Hello Lovely Bard lovers!
i finally finished Hamlet...i know it has taken me what feels like a century but i have an excuse! I am touring a new play and it was our opening week this week, so its been mad mad mad! (and i mean mad as in 'busy mad', not 'Hamlet mad' - although i will get to that, after this not so relevant chitter chatter!).
whilst i am being irrelevant here is a shameless plug for our show - 'Back to the Land Girls' by Badapple Theatre Company, written and directed by the fantastically talented Kate Bramley... for more information visit http://www.badappletheatre.com/
Here is a photo of me and Abi (the actress playing Biddy) with a genuine Land Army Girl we met this week, God bless her she had a whale of a time sat at the front, singing along with us...her name is Lucy.
Dig for Victory!
when i showed Lucy this photo er response was...'OH i look a bit old in that one'
So any way...HAMLET! wow... what can i say, so many people have declared the adventures of the the most famous Prince as their favourite and i can completely understand why, its an epic to say the least. Not only does it contain so many of Shakespeare's famous quotes...
'The plays the thing' - Act 2, Scene 2
'The Lady doth protest too much, methinks' - Act 3, Scene2
'To be, or not to be, that is the question:' - Act 3, Scene 1
...and that is to name but a few, this piece of writing (yes we all know the Bard was a genius, a true diamond) is truly special, out of all the plays i have read this has been the most vast in themes, characters (Hamlet alone appears in so many varied 'charcters' of him self), comedy, drama...where on earth do i start in writing/typing about it....
oh i know ... Hamlet!
He is such a fantastic person (in my opinion what do you think?) and so brilliantly formed that its so very difficult not to love him, even when he kills Polonius (though very dark and violently still he seems) i am still on his side. Hamlet is vast, he has 1495 lines with in the play and five Soliloquies more than any other character in Shakespeare's work (alot to learn, that's for sure! Lines on a Dictaphone while you sleep?)
What a person to play...i wonder how it feels to be asked to play Hamlet? so many fantastic actors have played him...
The first actor to play Hamlet was:
Richard Burbage (1568-1619)
Then of course their are the famous faces (most of which are beautiful) that have done a turn and adventured into the part of Hamlet:
Jude Law as Hamlet
Photograph: Tristram Kenton
Dr Who: David Tennant
Photograph: Alastair Muir
Even woman (sorry i don't mean to sound shocked...i will burn my bra after, i promise!) have played the famous Prince. the first woman to play Hamlet (i am led to believe) was:
Sarah Bernhardt (played Hamlet in 1899)
In the Bards time the part were all played by men (common knowledge i know...), so to have the role played by a woman is a huge achievement...well done Sarah Bernhardt from years gone by. This whole woman playing Hamlet thing has really got the cogs going...i found this interesting discussion about The Women who have played Hamlet on the Warick University Website:
It looks in depth at the reasons why a woman might want to play Hamlet. For political reasons,many suffragettes played Hamlet to empower themselves, some actresses wanted the chance to speak the words and experience Hamlet for them selves and some, i suppose got sick of being told off by Hamlet as Ophelia and Gertrude....another reason is he is Blooming great!
Did you know : Madonna was going to play Hamlet in the film in the 90's ....but she didn't, so i suppose this pearl of wisdom is a little redundant...never mind!
I LOVE HAMLET
i feel like its easy to fall a little bit in love with Hamlet, he is constantly trying to stand up for what is right. i would like to see Andrew Garfield (the new spider man...Spider-Hamlet?) play him:
Andrew Garfield
...when Hamlet talks to us, the audience it feels like we are his friends...maybe that is why Hamlets Soliloquies are so fantastic and famous, his friends are us the audience because no one in the life of the play really understands him....
Soliloquy Act 3- Scene 1
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.
(this is my favourite Soliloquy...is that predictable? Probably!)
Mirrors
It has been suggested that Hamlet is a play of mirrors, there are so many different narrative strands to cling onto, dictatorships, betrayal, broken homes and untrustworthy friends. i cant image Hamlet ever being irrelevant to our world.
Stalin did not like Hamlet! When the Moscow Arts Theatre where in rehearsals for Hamlet the director got worried due to unsettled rumours and pulled the show.
The play opens with:
BERNARDO :Who's there?this sets the tone for me, Who is there? can anyone truly know anyone other than them selves? and as Hamlet points out in his constant self discovery, do we ever really know our selves?
It seems Hamlet asks pretty much every BIG question there is to ask, most of which are answers-less but all are in the same direction - How do you be a good human being? He becomes so consumed by the idea of purity and goodness that he pushes people away (even though on most accounts they deserve it), in Act 3- scene 1 Hamlet attacks (verbally...possibly physically) Ophelia:
Act 3 Scene 1
HAMLET :
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.
Where's your father?
It is almost like his feelings are so concentrated he cant contain them, and they take hold of him and before he knows it he has pushed his love away, killed her dad and alienated him self...but i suppose it is that intensity of feeling that earns him the label : MAD!
Act3Scene 1
KING: Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go
Its no wonder everyone was out to get Hamlet, i think they where all abit terrified of this man with vision and greater thinking...he makes madness sort of light instead of dark...his unconventional thinking unsettles most. I feel like his mum jumps in the boat with him in Act4 Scene 3 and they drift together on the sea of Hamlets madness.
Hamlet and Gertrude
Just long enough for them to have a moment together (with his dead father as well...almost forgot the ghost!..how rude!) before Hamlet changes again and drags Polonius' dead body out of her room:
Act4 Scene 3
HAMLET: This man shall set me packing:
I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room.Mother, good night. Indeed this counsellor
Is now most still, most secret and most grave,
Who was in life a foolish prating knave.
Come, sir, to draw toward an end with you.
Good night, mother.
This part of the play really unnerved me, it is a flash of a dark Hamlet...the lines of good and evil in this play are blurred at points, Hamlet could never be a villain but this is a villaniouse act indeed. the little peep holes of light and dark help us see these characters are three-dimensional. in Act 1 Scene 2 we see the King being completely evil and then to oppose that in Act 3 Scene 3 we see him repent for what he has done...
my favourite scenes are:
Ophelia's Flower scene: Act 4 Scene 5
apparently there was a production once which saw Ophelia distributed broken and bent nails instead of flowers! i love her singing and MADNESS!
The Grave Digging scene : Act 5 Scene 1
the clowns at the start are terrific and they help tackle the great death questions...what happens when we die?
The Players:Act 3 Scene 2is Hamlet a director?he seems so energised by the performers and his passion to communicate through them is inspired.
wow...OK so i have really gone on this time (will try to be a little less gobby next time...i promise!), i could probably babble on further about how fantastic each character is and how i feel they have effected my reading of the play, but alas there isn't enough time!
if you haven't read Hamlet you should! or at least go and see it, there are a good few productions going on now or soon.
Productions of Hamlet
Royal National Theatre. Directed by Nicholas Hytner. Rory Kinnear (Hamlet), Clare Higgins (Gertrude), David Calder (Polonius). Milton Keynes Theatre, Milton Keynes, 1 – 5 March 2011 (0844 871 7652); Theatre Royal, Plymouth, 8 – 12 March 2011 (01752 267 222); Lyttelton Theatre, London, 13 – 23 April (020 7452 3000). www.nationaltheatre.org.uk
Northern Broadsides. Directed by Conrad Nelson. Nicholas Shaw (Hamlet), Finetime Fontayne (Claudius), Becky Hindley (Gertrude), Richard Evans (Polonius), Tom Kanji (Laertes) and Natalie Dew (Ophelia). New Victoria Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme, 25 February – 19 March (01782 717 962); Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, 22 – 26 March; Viaduct Theatre, Halifax, 29 March – 2 April; Canolfan y Celfyddyday Aberystwyth Arts Centre, Aberystwyth, 6 – 9 April; West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, 19 – 30 April; Theatre at the Mill, Belfast, 4 – 7 May; Gaiety Theatre, Isle of Man, 19 - 21 May; The Rose Theatre, Kingston, 24 – 28 May. www.northern-broadsides.co.uk
Stockport Garrick Theatre Company. Garrick Theatre, Stockport, 19 – 26 March (0161 480 5866). http://www.stockportgarrick.co.uk/
Brentwood Shakespeare Company. Directed by Glenda Abbott. Brentwood Theatre, 13-16 April (01277 200305). www.brentwood-theatre.org.
Shakespeare’s Globe Company. Directed by Dominic Dromgoole. Joshua McGuire (Hamlet). Strode Theatre, Street, 19 – 21 April (01458 442 846); Shakespeare’s Globe, London, 23 April - 9 July (020 7401 9919). [Small-scale tour - Part of the Word is God Theatre Season 2011]. http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/
Stamford Shakespeare. Rutland Open Air Theatre in the grounds of Tolethorpe Hall, Little Casterton, 5 July – 27 August (01780 756133). www.stamfordshakespeare.co.uk.
Young Vic Company. Directed by Ian Rickson. Michael Sheen (Hamlet). Young Vic Theatre, London, Winter 2011 (020 7922 2922). www.youngvic.org
i feel like we could all learn something from Hamlet, its just one of those things that is vast and endless in its giving....thank you for reading this epically long blog entry.
...next stop Twelfth Night!
Peace Out
Love
Sam
(The Bard Geek)
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