the particular attitude and point-of-view of this production. My viewpoint on some of the characters and events here is not a standard one, and I think that came across better out loud.


There is a great deal of work to be done, but about the right amount of work for the time we have, judging from what people were bringing to it here at the start. I'll have to concentrate on getting the colloquial tone that I want down with some of the cast - some people begin to slide towards an Englishness in their tone the more they do Shakespeare, and this is a very American version, and should sound it (except for Danny, who gets to play an immigrant Gravedigger). Some people who had been emailing with me about character things were a step ahead to where they need to go. I knew more of my own lines than I thought I did - I wasn't off book, not nearly (that's to happen this coming week), but I was able to look away from it more than I expected. I've been imagining Bryan, Rasheed, Daniel, and Edward in their parts for about six or seven years now, so hearing their voices saying the lines for the first time was a thrill.


The first act ran 1 hour 25 minutes (ending with Hamlet leaving for England - "My thoughts be bloody or be nothing worth!"), and the second ran 38 minutes. I suspect the first will continue to run about the same, as it will speed up a lot from the pace we were at for a good deal of it last night, though I'm also planning on putting back the majority of the Polonius/Reynaldo scene that I had reluctantly cut for time. The second act will expand by about 5 minutes or so, as it can slow up just a bit, and will have a lot of violence added, so time will fill out there.


I'm pleased with the cutting, for the most part, but I'm a bit concerned about whether my cuts have screwed with the clarity of the story in one or two places, and I have to review those parts of the uncut script(s) with mine. The problem is that with some of the cuts I made, you either have to go with the entirety of a long speech or conversation, or none of it, as you can't cut into it and have it make any sense, and there's sometimes just one or two little pieces of information in that long (and sometimes, yes, tedious) piece of dialogue that are not exactly crucial, but close to it. So I try to cut and elide and hope that other mentions in the dialogue will cover it. Now I'm not so sure about some of my cuts in the section leading up to the Laertes/Hamlet duel. I'll check it.


Now I'm in Maine. Pleasant drive today. Personal and other work to do here. Still getting over the unsettling feeling of being "away" from NYC, and work I feel I should be doing there (though there's nothing more to do there that can't be done by phone/email till I'm back for the second reading - all 19 of us this time - on Friday the 27th). I miss Berit and the cats a bit already.


Onward.

Brute Egg

Near the end of my drive up to Maine today, I stopped off at Videoport in downtown Portland, one of the best videostores I've ever encountered, and I used to work at a pretty good one (I'd probably say Videoport is THE best, but unfortunately a few years ago when they were running out of space, they did a bit of a shelf purge, and a lot of rare classic titles vanished, including a lot of out-of-print film noir tapes -- anyone out there have a copy of Cry Danger?).

I was hoping they might have a film/video version of Hamlet I haven't been able to get from Netflix or the Brooklyn Public Library. No dice (the Branagh, the Gibson, the Hawke, the Olivier). So instead I got a bootleg DVD of Otto Preminger's Skidoo, which I hope looks better than the bootleg tape I have (it's a magnificent, underrated, insane piece of work, lemme tell ya -- I saw a lovely print once at Film Forum, and I SO want a DVD release, but I ain't holding my breath) and the new Criterion Collection DVD of one of my favorite noirs, Brute Force.

I haven't watched this film as much as a lot of noirs I like as much (or less) because I've never had a good print of it and (more importantly) it's a damned nasty little film that doesn't encourage rewatching.

So I'll probably watch it tonight, but I'm tempted to wait and try a little something with the film that some practical joker once supposedly did to the film when it aired on some late-late show many years ago.


The story is here, and worth reading, from Glenn Kenny's excellent blog, In the Company of Glenn.


I am mostly of the opinion that it is indeed an urban legend, but I so want to believe it is not that I will simply decide that it did indeed happen. Because it should have.