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3rd Feb 2008, Hoxton Hall
Claudius - Jonathan
Hamlet - Alex
Gertrude - Linda
Polonius - Nigel
Laertes - Simon
Ophelia - Marianne
Horatio - Jack
Rosencrantz - Jethro
Guildenstern - Scott
Ghost - Scott
Osrick - Jethro
Francisco - Jethro
Barnardo - Tim
Marcellus - Max
First Gravedigger - Nigel
Second Gravedigger - Scott
Priest - Catherine
Fortinbras - Steff/Rhys
First Player - Catherine
Ambassador - Claire
MC - Sarah
Audience - 120ish
Act 1: Conventional set-up, audience in rows in the stalls and in the balcony.
Act 2: The stage-right half of the balcony was the playing space, with audience on the rest of the balcony and below.
Act 3: In separate studio space, with random tables, chairs and two mini staircases in the space.
Act 4: In the stalls, four rostra spaced out, audience filling the space between them (Obstruction: could only speak if on top of a rostrum)
Act 5: Random – audience wherever they wanted, actors the same.
Act 1 didn’t start with the pace it could have, as lots of cues were dropped. There were several sorts of bells among the props, and these became partisans. The entrance of the ghost (Scott’s debut in the role) picked up on this musical theme, as he wielded a tube-thing (not sure what they’re called) that emitted a humming note. The ghost was a man on a mission, storming about the space in his search to find Hamlet, leaping on and off the stage, and over balcony rails. It was pointed out afterwards that Marcellus’ line ‘Shall I strike it with my partisan’ would carry more weight if he had not already been using his partisan. An Easter egg was used in a very clear explanation of the Fortinbras situation, and a bag of mini-eggs inside the big egg became ‘Young Fortinbras’.
In scene 2, the court took to the stage. Hamlet’s defiance of Claudius saw him refuse to join the court, preferring to sit in among the audience in the balcony wearing his angel wings. His soliloquy was delivered as he perched on the balcony rail, and although he was calm and clear, there was a very real menace that he could throw him off the balcony at any moment.
In scene 3, Laertes had to shout for Ophelia, begging her to write to him, before she materialised from behind the curtain where she had been hiding. Polonius gave Laertes an alarm clock for his blessing, before seating himself at the top of the stage in order to lecture him.
The boys gathered to wait for the ghost, and its humming sound was heard before it appeared. When the ghost confided in Hamlet, it was with a real sense of urgency, stealing looks around as if at any moment he might have to leave. Hamlet made the boys ‘swear on his sword’ by forcing them to wear a large strap-on, and masturbate with it. Although the audience thought this was hilarious, Alex and co. did well not to play up to situation, instead staying focused on the scene and the seriousness of the, albeit bizarre, situation.
Overall in act 1, I think we fulfilled the tasks we'd set ourselves of playing forward actions, speaking precise verse, picking up cues (for the most part) and playing across the space. Everyone had thrown themselves into claiming the space by ‘pissing on the corners’, but it was noted afterwards that maybe we were too afraid of using the space conventionally – very little happened on the actual stage, and while lots of exciting action happened among the audience, this made it difficult for people at the back of the balcony to see what was going on.
Act 2 took place on one half of the balcony. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were presented a cowboy hat and feather boa by Claudius (Rosencrantz getting the hat, not the boa, much to his disappointment). Polonius used a little guitar as Hamlet’s letters to Ophelia, making Claudius and Gertrude strum it while he sung the letter (a lovely example of sharing the props).
Hamlet entered dressed in a nurse’s apron with a giant thermometer, and his dialogue with Polonius proceeded with him testing his own temperature, Polonius’, and audience members’ as well – ‘words, words, words’ becoming someone’s pulse. R & G entered dressed in their cowboy/girl attire, and this prompted a cowboy shoot-out game with Hamlet. At this point the scene started to lose its focus, as the game became more important than the text being spoken, but they were back on track by the time they got to ‘I will tell you why…’.
The players strode onto the balcony (Catherine making her debut as Player King), and the speeches were delivered simply and honestly. As Polonius stopped the speech, worried that the player had ‘tears in’s eyes’, the Player King smiled and reassured him that she was fine.
Act 3 moved the audience to the studio, which had been filled randomly with bits of furniture, and two small stairs in the middle of the space forming a pyramid. The nunnery scene was full of tension as Ophelia and Hamlet desperately battled for what they wanted. What started as a fairly calm scene, in which Ophelia gave Hamlet back the A-Z he had given her (which to me was very moving, as I saw it at a remembrance of all the places they had been together), soon spiralled out of control – in an exciting way. Ophelia offered Hamlet some melted ice-pops, which she had been eating, and taking one he then threw it at her, prompting her to throw a handful at him. Not to be outdone, he hauled her up the steps, and rubbed more of the liquid into her hair and face. Then full of remorse, he took out his handkerchief and tenderly tried to clean her. Embarrassed and without any thing left to do, he ran away, leaving her alone on the steps for ‘O what a noble mind’.
The mousetrap scene lost a lot of clarity, as there was some confusion over the dumbshow. One of the players had established themselves on the steps during the "for us and for our tragedy" song, with a packet of tissues, ready to enact the story. Another player, not seeing this had happened, pulled up two members of the audience and used them to tell the story. They joined forces, and used the tissues as the poison, but even so, a lot of the dumbshow was unfortunately out of sight of most of the audience and the court, as it was not on any platform or 'stage', which the original player had tried to establish.
The pipes became a set of Russian dolls, and Claudius’ praying was done, simply, on the steps in the centre of the room - leaving him exposed to Hamlet's near attack.
The closet scene was extremely vibrant, as Hamlet and Gertrude refused to give in to each other (another good example of the work that we did with Louis paying off). Polonius was killed by Hamlet wanking (an echo of the strap-on from act 1), and clutched his own crotch in a deathly pose. Hamlet then discovered he was not the King, and in disgust threw him out of the room. He showed Gertrude pictures of her husbands by getting two audience members to stand on tables – this produced a huge amount of laughter from what I presume were friends of one of the guys on the table, which didn’t die down for several minutes. Hamlet, simultaneously, was desperately trying to get through to his mother, and angered by the lack of respect for the situation, shamed the audience into silence by shouting ‘HA HA, HA HA, HA HA, HA HA, HA HA’ at them (iambically, incredibly!).
Act 4 was back in the music hall, with the rule of only being able to speak if standing on one of the four rostra. This slowed the start of the act, as lines were broken and cues were dropped if people weren’t on a rostrum already, but everyone quickly adapted to the new rules. There was a great moment when Hamlet didn’t want to answer Claudius, and so just didn’t get on any of the rostra – R & G had to bodily lift him onto one to make him speak.
Fortinbras emerged, creating an army by giving the audience mini-eggs, keeping the continuity from the mini-eggs in the first act. An enthusiastic Captain joined in, leaping onto a rostrum in order to fulfil the obstruction.
Ophelia’s madness was heartbreaking, as she donned a cat mask to sing. Laertes’ entrance was preceded by his alarm clock going off (the clock his Dad had given him in act 1). Ophelia raced back into the space with a sack of onions, and spilled them everywhere while singing – but not on a rostrum. Suddenly realising her mistake she leapt guiltily onto one, and then began deliriously laughing. She gave out onions as the remembrances, and started peeling one, trying to feed it to Laertes – when he resisted, she spat some in his face, and he had to physically restrain her from attacking him further.
Horatio used a green hula-hoop as Hamlet’s letter, and got more and more confident at swinging it round his body. The same hula-hoop was the letter given to Claudius – presented by two messengers, both with the same idea, battling for supremacy. Claudius was a little less eager to use the hula-hoop than Horatio had been, and at first opted to hold onto it and rotate it round his body. Some good natured booing by other cast members forced him to go for it properly, and so he read the letter.
I was struck by the stillness in the room, during Gertrude’s ‘willow’ speech and the total devastation of Laertes.
Act 5 was spread all over the space, with audience members perching themselves on the stage, balconies, and even on top of the piano. The gravediggers used a ball of string to turn the space into a giant irregular web.
The funeral party sang as they brought on Ophelia, and she was buried by being showered with vitamin pills and then putting on a pair of goggles. The fight over her grave was like a game of cat and mouse in the maze of string.
Osrick was a cool dude in his shades, which he wore with pride when it was ‘hot and sultry’.
The foils for the duel were a packet of dried beans, and a handful of each were given to Hamlet and Laertes. The duel was a competition to see who could hit a bar way up on the ceiling with a bean, and Hamlet, much to his surprise, hit it on his first go. In the following rounds he was less successful, so resorted to throwing handfuls at a time, much to Laertes’ outrage. The cup was a flag, and so the dead bodies filled the space.
The final tableau was all the remaining courtiers kneeling behind Hamlet’s body, and Fortinbras waited for the picture to be complete before commanding ‘Go bid the soldiers shoot’.
We discussed afterwards how whenever the scenes were lacking in any way, it was almost always down to dropped cues. It was decided that there really was no excuse for dropping cues at this stage in the game, and that that was something we would really need to work on next week.
We also discussed death, and whether we were making death significant enough. It was pointed out that actually it was as much the living characters' responsibilities to react to what was happening in front of them, and that that would imbue the deathly poses with something interesting, rather than it just being a sort of meaningless statue. Leading on from that, we discussed the role of the court in general, and agreed that we should all be far more active as a court, and should not feel like we are just padding out a scene. Again, that was something we wanted to work on next week.
The failure of the mousetrap was discussed, and although it’s a tricky part of the play since there is so much going on and so many characters involved, we thought that we could do better and find far more interesting options than the ‘safe’ ones we’ve been doing so far. The movement session that we did with Sian was commented on, and we reflected that in performance we’ve never done a dumbshow half as interesting as the ones we produced then.
Overall, in my opinion, it was a strong, exciting show.
Bedi
Hamlet - Alex
Gertrude - Linda
Polonius - Nigel
Laertes - Simon
Ophelia - Marianne
Horatio - Jack
Rosencrantz - Jethro
Guildenstern - Scott
Ghost - Scott
Osrick - Jethro
Francisco - Jethro
Barnardo - Tim
Marcellus - Max
First Gravedigger - Nigel
Second Gravedigger - Scott
Priest - Catherine
Fortinbras - Steff/Rhys
First Player - Catherine
Ambassador - Claire
MC - Sarah
Audience - 120ish
Act 1: Conventional set-up, audience in rows in the stalls and in the balcony.
Act 2: The stage-right half of the balcony was the playing space, with audience on the rest of the balcony and below.
Act 3: In separate studio space, with random tables, chairs and two mini staircases in the space.
Act 4: In the stalls, four rostra spaced out, audience filling the space between them (Obstruction: could only speak if on top of a rostrum)
Act 5: Random – audience wherever they wanted, actors the same.
Act 1 didn’t start with the pace it could have, as lots of cues were dropped. There were several sorts of bells among the props, and these became partisans. The entrance of the ghost (Scott’s debut in the role) picked up on this musical theme, as he wielded a tube-thing (not sure what they’re called) that emitted a humming note. The ghost was a man on a mission, storming about the space in his search to find Hamlet, leaping on and off the stage, and over balcony rails. It was pointed out afterwards that Marcellus’ line ‘Shall I strike it with my partisan’ would carry more weight if he had not already been using his partisan. An Easter egg was used in a very clear explanation of the Fortinbras situation, and a bag of mini-eggs inside the big egg became ‘Young Fortinbras’.
In scene 2, the court took to the stage. Hamlet’s defiance of Claudius saw him refuse to join the court, preferring to sit in among the audience in the balcony wearing his angel wings. His soliloquy was delivered as he perched on the balcony rail, and although he was calm and clear, there was a very real menace that he could throw him off the balcony at any moment.
In scene 3, Laertes had to shout for Ophelia, begging her to write to him, before she materialised from behind the curtain where she had been hiding. Polonius gave Laertes an alarm clock for his blessing, before seating himself at the top of the stage in order to lecture him.
The boys gathered to wait for the ghost, and its humming sound was heard before it appeared. When the ghost confided in Hamlet, it was with a real sense of urgency, stealing looks around as if at any moment he might have to leave. Hamlet made the boys ‘swear on his sword’ by forcing them to wear a large strap-on, and masturbate with it. Although the audience thought this was hilarious, Alex and co. did well not to play up to situation, instead staying focused on the scene and the seriousness of the, albeit bizarre, situation.
Overall in act 1, I think we fulfilled the tasks we'd set ourselves of playing forward actions, speaking precise verse, picking up cues (for the most part) and playing across the space. Everyone had thrown themselves into claiming the space by ‘pissing on the corners’, but it was noted afterwards that maybe we were too afraid of using the space conventionally – very little happened on the actual stage, and while lots of exciting action happened among the audience, this made it difficult for people at the back of the balcony to see what was going on.
Act 2 took place on one half of the balcony. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were presented a cowboy hat and feather boa by Claudius (Rosencrantz getting the hat, not the boa, much to his disappointment). Polonius used a little guitar as Hamlet’s letters to Ophelia, making Claudius and Gertrude strum it while he sung the letter (a lovely example of sharing the props).
Hamlet entered dressed in a nurse’s apron with a giant thermometer, and his dialogue with Polonius proceeded with him testing his own temperature, Polonius’, and audience members’ as well – ‘words, words, words’ becoming someone’s pulse. R & G entered dressed in their cowboy/girl attire, and this prompted a cowboy shoot-out game with Hamlet. At this point the scene started to lose its focus, as the game became more important than the text being spoken, but they were back on track by the time they got to ‘I will tell you why…’.
The players strode onto the balcony (Catherine making her debut as Player King), and the speeches were delivered simply and honestly. As Polonius stopped the speech, worried that the player had ‘tears in’s eyes’, the Player King smiled and reassured him that she was fine.
Act 3 moved the audience to the studio, which had been filled randomly with bits of furniture, and two small stairs in the middle of the space forming a pyramid. The nunnery scene was full of tension as Ophelia and Hamlet desperately battled for what they wanted. What started as a fairly calm scene, in which Ophelia gave Hamlet back the A-Z he had given her (which to me was very moving, as I saw it at a remembrance of all the places they had been together), soon spiralled out of control – in an exciting way. Ophelia offered Hamlet some melted ice-pops, which she had been eating, and taking one he then threw it at her, prompting her to throw a handful at him. Not to be outdone, he hauled her up the steps, and rubbed more of the liquid into her hair and face. Then full of remorse, he took out his handkerchief and tenderly tried to clean her. Embarrassed and without any thing left to do, he ran away, leaving her alone on the steps for ‘O what a noble mind’.
The mousetrap scene lost a lot of clarity, as there was some confusion over the dumbshow. One of the players had established themselves on the steps during the "for us and for our tragedy" song, with a packet of tissues, ready to enact the story. Another player, not seeing this had happened, pulled up two members of the audience and used them to tell the story. They joined forces, and used the tissues as the poison, but even so, a lot of the dumbshow was unfortunately out of sight of most of the audience and the court, as it was not on any platform or 'stage', which the original player had tried to establish.
The pipes became a set of Russian dolls, and Claudius’ praying was done, simply, on the steps in the centre of the room - leaving him exposed to Hamlet's near attack.
The closet scene was extremely vibrant, as Hamlet and Gertrude refused to give in to each other (another good example of the work that we did with Louis paying off). Polonius was killed by Hamlet wanking (an echo of the strap-on from act 1), and clutched his own crotch in a deathly pose. Hamlet then discovered he was not the King, and in disgust threw him out of the room. He showed Gertrude pictures of her husbands by getting two audience members to stand on tables – this produced a huge amount of laughter from what I presume were friends of one of the guys on the table, which didn’t die down for several minutes. Hamlet, simultaneously, was desperately trying to get through to his mother, and angered by the lack of respect for the situation, shamed the audience into silence by shouting ‘HA HA, HA HA, HA HA, HA HA, HA HA’ at them (iambically, incredibly!).
Act 4 was back in the music hall, with the rule of only being able to speak if standing on one of the four rostra. This slowed the start of the act, as lines were broken and cues were dropped if people weren’t on a rostrum already, but everyone quickly adapted to the new rules. There was a great moment when Hamlet didn’t want to answer Claudius, and so just didn’t get on any of the rostra – R & G had to bodily lift him onto one to make him speak.
Fortinbras emerged, creating an army by giving the audience mini-eggs, keeping the continuity from the mini-eggs in the first act. An enthusiastic Captain joined in, leaping onto a rostrum in order to fulfil the obstruction.
Ophelia’s madness was heartbreaking, as she donned a cat mask to sing. Laertes’ entrance was preceded by his alarm clock going off (the clock his Dad had given him in act 1). Ophelia raced back into the space with a sack of onions, and spilled them everywhere while singing – but not on a rostrum. Suddenly realising her mistake she leapt guiltily onto one, and then began deliriously laughing. She gave out onions as the remembrances, and started peeling one, trying to feed it to Laertes – when he resisted, she spat some in his face, and he had to physically restrain her from attacking him further.
Horatio used a green hula-hoop as Hamlet’s letter, and got more and more confident at swinging it round his body. The same hula-hoop was the letter given to Claudius – presented by two messengers, both with the same idea, battling for supremacy. Claudius was a little less eager to use the hula-hoop than Horatio had been, and at first opted to hold onto it and rotate it round his body. Some good natured booing by other cast members forced him to go for it properly, and so he read the letter.
I was struck by the stillness in the room, during Gertrude’s ‘willow’ speech and the total devastation of Laertes.
Act 5 was spread all over the space, with audience members perching themselves on the stage, balconies, and even on top of the piano. The gravediggers used a ball of string to turn the space into a giant irregular web.
The funeral party sang as they brought on Ophelia, and she was buried by being showered with vitamin pills and then putting on a pair of goggles. The fight over her grave was like a game of cat and mouse in the maze of string.
Osrick was a cool dude in his shades, which he wore with pride when it was ‘hot and sultry’.
The foils for the duel were a packet of dried beans, and a handful of each were given to Hamlet and Laertes. The duel was a competition to see who could hit a bar way up on the ceiling with a bean, and Hamlet, much to his surprise, hit it on his first go. In the following rounds he was less successful, so resorted to throwing handfuls at a time, much to Laertes’ outrage. The cup was a flag, and so the dead bodies filled the space.
The final tableau was all the remaining courtiers kneeling behind Hamlet’s body, and Fortinbras waited for the picture to be complete before commanding ‘Go bid the soldiers shoot’.
We discussed afterwards how whenever the scenes were lacking in any way, it was almost always down to dropped cues. It was decided that there really was no excuse for dropping cues at this stage in the game, and that that was something we would really need to work on next week.
We also discussed death, and whether we were making death significant enough. It was pointed out that actually it was as much the living characters' responsibilities to react to what was happening in front of them, and that that would imbue the deathly poses with something interesting, rather than it just being a sort of meaningless statue. Leading on from that, we discussed the role of the court in general, and agreed that we should all be far more active as a court, and should not feel like we are just padding out a scene. Again, that was something we wanted to work on next week.
The failure of the mousetrap was discussed, and although it’s a tricky part of the play since there is so much going on and so many characters involved, we thought that we could do better and find far more interesting options than the ‘safe’ ones we’ve been doing so far. The movement session that we did with Sian was commented on, and we reflected that in performance we’ve never done a dumbshow half as interesting as the ones we produced then.
Overall, in my opinion, it was a strong, exciting show.
Bedi
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Thread started: Feb 4 2008, 7:20 PM EST
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Great write-up Bedi, and fab MC-ing yesterday.
Also worth noting that whilst the audience found the strap-on scene hilarious, I've heard that in biblical times men would grab their testicles to swear the truth, or "testify"! |
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