collisionwork | Entries tagged with emails

Okay, so it's a new year, and there's work to do for Gemini CollisionWorks.

So, an email went out last night to about 60 actors I know (edited slightly here):

Dear Many-of-GCW's-Actorial-Friends,

First, Happy New Year from Berit and myself!

This is going out to many of the actors that I've either directed in shows, or acted with, or seen in shows, or auditioned but had nothing for, or always wanted to work with but it didn't happen. Or whatever. Just a list of people I think would work for one or more of the shows we're doing this year, even if a few of you don't act all that much anymore (nothing ventured . . .). Sorry about the length, as always.

I have 6 or 7 productions (some big, some small) happening this year, and, as opposed to recent years, where I have wound up doing far too much at the last minute and been horribly rushed at the end, I am attempting to make this year's shows a much longer and deep process, with leisurely time to explore the work without cramming it all together. So I'm trying to cast and start the work this month for productions in June and August (as well as smaller ones going up sooner). I hope you are interested in one or more of the shows. The idea is to work on them from January to May, with a bit more focus on the June show (which might have a small July extension), and to have them pretty much together and ready (including sets, props, costumes, tech) by the end of May, with July as final brush-up time for the August shows.

I know this is a hard, full commitment to make, and I fully expect to lose and have to replace some people between casting and opening to paying gigs or other sudden commitments, but I'd rather start with full casts and have to deal with a few replacements in parts that are already formed than wait to know if everyone will make it the whole way. So, if you're interested in at least starting the process, please come along. I'll try and make this as brief as I can (too late).

First, I need a chorus of actors for

Merry Mount, an adaptation by Trav S.D. of Hawthorne's "The May-Pole of Merry-Mount" which will go up in Metropolitan Playhouse's Hawthornicopia for four performances later this month (schedule at their website). This takes place in Puritan Boston, 1628, and I need several non-speaking performers for this short work (12 minutes or so, maybe) with very little rehearsal requirements - 3 male PURITANS, and 6 PAGAN REVELLERS, 2 male, 4 female, preferably - one woman has a line as the LADY OF THE MAY. Interested? Let me know ASAP.

I will be directing an episode of Brian Enk/Matt Gray's serial melodrama
Penny Dreadful in March at The Brick - no idea yet what the casting requirements will be for that.

In June, I'm doing
The Magnificent Ambersons by Orson Welles: A Reconstruction for The Film Festival: A Theater Festival at The Brick. This will require a cast of 16 (8 principals, 8 others in many multiple roles) in a stage adaptation of the original version of Welles' mangled-by-the-studio second film, which version exists only now as a transcript and photos. This has very specific casting requirements, and while I have some of you in mind for some parts (and will be in touch), will need auditioning for the rest, preferably from this group. It will have 4 performances in June, and maybe another 6-10 in July. Maybe. Big big maybe.

August shows at The Brick, which will get 10-12 performances each:
Harry in Love: A Manic Vaudeville by Richard Foreman - a restaging of my 1999 production - is mostly cast, and I'll be with contact some of you specifically about the roles that aren't.
Spell - is an original play, some of it written, some of it to be created in collaboration with the company - about perception, sanity, identity, language, and terror - quiet, meditative, semi-abstract, inside the head of a woman (who may really be a man) who has done something terrible. Probably 110-115 minutes long. This has no set cast breakdown apart from needing 4 women and 2 men, at least, and will be created specifically around the actors who want to be in it. I have one or two people in mind specifically for this, but apart from that it's open to anyone on this list who's interested.
Invisible Republic (working title) - is another original, to be created entirely with and around the company from scratch, that needs primarily people with strong dance/movement skills. It's about business, specifically selling things that probably aren't needed, the worth or lack of it of anything in the USA today, violence as a capitalist tool, and the military-industrial-entertainment-religious complex. It will be loud, violent, musical, and cartoony (Looney Tunes/Tex Avery). Probably 75-90 minutes long. Lots of people in suits screaming at each other, hitting each other with clown hammers, then breaking into time steps and spouting incomprehensible business jargon. This is open to anyone on this list who's interested in doing it - again, though, I REALLY want dancers for this one.
Also, a number of members of the cast of
That's What We're Here For have expressed a desire to get back together and redo that, which I would also very much like to do, with some serious cuts, restructures, and fixes, but only if I get at least 2/3rds of the original cast. So, since the whole original cast is on this list, let me know if you want to work on it (and if it won't work by August, I'd like to start now on it for 2009).

So, if you're interested in any or all of
Merry Mount, Ambersons, Spell, Invisible Republic, or That's What We're Here For, please let me know ASAP and I can start pulling together the casts and rehearsal schedules. If you want more info, let me know.

hope to hear from you soon, and best to you and all in your world,

IWH

[NOTE: If you're an actor friend who didn't get this and probably should have, let me know - either I missed your email or have a wrong one or your spam filter ate it. Well . . . or I thought you wouldn't be interested in the first place. Or I don't think you're right for any of these shows. But probably I just screwed up. So let me know!]

So far I've had responses from 16 actors - 4 to say "I'm in for anything you want me for that I can do," 9 to say "I'd really be up for this show (or shows)," 2 to say "I'd like to be in, but can I have some more information about these shows," and 2 to say "let me know when you have something more specific you want me to read for." A good start.

So, with the responses of interest thus far, the potentials I have right now are 1 more person for Merry Mount (with four already cast, five more needed), 2 for Penny Dreadful, 11, maybe 12, for Ambersons, 12 for Spell, 7 for Invisible Republic, and 3, maybe 4, people returning for That's What We're Here For (an american pageant revisited).

Yes indeed, a good start.

Current Mood: busy
Current Location: Gravesend

Or: What I was trying to do with this Hamlet, at least in part, at some great length.

Tonight is the final performance of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet - a bittersweet farewell. I wish I was doing more shows, hard as it is, but that's not possible, so this is it. Maybe again in August, 2008, when Equity would allow me to do it again with the AEA actors I have in it under the Showcase Code a second time. But for now, no more.

It has been the realization of a longstanding dream, and one of the hardest goddamn things I've ever done. The rewards of it just barely outweigh the time, effort, energy, money, and emotional battering that have gone into it. Just barely. And at times, for hours even, they haven't been worth it at all.

But it IS worth it, and beyond, when I come into contact with the people who've seen it, who got what I was going for, and who appreciate it. Then it doesn't all seem like a waste of time and energy.

Rick Vorndran, of the Dysfunctional Theatre Company, came to the show on Tuesday, and wrote me a lovely email this morning, which became an extended email conversation about the show - and exactly the one I needed to have this day, to stave off the pre-post-partum depression that begins to show up as a production is fading away.

Here's what came up (with some slight editing):

Hey Ian:

Just wanted to tell you how much I really enjoyed Hamlet. I don’t give this complement often, but I thought a lot of the direction and acting was hitting Off-Broadway levels. Some of my favorites:

The script edits, particularly getting away from the introspection that’s coming from the strong acting anyway, (including cutting the most famous monologue in the English language!)

The subdued performances of Polonius, Gertrude and Claudius – particularly Claudius. It was pretty nice to see a Claudius who looked like he was conflicted about his own selfish desires AND trying to do what’s best for the country, as opposed to chewing scenery. Plus the three of them balanced out your more selfish, less introverted Hamlet.

The shameless use of Nyman/Greenaway music (yes, I use that music a lot too)

The very political end. Executing Horatio, an invasion while those selfish fucks at the top fiddled, words obscured by violence, etc. Not at all influenced by current events, right?

Pretty dang good use of your platforms for staging. My favorite was the dock with waves SFX. The players/theater set-up was a close second.

There’s more, but those are my favorites. If you’d be kind and provide me with your mailing address, I’d love to send you a copy of a show CD I got in England in 2001 - Hamlet! The Musical! Admittedly, a bit different than yours – they had a cast of 5. (My favorite was having Claudius & Gertrude play the Gravediggers). You’ll get a kick out if it.

Again, thanks Ian. Really enjoyed it! - Rick

Rick,

Thanks so very VERY much for the kind words. This show has gotten a wide range of reactions, not all of them good or getting what I was going for (two bad reviews, which I haven't read, but had described to me, and can't read right now, or maybe ever, for my own peace of mind), and it's been heartening to have the people who did get what I was going for say so to me, to remove that hanging cloud of depression that keeps threatening when I often think "I've been working on this for years and years, and I wasn't clear enough, and I blew it."

I'm especially glad you mentioned the work of Bryan, Stacia, and Jerry as Polonius, Gertrude, and Claudius. I'm very happy with all the acting in the show but those were very important, detailed, rich, and worked-on performances, most central to the whole concept, that were designed to be different from the norm, and very very subtle and ambiguous. The problem being that this, to some eyes, simply becomes "a lack of a clear choice" as opposed to "a specific choice towards ambiguity" (though the actors and I had all worked out what REALLY happened, for us). Bryan, at least, got a nice write-up in the Voice, I'm told.

Thanks for mentioning everything else that you did, too. You hit on a few points that I've been wondering whether I made the right choice about (particularly in cutting so much of the "introspective" monologues and asides to use as internal fodder for thoughtful acting), and the more I hear responses like yours, the better I feel. And I am indeed a shameless repeat user of Michael Nyman's Greenaway scores (there's a bit of The Piano and I think Ravenous in there too, as well as the single he did with The Flying Lizards during intermission) -- I just haven't yet found other music that works for me the same way, and I'm glad some other fans out there dig it.

I don't normally get nervous or stage-frighty about my work like this, but this show has been different, and I haven't been able to have the same "This is my work and screw you if you don't like it" attitude that I normally do with it, for whatever reason (a friend I haven't seen in years, one of the first directors I ever worked with in NYC, was at the show the same night as you, and said in response to this point, "You don't think you get to do Hamlet for free, do you? A price must be paid.").

So every thoughtful word about the piece is a great kindness to me right now, thank you.

hope to see you soon, possibly at your fund-raiser (if I'm not dead from this show or in the midst of the four ones I have going up at The Brick in August, one of which opens two days after your event), best,

Ian [and a PS where I asked him about posting these emails and gave him my address for the CD]

So the four of you worked out what REALLY happened? Intriguing. I got the sense that Old King Hamlet (like his son) was a bit of a dick, and killing him wasn’t entirely unjustified. Plus, I really got the sense that Gertrude didn’t know much of what really went down, was trying actively NOT to find out, and is much more worried about running a country (thus she’s often at the desk).

Oh, loved the scene when Laertes comes back, and Claudius calmly puts him down, mainly because you just don’t shout at the frigging king, no matter what’s going on. Really subtle, really nice. Got the sense that Claudius is really worried about things spinning out of control, and what it would do to the country.

And Bryan? Geez, just incredible. That role has just as much baggage as Hamlet.

Feel free to post on your blog, and pass my compliments onto the cast. Again, you’ll get a kick out of the CD’s. The songs are, well, pretty much everything you cut out.

Rick

P.S. Yeah, on the cuts, you don’t need an aside of Claudius saying, “Oh no, she’s drinking the poison cup.” :) Nice choices there.

Yup, bingo on all counts -- our thoughts about Old Hamlet, his death, and Gertrude, as well as Laertes and Claudius' dynamic (and Claudius' fear for the country). Oh, SO glad some people get this!

The big thing that came out in the rehearsal process for this production, even after all the years I'd spent working on the text, was the idea of "what it is to be Royal," and the duties and obligations that come with that, which became central to Jerry, Stacia, and myself, as the Royal figures. Too often, Royal persons are directed and played as to be "just like us," the "unvalued" as Polonius puts it -- they are NOT, merely through training and environment, and actors must, as Steven Berkoff notes in his book on Hamlet, not try to "pull" these figures down to their level, but raise themselves up to a Royal one, with the understanding of what that entails.

As came up in conversation last night with someone, a lay Shakespearean scholar, also at Tuesday's performance (who was back to see the other Hamlet in the Festival), as we rehearsed we more and more realized that, Ghost or not, Dead Murdered Father or not (and of course, in our production, it is "not", but still . . .), Hamlet, as Crown Prince of Denmark, does NOT have the right, for the good of his Country and its People, to indulge in his squalid little revenge, which does, of course, basically end his country as the Denmark it was. Though I have as yet found no evidence of anyone before me playing Hamlet as such an outright bastard and villain, albeit a sometimes charming one (there MUST be, right? in all these hundreds of years of people doing the play? there HAS to be!), my interpretation apparently falls quite in line with a certain, and growing-more-popular, scholarly point of view on the play -- which is not something I'd normally be interested in, but it makes me glad to know that there are others who have seen the Bastard Hamlet (as I call him) that lurks in the text.

Anyway, I'm going on, and probably only because I now have half an eye aimed on putting this on the blog. I'll just go do that now, and again, thanks for the praise and the impetus to actually say something about the thing.

best, Ian

Last thought for the blog: Particularly notable was the end of the first half, with your Hamlet seeing the invading army of Fortinbras: Being a sharp and astute prince with good political instincts, he knows that you don’t gather an Army like that for Poland, you gather it for a country like, say, Denmark. That’s a point that escapes Ros and Guild. Yet, the selfish prick still says, screw that, I want my revenge because Daddy told me to do it. And Saddam . . . er, Claudius tried to kill Daddy. I mean, killed Daddy. No, no political relevance there at all.

And liked the choice of using either the Branagh music, or something really like what he used in his movie Hamlet, to underscore, for the exact opposite effect. It’s selfish, not noble. Hamlet should know better.

And maybe nobody’s really tried a Hamlet like this before, because nobody could believe the son of a former leader could be so stupid, selfish, and politically dense. Nope, not topical at all. Dang, I wish I woulda thought of this.

Oh, thank you - again you got exactly what I was trying to get at there!

And . . . uh . . . yeah, that music under that scene is one of my favorite dark "jokes" in the show -- it's the London Symphony Orchestra performing the classic American "traditional" rock-and-roll revenge song, "Hey Joe" (hee, hee) as Hamlet looks out at Fortinbras' army and gets THE EXACT WRONG LESSON FROM IT. And so he goes and metaphorically buys his blue-steel .44 to come back and shoot his woman (shall we say, Denmark?) down.

It's funny how these things come together at the right time - I've had this conception of Hamlet kicking around my head for 18 years or so (the director who came the other night, who directed me as Marlowe's Faustus 15 years ago, remembered clearly many of the concepts I had for the show that I had talked about back then that he had just seen on stage), and yet suddenly I get the chance to put it up, and boy howdy is it the perfect, topical time, right?

again, thanks for making the points so I can comment and expand on them rather than just write an essay on my blog - the dialogue is more interesting than the monologue . . . best,

IWH

One more thought:

Is it possible that (a) Old King Hamlet was a despot, (b) C and G felt they had to get rid of him before he completely ruined the country, (c) G realizes the throne will likely pass to another selfish despot unless she acts quickly, so (d) marries C so they both can start reforming, but (e) don’t appreciate the threat that Hamlet poses until it’s far too late? They may not even be intimately involved, except as partners.

Pretty cool interpretation, if that’s the case.

This is a variant that was definitely discussed among us (I guess we didn't decide on everything that happened EXACTLY, but we had some branching possibilities that led to the same emotional places). Either Old Hamlet was a despot or going mad himself (his son gets it from somewhere), and very likely, as I mentioned yesterday on the blog, a wife-beater. Gertrude may or may not have been involved in his death (we pretty well decided "not") but knows that whether it happened or not, it's better for the country at this point that Claudius be King, with Norway threatening - Hamlet will be King someday, NOT NOW, but when he and the country are ready for a more "peacetime" King. Claudius and Gertrude do indeed care about each other, but their partnership as King and Queen does come first (at least for her, she being Queen first and foremost above all).

The great sad moment for Gertrude is when she looks at Hamlet in the bedroom scene and says, "Alas, he's mad" as she realizes that her son will NEVER be fit to be King of Denmark, and who knows what the hell they'll have to do now?

It was wonderful in rehearsal to go through these bits and have them fall into place and just feel like everything MADE SENSE.

okay, putting this all on the blog now - and maybe I don't have to go over any of this there ever again . . . we'll see . . . best, IWH

Never go through it again? Dream on.

Thank you, Rick. Dysfunctional Theatre, creators of the wonderful I Am Star Trek, written by Rick, and which I hear may come back to an NYC stage somewhat soon, is having a benefit event on July 30, as mentioned above. Info is HERE

Current Mood: drained
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Lou Reed's Berlin live, 2006

Good 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.

Current Mood: calm
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: DVD - Double Indemnity

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

Current Location: The Brick, Williamsburg
Current Music: Citizen Kafka - "Abbott & Costello Meet the Antichrist"

Christiaan Koop emailed me today about some schedule issues and further asked for some clarification on her part as Voltimand in Ian W. Hill's Hamlet:

I'm excited to be playing jerry's right hand woman. it's cool!

do you think voltimand has been claudius' "rhw" for a very long time- like, does voltimand know "what really happened" to bring claudius to the throne? during the reading i was playing with ideas that voltimand is a sort of secret service agent/security guard/silent partner, but more intimate - heh - maybe she even kinda wishes they were more intimate!?! maybe they are?

ck

CK,

Thanks for the [schedule] info.

As for Voltimand -- I think she's been a bit of an up-and-comer in the court pre-Claudius' reign, but never really noticed (except by "Secretary of State" Polonius).

When Claudius took over, there was a bit of a housecleaning in the diplomatic staff -- Polonius wanted to shake things up a bit, maybe reorganize the political machine a bit to be more under his control, and I think the diplomatic assignment to Norway is a BIG THING for Voltimand, a giant step up. I don't think she really knows where it's coming from, Polonius or Claudius, but she's very pleased with the leap in status.

So she doesn't have a history with Claudius -- he's been career military prior to this, she's been completely on the politics/diplomacy track. She's been doing a good job, and has been noticed, and has been assumed to be very loyal and faithful to the new regime.

And not intimate with him -- she may be interested in that, she may wonder a little if she got the position due to some interest of his (she didn't, and he isn't interested). She may wonder if there was foul play -- as does EVERYONE in the court and kingdom -- but she's in the position she's in partially because Polonius is sharp enough to know that she'll be loyal to Claudius whether he killed his brother or not.

She knows her job well enough to give her report to Claudius in proper diplomatic words, while imparting a bit of subtext to them -- when she remarks about Old Norway looking into Fortinbras' actions and saying "he truly found it was against your highness," there can be just a hint of "if you can believe that, and don't think he knew about it all along and just got caught."

Even something like the "in brief" she throws in about Fortinbras' obeying of his father can have a lot of weight and irony -- as though not wanting to go into extent of the argument between the two, while getting across that Fortinbras' ultimate submission to his father was not an easy one.

She also tests how chummy she can get with Claudius by taking on some of the qualities he uses in his own speech -- her referring to Old Norway's "impotence" is a direct reference to Claudius referring to him as "impotent" in his opening speech -- a phrase which is an off-the-cuff improv by Claudius in that part of the speech, and slightly inappropriate for a King to be using (and for you to be using in your report - it's an innocent enough word, yes, but I think you both give it a slight nasty spin). So you're parroting some of the tone you got from him in the opening back to him, consciously or not.

So that's a start,

see you Friday,

IWH

Current Mood: creative
Current Location: Portland, ME
Current Music: Blondie - "X Offender" - Blondie

Tonight, the first "full cast" reading of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet (we're actually short a few people, but close enough). I am nervous and excited.

After this, I'm gone for a week before continuing with rehearsals, but I'm sure (I hope) I'll be doing plenty of character work with the actors by email.

Inside the cut below is a long email exchange between Jerry Marsini (Claudius) and myself regarding his character's motives and actions, which necessarily winds up ranging widely over many other aspects of this production. I still have mixed feelings about using LJ Cuts, but when text gets this long, I get more self-conscious about shoving it onto peoples' Friends lists.

Now . . . as has been mentioned in passing here before, I've cut from this production all definite evidence that Claudius actually killed Hamlet's father. There is the possibility, but only that, a possibility.

Still, fine to be ambiguous with the audience, but Jerry and I have to know for sure (I think, oddly perhaps, of George Romero and John Amplas, for Romero's film Martin, having to decide for themselves if the title character was actually a vampire or just an insane young man who believes he's a vampire). In these emails we make the decision -- in passing, really -- as Jerry asks for direction on Claudius and suggests a number of options. Since I still want it to be ambiguous for everyone else, I've taken out the parts where our decision is clear.

( Regarding Claudius )

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Takeshi Terauchi & The Bunnys - "For Elise" - Let's Go Classics

Email questions and thoughts come to me from the cast of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet.

Edward Einhorn (Guildenstern) asked me something yesterday morning:

Quick question: what's the concept behind making R&G Jewish? Not that I mind particularly, but what made you think to portray them as Jewish?

Response from me, also cc'ed to Daniel McKleinfeld (Rosencrantz) to bring him in on this issue of interest to him as well:

Not so quick answer:

The concept was sort of reverse engineered, as with making Horatio black -- I was interested in the actor for the role first, then realized that people would wind up taking it as a "statement," and realized that I had to be in control of the statement, so I should actually make one. I saw you and Daniel in the parts, realized this would be "taken" a certain way, and had to take the idea throughout the script to be in control of how it might be taken.

Since this is a WASPy-world, country club/yacht club HAMLET, I was interested in different classes and how they interrelate -- somewhat as I saw in my own wealthy hometown . . . [personal information about myself, Greenwich, Connecticut, and being both “on the inside” and an “outsider” at the same time, redacted].

In this production we see classes from Royalty down to Commoner, with many stages in between, and see all of them react to the death of a king and the fumbling attempts to keep the country together when he's gone. Hamlet's friends play different roles in this. Horatio is given a certain leave as Hamlet's "black friend from school," as he is well-educated, well-spoken, etc., but because of his color and background, he will only ever be able to rise to a certain level in this world. As a result, he is not perceived as (nor is he, or wants to be, I think) a social climber to be watched out for. He is treated somewhat openly.

R&G come, I believe, from several generations of getting-wealthier-and-wealthier merchants -- shopkeepers who have expanded and expanded into a wholesale-retail-mailorder empire -- possibly wealthier and "more powerful" than the Lords and even Royalty (powerful as in "if we don't get something we want, we may not help you out with the money and supplies for this war here"). I think R&G were the first generation born into their family as already fabulously, disgustingly wealthy, and have grown up around the Court, and their friend Hamlet, and want more than just "being rich," they want respect, and a position within the Court the same as anyone else with not only their money, but their talents and abilities. There has NEVER been any overt anti-semitism at work at them, but there has been a definite "you are not one of us" attitude that they're trying to get through.

I honestly think well of R&G (as I do NOT of Hamlet himself), and think they're simply trying to kill two birds with one stone: They ACTUALLY DO want to help their old friend out here, AND if they can use this to get in better with the Royal Family and The Court, what's the harm in that? Frankly, they probably think that they're "playing" Claudius and Gertrude by giving help to them that they would have done gladly for Hamlet's sake anyway.

They don't get, horribly, fatally, that they are dealing with a fanatic who sees these two goals of theirs as incompatible: If they're helping out Claudius and Gertrude, as far as Hamlet is concerned, they are his enemies. End of story. And as Hamlet pushes them away, they resent him more, and more turn to Claudius, which Hamlet sees and gets meaner and nastier to them, which send them . . . well, you see.

So, that's what came out of simply looking at/listening to you and Daniel years ago and thinking I'd like to see you in these parts someday.

IWH

Thoughts from Daniel in response:

Ian:

Thanks for the note! That's pretty much what I had been thinking---that Ros and Guild have fielded a lot of questions about money management (on the assumption that they'd just *know* what to do with money), but have never encountered straight-up vulgar anti-Semitism in the court (which is why Hamlet's display of it is so unpleasant). They sorta seem like the two faces of assimilation---Guild is obsequious and eager to be in his place (an aspiring dentist, I'd think), while Ros has a somewhat ironic attitude towards the court, his life, and himself. He plans to fuck around for a few years after college, and then go into investments, smirking ironically even as he becomes part of the system.

I'd been thinking of playing the first meeting with Hamlet---"my most dear lord!"---for irony, with a heavy helping of rich-kid sarcasm From the instant he walks in , they're doing routines, like kids reciting Firesign Theater records, and there's not a word that doesn't come out with raised eyebrows and a lilting inflection. By the later scenes, he's become more direct as he starts to realize that something's really wrong---by the post-Mousetrap scene, it seems like he's started to worry that Hamlet's genuinely going mad. Now he thinks it's his turn to step
up---he's always been smarter than these courtly dipshits, and by the time it comes to dealing with the body, he's convinced that he's the only one who can straighten this mess out. If anything, he's a little impatient with having to rely on Claudius---who he's always considered a half-wit----to solve the problem, even though he knows that's Claudius' job.

Does that sound about right to you?
D

A final comment from me:

Yup, sounds about right to me, thanks!

There's also a notable difference between R & G as their arc goes on -- Guil begins to try to play too much on R&G's past friendship in ways that are improper in dealing with Royalty. Maybe once they could, as friends, but I think Ros senses a bit before Guil not to push the friendship thing too much. As important as the anti-semitic flip Hamlet gives to them about "trade" is the fact that he pulls out the royal "we" with them in the previous line - he may have never done that before, and he almost never does it elsewhere in the script. He only does it when he wants to MAKE A POINT about being a fucking Prince.

I have CONSTANTLY used, in auditioning people for this show, and talking to others about it, your line as reported to me by Berit regarding all the auditioners who wanted the title role in your HENRY V, "Kings don't SLOUCH!"

That phrase has become central to dealing with the royalty here. Gertrude NEVER slouches, and is a Queen through and through (even with Claudius, being his Queen comes before being his Wife). Claudius only slouches in private with Gertrude -- he somewhat got out of the whole "Royalty" bag that he disliked by going into the military, but knows when and how to turn it on as a King. Hamlet slouches a bit, and more and more as he is seen as "mad" (part of what is taken for "madness" is simply "not behaving like a Prince ought to"), and he affects a more intellectual, artsy demeanor, but he has been raised since birth to be a King someday, and will turn it on when he "needs" to.

Ros sees Hamlet's back straightening before Guil does, and pulls back.

IWH

Current Mood: rushed
Current Location: Gravesend

I've been having some interesting email exchanges with members of the cast over certain elements of Ian W. Hill's Hamlet, and I've asked their permission to share some with you when appropriate.

A while back, Peter and I wrote back and forth about a number of issues regarding the play, which wound up in a discussion of two things I am trying to do or get across in this production:

1. Hamlet is more than a little bit mentally disturbed for real.
2. I don't particularly like Hamlet, and I don't particularly want the audience to either.

Peter wondered if #1 didn't mitigate #2, as his insanity may make his actions "not his fault" but his disease's, and possibly then generating sympathy for the poor madman. I never answered his thoughts on the matter. So he asked me again today:

. . . have you had any further thoughts on how to keep the audience from sympathizing with Hamlet once they see he's clinically insane?

And my response was:

I'm not sure that "sympathy" will actually be their reaction. Nor should it. "Empathy" however, is fine and desired.

Hamlet is unpleasant, he is a bit of an asshole, sane or not. He is a bit of a monster, but monsters can engender empathy. I think of characters as wide as Macbeth, Travis Bickle, and Diane Selwyn (Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive) -- they are monsters, all, irredeemable, and I'd say at least the latter two are mentally unstable (the first, well, that's an interpretive thing, production-by-production). Their mental instability does not mitigate the monstrousness of their acts, but it does allow a degree of empathy (I cry at the death of poor, sad, sick, evil Diane Selwyn every time I watch the Lynch film). Hamlet is also, on some level, a genius, which makes the insanity harder to take. He can be capable of great and honest love and kindness. But he is a monster. (Horatio is in fact the worst at ignoring the latter because of the former and ultimately as a result, for all his respect and devotion to Hamlet, he is Not A Good Friend to the Prince -- if the audience sympathizes with Hamlet too much, they are making Horatio's mistake)

I think, even if it's not understood consciously, that insanity, even in a genius, does not entirely give a "free pass" to a character onstage, as it doesn't in life. Not all insane people become murderous, and if they do, it is often as much them as it is the disease (as I think is the case with Hamlet).

Also, while Hamlet is "disturbed," I'm not sure his delusions entirely cross the line into full-out paranoid schizophrenia. He is self-possessed enough to know what he's doing is "wrong," in some way (a sharp lawyer could easily get him off, though - "Judge, he believes he was told to do this by the ghost of his father, the great king we all knew and loved, whom he loved even more as father, King, and man. Also, he's been set up his whole life to be king when Old Hamlet was gone, whether he liked it or not, and this one thing he was certain about has been taken away from him. Your Honor, of course he's not himself!").

There is a definite part of this production that is the story of a kingdom in rough shape, trying to pull itself together and regroup following the death of a great and strong king, thrown horribly out of whack by having to deal with a crazed, manic prince bouncing around in its midst, with no one around him knowing quite how DANGEROUS he is until it's too late. Everyone deals with him with kid gloves for a time, because he is The Prince after all, and eventually he pretty much destroys everything around him, deserved or not.

I'm not going at all the same way as Derek Jacobi, but he made a VERY strong choice in his Hamlet in that seeing the Ghost (definitely real, in his production) drove Hamlet absolutely completely batshit insane, and he was in a crazed, manic state for most of the play following. His insanity did not cause you to sympathize with him, but instead to feel incredibly nervous watching him, scared, wondering what the hell he was going to do next (even if you damned well knew the play). I'm going in a different way than him, but the thing I think we share is that you then never ever feel SAFE around this guy -- you can feel for him, but it's hard to feel too much for someone who makes you think he might punch somebody in the face at any moment for no good reason.

After all, [name redacted], that little guy who lived upstairs from NADA you may remember, was clinically insane (and, in fact, a mathematical genius who could even, on rare occasions, be funny and cool), and I sure as hell didn't feel sympathy for the little dangerous bastard when he was threatening my life. But empathy? Yes. I actually did.

That make some sense?

IWH

Current Mood: complacent
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: none

I saw 300 last Friday up at the IMAX theater near Lincoln Center.

I didn't expect to really like it much, if at all. It was more an excuse to see a friend and see my first film in IMAX, and on those points, it was more than worth it (any film I even vaguely want to see that's playing in IMAX, from now on, I'm there). I wound up mildly disturbed and extremely angered by the film.

The anger was because, despite my expectations, I thought the first half of the film was terrific, smart, and amazing -- and then the second half was like a different movie, stupid, predictable, full of Hollywood cliches, and a complete betrayal of the characters and world of the first half. I went in with low expectations, was stunned and pleased by its initial brilliance, then watched as the film fell apart and became worse than I had thought possible going in. But discussing why it destroyed itself as a cohesive work is another post . . . maybe tomorrow.

So I was angry about it falling apart as a film, but I was disturbed by the potential political readings that could be put into the film, even when I was enjoying the first part.

The other night I discussed this a little at a tech for a show at The Brick, and the next day one of the actors, who I've worked with often, sent me an email asking me to discuss some of what he had heard about the film that bothered him, its possible pro-war and homophobic aspects. He writes, and I respond (with some editing for clarity here):

I was curious as to your thoughts on that, particularly the latter of the two points [that the film is "pro-war" and homophobic]. I mean, considering the movie is supposedly very faithful to the source material, and the graphic novel was written before the Bush administration, I have to wonder how much of that is just contextual interpretation. On the other hand, although I haven't seen 300, I have to admit that all the "Death in battle is AWESOME!" stuff I see in ads and promos for the movie kind of rub me the wrong way, especially considering there's a war on, now.

Yeah, I read all that [the specific online criticisms he had mentioned] -- and a lot otherwise going on around the web now saying this.

The thing is . . . it really doesn't hold water. The metaphor doesn't hold true for very long any time you try to see "our heroes" as standins for the Current Administration. If anything, it falls more true the other way, with a small group of determined fighters fighting off a large, more technologically advanced invading superpower that makes empty promises about how independent they will be as a state, as long as they allow themselves to be ruled by the Empire.

But again, none of it holds in any way true metaphorically to our current situation for very long. For a large part because it is made clear that this is also a battle between rationality and mysticism (those are the terms used, but it does come off quite a bit as Atheism vs. Theocracy) - which, in our current battle between two theocratic points of view, doesn't work (and our heroes in the film are on the "Fuck Mysticism" side). You can find bits and pieces here and there that may suddenly seem to have "topical meaning," but they can be read so many different ways from so many points of view that it might as well be a Rorschach test. If you are a right-winger and you want to see it as confirming your point of view, you could; if you want to see it as an example of Hollywood liberalism, you could. From the left, you could see it as confirming your point of view as well, or you could see it as an example of the right-wing propaganda machine (an attitude I've seen far too often from fellow lefties - that any Hollywood movie must automatically be a right-wing statement if it's big, and expensive, and popular, when more often then not it's merely stupid and ignorant).

That said, even if the film doesn't work as any kind of metaphor (through non-intention or confusion or whatever), is it OKAY for it to come out in the current climate? That's a harder question. No matter what the intentions of the filmmakers (or Miller in the original comic book), context DOES matter. Even if not meant in any way as any kind of comment on current events, and even with the metaphor not really working properly for any kind of commentary, it comes off as one. As I said last night, I LOVED the first half of the film, before it suddenly, amazing, went entirely into Stupidland (I haven't seen a film go so much off the rails so suddenly since John Carpenter's They Live), but even as I was loving it, I couldn't help but be disturbed by it. My feeling has been for years that The Artist has no responsibilities to anything but his or her vision - if it's an irresponsible Vision, well, hell, that's just part of what Art IS.

But I kept looking at it and really feeling, "Is this responsible in this country right now?" And not feeling good about what I was feeling. "Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" is not a universal truth for all times and places (nor is it a universal falsehood), but that seemed to be as close to an idea as the film had in it's pretty little head, and it bugged me. I don't necessarily demand ideas in art (which teeter dangerously close to BIG MEANINGS), but I demand a point-of-view -- a consistent eye or attitude that wants to show me something it is interested in, and, hopefully, with more of a reason to show me something than "Isn't this COOL!"

I know Berit and I (and other people who wrote about it elsewhere) were somewhat similarly disturbed during the battle sequences in the last two Lord of the Rings films for many of the same reasons, and you certainly can't say that when Tolkien wrote any of this, or, as Jackson was really being as faithful to the books as he could, that it was intended as any kind of commentary on the world today -- but the spectacle of our mostly Nordic/Anglo Saxon-looking heroes fighting the evil darkie monsters was at times unpleasant. Wrong time, wrong place.

Of course, given the lead time on how long movies take to make, who the hell KNOWS what the world will be like when it's time for your project to come out.

But, even if you are not intending a STATEMENT, certain choices MAKE one, whether you like it or not. And if you are making one, it's best to be in control of what that statement is, rather than ignoring it. This actually carries over into, as I think I mentioned last night, my current production of Hamlet, where I cast Rasheed as Horatio (in my head) based solely on his qualities as an actor many years ago. Then, I did have to consider what having a black Horatio "meant" in the context of the play. What it really "meant" for me at the start was "uh, black people exist?" But whether I liked it or not, the choice was going to have MEANING, so I had to use that meaning and carry it through as a meaningful decision throughout the text. It became crucial to the play for me, and even if Rasheed had not been able to play the part (and I'm SO glad he's going to), I would have still felt the need to cast the part with a black actor.

As for the homophobia . . . well, to me it comes off about on the level of schoolkids using "gay" as a pejorative. I don't think it's MEANT, again, but it's there, and its bad, though Snyder et al would probably be stunned if you called him on it, as many kids would be about saying something is gay being homophobic. They'd just think you were a spoilsport and WAY-too PC. The fact that the pretty, effeminate Persian god-king also has a harem of half-naked women, talks like Geoffrey Holder in an echo chamber, and looks like he could crush a normal-sized man with his bare hands just confuses everything, too. It just feels more like Snyder and company fell into the "powerful yet effeminate villain is creepy" cliche that's been going around forever. It's not great, but it comes right at the time when the movie goes from being really good to being nothing but a pack of Hollywood cliches, so the casual homophobia just feels like one more stupid Hollywood bit that's just been thrown in. The potentially pro-war attitude, intended or not, is deeper, nastier, more insidious, and more dangerous.

So I was disturbed, and I was disturbed about feeling disturbed. I wouldn't want any kind of suppression of points of view, no matter what, but . . .

Maybe if the film actually HAD a clear point of view (not a MESSAGE, a hit-you-over-the head thing, just a point-of-view), even an awful one, it would not be such a problem.

IWH

Current Mood: disturbed
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Beach Boys - "The Baker Man" - single b-side

Profile

collisionwork

June 2020

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
	1	2	3	4	5	6
7	8	9	10	11	12	13
14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27
28	29	30

Syndicate

Page Summary

The Year in Theatre Begins
The Email Conversation I NEEDED This Morning
An Email Exchange Regarding Last Night`
An Email Exchange with Peter Brown
On Voltimand
Regarding Claudius
Q&A - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
Empathy Does Not Require Sympathy
300, some thoughts

Style Credit

Base style: Abstractia by chiming
Theme: Abyss by chiming

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Page generated Jul. 3rd, 2025 03:42 am

CollisionWorks

an occasional view of internal craft and external insanity

Entries tagged with emails

The Year in Theatre Begins

The Email Conversation I NEEDED This Morning

An Email Exchange Regarding Last Night`

An Email Exchange with Peter Brown

On Voltimand

Regarding Claudius

Q&A - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Empathy Does Not Require Sympathy

300, some thoughts