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PB,
Some answers below. Thanks for being on top of some of the textual issues. It's good to have a couple of people remind me of these things (Aaron Baker has also been on top of some of this).
Regarding the things I've done to the text, having worked on it for 15 years, I sometimes can't remember the reasons I did what I did to the play anymore. I've been living mainly with the cutting that I've been doing for all that time, not bothering to look at a "complete" version of the play. When I moved my pen and pencil cuts from the paperback I'd been working with to an electronic version in 2001, other problems may have come up (the online version I went to was a different combination of Q2 and F1 than the book I'd been using). The dropping of "observation" from my line that you pointed out last night is a good example of errors that should be corrected.
At the same time, some of the cuts that apparently change the meaning of the text are intended (I'd think of it not so much as changing as I would 'clarifying"). While things that might be confusing should be brought up, at the same time the text as it stands should be approached as a "Q3," in a way. This is the play we're doing, and variants should only be brought in when needed (as one would in doing a F1 production but bringing in Q1 or Q2 where it actually makes more "sense").
The show is Ian W. Hill's Hamlet not only out of ego, promotion, and pretension, but also to indicate an individual's specific point-of-view on the play. Hamlet, a masterpiece, is not a masterpiece like King Lear, or a damned great play like Macbeth, both of which work as dramatic pieces if you just stage them as is and stage them well. Hamlet is a big, brilliant, sprawling monster that works best as a play on its feet when a focus is given to it -- and many different focii will work -- but an unfocused version without a point of view becomes a tedious museum piece or a collection of "Billy Shakepeare's Greatest Hits!"
I haven't gone as far as Charles Marowitz, whose views on the play were very influential on my own, though ultimately towards different ends -- he cut it to a 90-minute collage and called it The Marowitz Hamlet -- but it is a WAY of looking at Hamlet. Which is what any production is, after all; it's just a question of HOW you choose to place your gaze.
But sometimes I need to reconsider whether I've looked the wrong way, even for what I want to do. Thanks for the ombudmanism.
Hey, Ian. Got your note about Saturday. A couple of "Hamlet" thoughts, FYI, or for the blog.
In rehearsing the speech to the players last night, I was struck when you pointed out how obnoxious is Hamlet's greeting to Horatio in the very next scene. How Hamlet assures Horatio that his effusive greeting is not meant as flattery, for the simple, if mercenary reason that Horatio has no "revenue" to bestow upon flatterers. Apart from his "good spirits," of course.
I just wanted to be sure you're aware that you've trimmed a large subsequent portion of that speech which places Hamlet's blithe snobbery in context. After the initial comment about Horatio's "revenue," Hamlet goes on to praise Horatio for his even temper, a trait much more highly prized.
Yeah, here's a place where I didn't remember the cut at all - but this is the way it should be for this production. Whether I knew it when I made the cut, it's a vital part of this Hamlet.
I could have maybe used the "even temper" part to make the point that ultimately this is NOT a good thing for Horatio, one of the reasons he is NOT A GOOD FRIEND to Hamlet -- he accepts things in his friend that he shouldn't stand by for.
But in the end, dramatically speaking, we don't need it here, for this production, and it goes.
Also, you may want to consider trimming Gertrude's "Lady doth protest too much" line. In the folio text, it comes after the spoken dialogue of the play-within-the-play, a large chunk of which involves the Player Queen declaring her undying love and loyalty to the King--BEFORE he's killed. In your version, you have it coming after the dumbshow, which presents the entire plot of the play, ending with the Queen taking up with the Poisoner. So the only thing the Player Queen can be protesting too much of now is either her grief over the dead Player King, or her refusal to take up with the Poisoner.
Do you mean for Gertrude to be saying, in effect, that the Player Queen should've grieved less and fallen for the Poisoner more quickly?
In the case of this version as it's developed and focused, it's more about our Gertrude's royal reaction to a pretend Queen's very unroyal histrionics -- not even so much that Adam's Player Queen performance is bad, but it goes against Gertrude's opinion of how royalty behaves, which has become an important part of this production.
Also, Gertrude is holding back lots of anger -- the dumb show is more than enough to get across to almost everyone in the room what Hamlet is saying, before the Players speak a word, and Gertrude is having to keep a stiff upper lip in extremely unpleasant conditions.
Just one other note: in the spoken section of the play-within-the-play, Lucianus' first line is "Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing." Not "The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge." The raven line is not a quote from the PWP, but a continuation of Hamlet's last speech hurrying the actor to leave his damnable faces and begin the next part of the play.
Because, of course, the poisoner Lucianus is not seeking revenge on anybody. He's about to secretly poison the king for his own gain. So may I suggest you cutting me off on "hands apt?"
-PB
And here's exactly the kind of correction we need. Yes, of course, you're right on all counts here. That's how we'll do it.
thanks
IWH
Some answers below. Thanks for being on top of some of the textual issues. It's good to have a couple of people remind me of these things (Aaron Baker has also been on top of some of this).
Regarding the things I've done to the text, having worked on it for 15 years, I sometimes can't remember the reasons I did what I did to the play anymore. I've been living mainly with the cutting that I've been doing for all that time, not bothering to look at a "complete" version of the play. When I moved my pen and pencil cuts from the paperback I'd been working with to an electronic version in 2001, other problems may have come up (the online version I went to was a different combination of Q2 and F1 than the book I'd been using). The dropping of "observation" from my line that you pointed out last night is a good example of errors that should be corrected.
At the same time, some of the cuts that apparently change the meaning of the text are intended (I'd think of it not so much as changing as I would 'clarifying"). While things that might be confusing should be brought up, at the same time the text as it stands should be approached as a "Q3," in a way. This is the play we're doing, and variants should only be brought in when needed (as one would in doing a F1 production but bringing in Q1 or Q2 where it actually makes more "sense").
The show is Ian W. Hill's Hamlet not only out of ego, promotion, and pretension, but also to indicate an individual's specific point-of-view on the play. Hamlet, a masterpiece, is not a masterpiece like King Lear, or a damned great play like Macbeth, both of which work as dramatic pieces if you just stage them as is and stage them well. Hamlet is a big, brilliant, sprawling monster that works best as a play on its feet when a focus is given to it -- and many different focii will work -- but an unfocused version without a point of view becomes a tedious museum piece or a collection of "Billy Shakepeare's Greatest Hits!"
I haven't gone as far as Charles Marowitz, whose views on the play were very influential on my own, though ultimately towards different ends -- he cut it to a 90-minute collage and called it The Marowitz Hamlet -- but it is a WAY of looking at Hamlet. Which is what any production is, after all; it's just a question of HOW you choose to place your gaze.
But sometimes I need to reconsider whether I've looked the wrong way, even for what I want to do. Thanks for the ombudmanism.
Hey, Ian. Got your note about Saturday. A couple of "Hamlet" thoughts, FYI, or for the blog.
In rehearsing the speech to the players last night, I was struck when you pointed out how obnoxious is Hamlet's greeting to Horatio in the very next scene. How Hamlet assures Horatio that his effusive greeting is not meant as flattery, for the simple, if mercenary reason that Horatio has no "revenue" to bestow upon flatterers. Apart from his "good spirits," of course.
I just wanted to be sure you're aware that you've trimmed a large subsequent portion of that speech which places Hamlet's blithe snobbery in context. After the initial comment about Horatio's "revenue," Hamlet goes on to praise Horatio for his even temper, a trait much more highly prized.
Yeah, here's a place where I didn't remember the cut at all - but this is the way it should be for this production. Whether I knew it when I made the cut, it's a vital part of this Hamlet.
I could have maybe used the "even temper" part to make the point that ultimately this is NOT a good thing for Horatio, one of the reasons he is NOT A GOOD FRIEND to Hamlet -- he accepts things in his friend that he shouldn't stand by for.
But in the end, dramatically speaking, we don't need it here, for this production, and it goes.
Also, you may want to consider trimming Gertrude's "Lady doth protest too much" line. In the folio text, it comes after the spoken dialogue of the play-within-the-play, a large chunk of which involves the Player Queen declaring her undying love and loyalty to the King--BEFORE he's killed. In your version, you have it coming after the dumbshow, which presents the entire plot of the play, ending with the Queen taking up with the Poisoner. So the only thing the Player Queen can be protesting too much of now is either her grief over the dead Player King, or her refusal to take up with the Poisoner.
Do you mean for Gertrude to be saying, in effect, that the Player Queen should've grieved less and fallen for the Poisoner more quickly?
In the case of this version as it's developed and focused, it's more about our Gertrude's royal reaction to a pretend Queen's very unroyal histrionics -- not even so much that Adam's Player Queen performance is bad, but it goes against Gertrude's opinion of how royalty behaves, which has become an important part of this production.
Also, Gertrude is holding back lots of anger -- the dumb show is more than enough to get across to almost everyone in the room what Hamlet is saying, before the Players speak a word, and Gertrude is having to keep a stiff upper lip in extremely unpleasant conditions.
Just one other note: in the spoken section of the play-within-the-play, Lucianus' first line is "Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing." Not "The croaking raven doth bellow for revenge." The raven line is not a quote from the PWP, but a continuation of Hamlet's last speech hurrying the actor to leave his damnable faces and begin the next part of the play.
Because, of course, the poisoner Lucianus is not seeking revenge on anybody. He's about to secretly poison the king for his own gain. So may I suggest you cutting me off on "hands apt?"
-PB
And here's exactly the kind of correction we need. Yes, of course, you're right on all counts here. That's how we'll do it.
thanks
IWH
