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Hamlet Moves On
Apr. 29th, 2007 11:20 pmWork has started "for real" on Ian W. Hill's Hamlet.
Friday night we had the second reading - almost full cast, just down one actor - at La Tea. I put back in the Reynaldo/Polonius scene I had cut to almost nothing -- for years I had been determined to keep that scene (which almost EVERYONE cuts), and I was surprised to realize that I had gone berserk in one of my cutting sessions at some point in the last six years and removed it "for time" -- Bryan and Peter got it down right away, and it stays. It really does establish the character of Polonius importantly, especially for this production (and it's damned funny at a good point for it in the show). I also tried out my plan for the voice of The Ghost, overlapping among six actors, and it was rough, being done for the first time, and not easy, but it was clear that the idea works the way I want it to (several of the actors not in the scene gave me pleased nods and thumbs up). Ran a little longer than the first reading, but the show will still be under 2:30. Maybe even 2:20 including intermission.
Saturday, again at La Tea, we talked about and blocked the Osric/Horatio/Hamlet scene, the Ophelia funeral scene, and the entire finale (minus fight choreography). This, and most of the work the next week or so, was and will be just setting the start point of the blocking, discussing the underlying motivations (where necessary) and walking through the scene a time or two or three. It started coming together quickly, for the most part. I was a bit worried about the "crowd" blocking in the latter two scenes, but it was easy enough to stage.
Today we worked over at Stacia's apartment, doing the scene where Claudius tells Hamlet he's being sent to England, the entire Gertrude/Claudius/Laertes section with L's return and confrontation of C (leaving out the little scene in the middle with Horatio getting the letter from Hamlet), the scene between Claudius and Gertrude following the killing of Polonius, and the BIG SCENE between Hamlet and Gertrude. I guess that's a lot, but it worked. A lot more discussion of the many layers and levels going on - these are important scenes for people pulled by two or three desires/motivations at any one time, and I wanted to get all of them clear for all involved.
I have cut the second entrance of "mad Ophelia" for a number of reasons, but I was disturbed at losing the moment of Laertes actually seeing his deranged sister. I had thought of a solution, but wondered if it was a bit forced -- I suggested it and everyone liked it, so we're going with it, and the sequence now runs like this: Ophelia goes off crazy the first time, Claudius orders Horatio to go after her and keep a good watch on her - Laertes enters and confronts Claudius and Gertrude - Claudius calms him and begins to take him away upstage for a heart-to-heart as Gertrude starts to exit with the guards and attendants downstage - Ophelia reenters, running to her brother past Gertrude, followed by Horatio - Laertes, Ophelia, Gertrude and Claudius have a fragment of the cut scene (silently) upstage as Horatio is stopped and has his scene with the sailor, getting the letter, downstage and exiting out there as Ophelia runs away upstage, followed by Gertrude - Claudius brings Laertes back "into the scene," continuing their talk, creating the plan.
This works, getting across the missing moment from the cut scene well enough, getting Jessi (Ophelia) upstage where she will need to be to reenter later as one of Fortinbras' soldiers, and somewhat explaining why poor mad Ophelia is left alone enough to drown herself, after Horatio was told to keep a close eye on her (which has resulted in comments of "Nice job on the watching, Horatio!" from Berit and I in the past).
I was tempted by the joking suggestion - a brief moment with the actors and I - that when Gertrude re-enters to announce Ophelia's drowning to her brother (which I've cut way down, eliminating the goddamn "There is a willow--" speech that drives me nuts), that she come in breathing hard with her sleeves wet, and as Laertes gets emotional and walks downstage, lost in his grief, that she silently makes an "I'd-had-enough-of-her" strangling-struggling gesture to Claudius and he gives her a big thumbs up. No, not going that way . . .
The Gertrude/Claudius scene is going to be as sad, touching, and melancholy as I had hoped, and the Gertrude/Hamlet one will be good and unnerving, though it will certainly now need some consultation with the fight choreographer (once I have one finally settled) to be made completely safe for Stacia (I think I'm pretty good at manhandling her safely, but I want another opinion on it to be sure).
So, good work. I'm happy. Several times a day I get giddy, even giggly, and can only say to Berit, "We're doing Hamlet!" in amazement.
Over the years, when telling people that I was someday going to get to this Hamlet, the suggestion has come up many times that I should do a production of the First Quarto (aka "The Bad Quarto"). That wasn't a production for me, as much as I'd like to see it, but as this production has been coming to fruition, I've heard this idea more and more.
So, I'm really jazzed that there is a fellow Hamlet in the festival, and it is indeed Q1: The Bad Hamlet. This is a restaging of a production done last year to much acclaim, and I'm really glad that this is the other Hamlet in the Pretentious Festival.
Gaby, the Gertred/Ghost in the production, is blogging their creative process OVER HERE, and it's a great read (not just because she said nice things about me there, too).
Though Gaby has also embarrassed me by pointing out my overlong blurb on the Festival webpage -- this was . . . a bit of an error. I wrote a big long blurb for publicity purposes earlier, and having not written a shorter version of it for the page, it was put up in its entirety. I cut it down a bit, and it was reposted, but for some reason, my cutting of a 12-line blurb down by a number of words now made it take up 13-lines on the page (I still haven't quite figured that out). I'll fix that and have The Brick fix it ASAP -- I'm kind of crazy about following rules like that and making sure that everyone does; I was always the person in the cast who rigidly followed the 100-word bio rule set down by producers of a show, then got the program and discovered that everyone else just ignored the rule. Irritating. So it's not good to find myself being that kind of jerk that always annoyed me in the past.
(and Gaby, thanks for the concern about my mouth -- yeah, not great, but much better now . . .)
And, just 'cause, I want to mention The Nietzsche Family Circus, a link sent to me by Daniel McKleinfeld (Rosencrantz). Way too addictive. I can't stop refreshing it.
Friday night we had the second reading - almost full cast, just down one actor - at La Tea. I put back in the Reynaldo/Polonius scene I had cut to almost nothing -- for years I had been determined to keep that scene (which almost EVERYONE cuts), and I was surprised to realize that I had gone berserk in one of my cutting sessions at some point in the last six years and removed it "for time" -- Bryan and Peter got it down right away, and it stays. It really does establish the character of Polonius importantly, especially for this production (and it's damned funny at a good point for it in the show). I also tried out my plan for the voice of The Ghost, overlapping among six actors, and it was rough, being done for the first time, and not easy, but it was clear that the idea works the way I want it to (several of the actors not in the scene gave me pleased nods and thumbs up). Ran a little longer than the first reading, but the show will still be under 2:30. Maybe even 2:20 including intermission.
Saturday, again at La Tea, we talked about and blocked the Osric/Horatio/Hamlet scene, the Ophelia funeral scene, and the entire finale (minus fight choreography). This, and most of the work the next week or so, was and will be just setting the start point of the blocking, discussing the underlying motivations (where necessary) and walking through the scene a time or two or three. It started coming together quickly, for the most part. I was a bit worried about the "crowd" blocking in the latter two scenes, but it was easy enough to stage.
Today we worked over at Stacia's apartment, doing the scene where Claudius tells Hamlet he's being sent to England, the entire Gertrude/Claudius/Laertes section with L's return and confrontation of C (leaving out the little scene in the middle with Horatio getting the letter from Hamlet), the scene between Claudius and Gertrude following the killing of Polonius, and the BIG SCENE between Hamlet and Gertrude. I guess that's a lot, but it worked. A lot more discussion of the many layers and levels going on - these are important scenes for people pulled by two or three desires/motivations at any one time, and I wanted to get all of them clear for all involved.
I have cut the second entrance of "mad Ophelia" for a number of reasons, but I was disturbed at losing the moment of Laertes actually seeing his deranged sister. I had thought of a solution, but wondered if it was a bit forced -- I suggested it and everyone liked it, so we're going with it, and the sequence now runs like this: Ophelia goes off crazy the first time, Claudius orders Horatio to go after her and keep a good watch on her - Laertes enters and confronts Claudius and Gertrude - Claudius calms him and begins to take him away upstage for a heart-to-heart as Gertrude starts to exit with the guards and attendants downstage - Ophelia reenters, running to her brother past Gertrude, followed by Horatio - Laertes, Ophelia, Gertrude and Claudius have a fragment of the cut scene (silently) upstage as Horatio is stopped and has his scene with the sailor, getting the letter, downstage and exiting out there as Ophelia runs away upstage, followed by Gertrude - Claudius brings Laertes back "into the scene," continuing their talk, creating the plan.
This works, getting across the missing moment from the cut scene well enough, getting Jessi (Ophelia) upstage where she will need to be to reenter later as one of Fortinbras' soldiers, and somewhat explaining why poor mad Ophelia is left alone enough to drown herself, after Horatio was told to keep a close eye on her (which has resulted in comments of "Nice job on the watching, Horatio!" from Berit and I in the past).
I was tempted by the joking suggestion - a brief moment with the actors and I - that when Gertrude re-enters to announce Ophelia's drowning to her brother (which I've cut way down, eliminating the goddamn "There is a willow--" speech that drives me nuts), that she come in breathing hard with her sleeves wet, and as Laertes gets emotional and walks downstage, lost in his grief, that she silently makes an "I'd-had-enough-of-her" strangling-struggling gesture to Claudius and he gives her a big thumbs up. No, not going that way . . .
The Gertrude/Claudius scene is going to be as sad, touching, and melancholy as I had hoped, and the Gertrude/Hamlet one will be good and unnerving, though it will certainly now need some consultation with the fight choreographer (once I have one finally settled) to be made completely safe for Stacia (I think I'm pretty good at manhandling her safely, but I want another opinion on it to be sure).
So, good work. I'm happy. Several times a day I get giddy, even giggly, and can only say to Berit, "We're doing Hamlet!" in amazement.
Over the years, when telling people that I was someday going to get to this Hamlet, the suggestion has come up many times that I should do a production of the First Quarto (aka "The Bad Quarto"). That wasn't a production for me, as much as I'd like to see it, but as this production has been coming to fruition, I've heard this idea more and more.
So, I'm really jazzed that there is a fellow Hamlet in the festival, and it is indeed Q1: The Bad Hamlet. This is a restaging of a production done last year to much acclaim, and I'm really glad that this is the other Hamlet in the Pretentious Festival.
Gaby, the Gertred/Ghost in the production, is blogging their creative process OVER HERE, and it's a great read (not just because she said nice things about me there, too).
Though Gaby has also embarrassed me by pointing out my overlong blurb on the Festival webpage -- this was . . . a bit of an error. I wrote a big long blurb for publicity purposes earlier, and having not written a shorter version of it for the page, it was put up in its entirety. I cut it down a bit, and it was reposted, but for some reason, my cutting of a 12-line blurb down by a number of words now made it take up 13-lines on the page (I still haven't quite figured that out). I'll fix that and have The Brick fix it ASAP -- I'm kind of crazy about following rules like that and making sure that everyone does; I was always the person in the cast who rigidly followed the 100-word bio rule set down by producers of a show, then got the program and discovered that everyone else just ignored the rule. Irritating. So it's not good to find myself being that kind of jerk that always annoyed me in the past.
(and Gaby, thanks for the concern about my mouth -- yeah, not great, but much better now . . .)
And, just 'cause, I want to mention The Nietzsche Family Circus, a link sent to me by Daniel McKleinfeld (Rosencrantz). Way too addictive. I can't stop refreshing it.
