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An Email Exchange Regarding Last Night`
Jun. 27th, 2007 02:23 pmGood performance of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet last night, despite starting even later than our opening night -- the 7.00 pm show, supposed to run to 8.00 pm before our 8.30 pm scheduled start time, ran to 8.37 pm by my watch, and they had a killer breakdown that meant we didn't get started for over a half-hour after that. Not good, but amazingly, the audience was with us, even with the wait and the horrible heat. And we gave them a good show - first time I was actually comfortable up there as Hamlet, I have to say, unfortunately. First time I left the director (and actually, more importantly, the producer) of the show completely behind me.
Or maybe the Vicodin I took for some hideous neck pain helped.
Had a nice email exchange this morning with Brick Theater Grand-Poo-Bah Robert Honeywell (whose wonderful show, Every Play Ever Written: A Distillation of the Essence of Theatre, got a great and deserved review in the Times today), regarding the performance. Here it is:
very interesting show last night, sir. you made some fascinating choices, and I don't think I've ever disliked Hamlet so much (that's a compliment). very curious about you cutting the 'To be' speech -- I was hungry for it, and maybe not getting it was exactly what you intended. and beautiful staging esp. for the Laertes departure at the dock and the 'Hamlet, where's the body?' office scene. and I liked the choice of never showing the ghost -- I got the distinct sense that Hamlet really might just be crazy, from start to finish (it's obvious that even Horatio doubts his story), which is I assume what you intended. it might be the first time I've seen a 'Hamlet' that left me doubting whether Claudius actually did kill his brother, though he certainly intended to kill young Hamlet at the end.
Thanks. Yeah, the crazy Hamlet is very definitely meant to be there, as well as the possibility that Claudius didn't kill his brother. Glad you got all that. Not everyone does, but those who do seem to be on board for the whole show - if you don't like or get either of those ideas, as well as my choice of being Bastard Hamlet, which really throws some people, you're not going to be with the show at all.
But the crazy Hamlet, who may be dressing up in his father's clothes and wandering the battlements in a fugue state, as well as the possibly innocent Claudius, were always crucial parts of the production -- though Jerry then decided that Claudius HAD killed Old Hamlet, and we went on to basically decide together that Old Hamlet NEEDED killing for the good of Denmark, that he was in no shape to hold off Norway, and may have been going a little coo-coo himself (his son's lunacy possibly being genetic, and from dad). Stacia brought in playing the bedroom scene as a woman who is not unfamiliar with being battered around by a man, which says something else about Old Hamlet (and I was pleased that at least two audience members, strangers to me, "got" this and personally pointed it out to me without being prompted).
We had also batted about the idea as to whether Claudius actually did ask England to kill Hamlet, or if Hamlet was making that up too (perhaps just out of his own paranoia) - maybe he had just asked England to keep him under guard in a nice tower somewhere and never let him get back to Denmark. But Jerry again decided that for Claudius, it would still be way too dangerous for Denmark itself to let a mad, murderous Prince roam around at all, and, with a heavy heart, indeed signed the death order.
A little surprised about your reaction to the "To be" cut -- most people thus far (also to my surprise) have been really appreciative of it's absence, or more just agreeing with me, saying, "You didn't need it for this version." And, yeah, I think it would have been out of place for Bastard Hamlet.
The cast and I had a great time filling out this very different way of looking at the play - and I'm glad that the people who "got" it did so, and seemed to dig what we did.
IWH
Onward to August, and the NECROPOLIS 0 - 3 series and The Hobo Got Too High by Marc Spitz. Beginning to get the research materials together again for World Gone Wrong. It looks like only half of the original cast will be returning, and the newcomers will need a bit of background immersion in noir, as we did the last time. I really hope that this time I can show the cast, as a group, six films in three double bills to sum up the particular aspects of the genre I'm aiming at in this piece:
Double Indemnity
Force of Evil
D.O.A.
Point Blank
Detour
Lost Highway
Damn, but then I get into all the other ones that are so important to me for the piece -- The Killers (both the '46 and '64 versions), Kiss Me Deadly, Out of the Past, Brute Force, The Seventh Victim, The Big Heat, Criss Cross . . . well, the list goes on, but those are all probably the big important ones.
I can loan out my copies, as I did last time. And I need to find which actor still has my DVD of D.O.A. from two years ago.
Busy, busy, busy. Maybe I can bother with a postmortem on Hamlet in a few days, but I have to deal with the future right now. July is gonna be a bit crazy, getting the August shows ready. Keep moving forward.
Or maybe the Vicodin I took for some hideous neck pain helped.
Had a nice email exchange this morning with Brick Theater Grand-Poo-Bah Robert Honeywell (whose wonderful show, Every Play Ever Written: A Distillation of the Essence of Theatre, got a great and deserved review in the Times today), regarding the performance. Here it is:
very interesting show last night, sir. you made some fascinating choices, and I don't think I've ever disliked Hamlet so much (that's a compliment). very curious about you cutting the 'To be' speech -- I was hungry for it, and maybe not getting it was exactly what you intended. and beautiful staging esp. for the Laertes departure at the dock and the 'Hamlet, where's the body?' office scene. and I liked the choice of never showing the ghost -- I got the distinct sense that Hamlet really might just be crazy, from start to finish (it's obvious that even Horatio doubts his story), which is I assume what you intended. it might be the first time I've seen a 'Hamlet' that left me doubting whether Claudius actually did kill his brother, though he certainly intended to kill young Hamlet at the end.
Thanks. Yeah, the crazy Hamlet is very definitely meant to be there, as well as the possibility that Claudius didn't kill his brother. Glad you got all that. Not everyone does, but those who do seem to be on board for the whole show - if you don't like or get either of those ideas, as well as my choice of being Bastard Hamlet, which really throws some people, you're not going to be with the show at all.
But the crazy Hamlet, who may be dressing up in his father's clothes and wandering the battlements in a fugue state, as well as the possibly innocent Claudius, were always crucial parts of the production -- though Jerry then decided that Claudius HAD killed Old Hamlet, and we went on to basically decide together that Old Hamlet NEEDED killing for the good of Denmark, that he was in no shape to hold off Norway, and may have been going a little coo-coo himself (his son's lunacy possibly being genetic, and from dad). Stacia brought in playing the bedroom scene as a woman who is not unfamiliar with being battered around by a man, which says something else about Old Hamlet (and I was pleased that at least two audience members, strangers to me, "got" this and personally pointed it out to me without being prompted).
We had also batted about the idea as to whether Claudius actually did ask England to kill Hamlet, or if Hamlet was making that up too (perhaps just out of his own paranoia) - maybe he had just asked England to keep him under guard in a nice tower somewhere and never let him get back to Denmark. But Jerry again decided that for Claudius, it would still be way too dangerous for Denmark itself to let a mad, murderous Prince roam around at all, and, with a heavy heart, indeed signed the death order.
A little surprised about your reaction to the "To be" cut -- most people thus far (also to my surprise) have been really appreciative of it's absence, or more just agreeing with me, saying, "You didn't need it for this version." And, yeah, I think it would have been out of place for Bastard Hamlet.
The cast and I had a great time filling out this very different way of looking at the play - and I'm glad that the people who "got" it did so, and seemed to dig what we did.
IWH
Onward to August, and the NECROPOLIS 0 - 3 series and The Hobo Got Too High by Marc Spitz. Beginning to get the research materials together again for World Gone Wrong. It looks like only half of the original cast will be returning, and the newcomers will need a bit of background immersion in noir, as we did the last time. I really hope that this time I can show the cast, as a group, six films in three double bills to sum up the particular aspects of the genre I'm aiming at in this piece:
Double Indemnity
Force of Evil
D.O.A.
Point Blank
Detour
Lost Highway
Damn, but then I get into all the other ones that are so important to me for the piece -- The Killers (both the '46 and '64 versions), Kiss Me Deadly, Out of the Past, Brute Force, The Seventh Victim, The Big Heat, Criss Cross . . . well, the list goes on, but those are all probably the big important ones.
I can loan out my copies, as I did last time. And I need to find which actor still has my DVD of D.O.A. from two years ago.
Busy, busy, busy. Maybe I can bother with a postmortem on Hamlet in a few days, but I have to deal with the future right now. July is gonna be a bit crazy, getting the August shows ready. Keep moving forward.
