Ways to stage old chestnut Hamlet by Aaron Beall Essay Example For Students

Ways to stage old chestnut Hamlet by Aaron Beall Essay How many ways are there to stage that old chestnut Hamlet? In more ways than are dreamt of in your philosophy, according to Aaron Beall, executive director of New York Citys NADA Inc. A four-month marathon of more than 20 different Hamletsproductions featuring rap, video, pantomime and even animal actswill all fret their hours upon this downtown experimental stage, allowing the best and brightest of New Yorks avant-garde to take their stabs at the gloomy Dane. And although it may be the most written-about play of all time, Beall calls Hamlet an incredibly elusive and mysterious workand this festival proves that the play means something vastly different to everyone who touches it. We will write a custom essay on Ways to stage old chestnut Hamlet by Aaron Beall specifically for you for only $16.38 $13.9/page Order now Neither a borrower nor a lender he: Beall notes that his budget-less festival, which began in September and continues through Dec. 5, is an enormous challenge, financially speaking. What started as a bare-bones production of the second quarto bloomed into a Hamletathon when he discovered that Hamlet is a story that so many downtown artists want to tell in their own ways. Soon, everybody seemed to have a Hamlet they wanted to do. Included in the festival are Heiner Mullers HAMLET-MACHINE (performed in four back-to-back productions in different locations), the world premiere of Andres Ibanezs Ophelia, Arden Partys solo-Hamlet, Janice Hoffmans Gertrudes Revenge and Tom Stoppards Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Though this be madness, yet there is method int: Beall has set up a Hamlet Hotline offering up-to-the-minute information for the intrepid theatregoer. The festivals an opportunity for people to see so many fresh takes on this playand none of them are frivolous. With the amazing range of performers in this festival we will all learn so much more about Hamlet, and especially what the play means to our generation. In factfor those TV-weaned twentysomethings whove only seen Hamlet staged on Gilligans Island (episode #78, starring Phil Silvers as the marooned metteur-enscene, Harold Hecuba)NADA will remount the popular TV sitcoms musical version alongside more traditional renderings. Still, many of the artists promise productions closer to Old Vic at night than Nick at Nite. The festival opened with Randolph Curtis Rands staging of The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke, a presentation of the complete second quarto (circa 1604). One thing that is immediately apparent in Q2 is that the cuts made in the First Folio of 20-odd years later make sense, says Rand. Many of Q2s speeches were later shortened to keep the action going, but at the expense of some of the characters. Rosencrantz, for example, slings some arrows of gossip with Hamlet in Q2, and Fortinbras becomes a meatier role. Still, Rand thinks that even with the roughly 1,500 extra lines of dialogue, his Q2 represented a rare opportunity to see the urtext of Hamlet. Outline1 A dunghill idiot slave  2 Trippingly off the tongue  3 A peep show for passersby   A dunghill idiot slave   This script is not to be confused with the first quarto (Q1)the infamous bad quartostaged in the marathon by Benjamin Lloyd. Q1 is in many ways a more modern Hamlet, says Lloyd, who couldnt resist undertaking the title role. Its about two-thirds the length of the First Folio, and the action plays more quickly. Hamlet is a character less in the throes of indecision, and more along the lines of a revenge tragedy anti-hero. Its more Jacobean than Elizabethan, and its fragmentary feeling gives it a cinematic quality. Q1 focuses like a laser beam on betrayal and retribution, and Hamlets ruminations are more off-color. (O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I becomes O, what a dunghill idiot slave am I). Lloyd is eager to prove that the so-called bad quarto (most scholars contend that the first quarto was not written by Shakespeare) is not bad at all, and his edited version of Q1 may be the only playscript of its kind. Because its been buried under the scorn of academe for so long, few peop le even know it exists, Lloyd says. .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 , .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .postImageUrl , .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 , .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4:hover , .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4:visited , .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4:active { border:0!important; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4:active , .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4 .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u14293b4b95790ecec94775d04877b7a4:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Hamlet - Comment on Humanity EssayGet thee to a nunnery: Feminist interpreters have often wrought textual revenge on Hamlet, and director Deb Margolin has her own insights into the play, as realized in her Whats With Hamlet?, a work originally staged at WOW Care in 1989. Clearly, Hamlet is in love with Horatio as much as he is with Ophelia, Margolin reasons. If he had been allowed to have sex with Horatio, or have a reasonable philosophical discourse with Ophelia, there would be no need for the carnage all over the stage at the end. To theatricalize this premise, Margolins all-female cast featured the same actress playing Horatio and Ophelia, and an offstage voice that Hamlet (played by Margolin) turns to for guidance during his her moments of hesitation, And her advice to her players? Its an extravaganza and it should get a lot of laughs. Yes, Hamlets a sexist play, but its also a very sexy play. I want to celebrate that, and have fun with it. Trippingly off the tongue   David Herskovits the director of Target Margin Theater who is returning to NADA after his go-for-the-throat Titus Andronicus two years ago also cast a woman as Hamlet, but sees the leap of gender like any other leap an actor makes in performance, such as playing the King of Denmark, for example. In fact, it is to this gap between an actors mask and characterthat Herskovits wants to call attention. All the characters of Hamlet are famously complex. Instead of finding the psychology beforehand, I want to blow up the theatricality from moment to moment, and let the spectator figure out the motivations after the fact. Much of the play was cut, keeping many oft-quoted passages trippingly off the actors tongues including the text of all the soliloquies. But the soliloquies are still very much there, he insists. The point is to refocus the interest back onto the soliloquies, but through the silence through what the characters are not saying.The plays the thang: Rob Krakovski explains that h is rap Hamlet: The Trage-D of Prince Hammy T by Chill Will, co-written with Geoff Lower, treats the story of Hamlet as a current event, and shows how its been manipulated and distorted by the media. The rap sets it all straightwith rappers in character delivering rap soliloquiesand the play within the play becomes a rap video. Krakovski generated ersatz news events (a la Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous coverage of the royal wedding of Claudius and Gertrude) to point up the fourth estates hand in the rottenness of Denmark. A lot of rap music is interested in sampling other music, he says, and Im sampling Hamlet along with contemporary works and bits and pieces of other Shakespeare to complete the text. But if you really think Hamlets a great Dane, then youd have loved Gary Goldbergs Hamster, starring Duck, Goldbergs Golden Retriever, as Horatio. (Initially intending to cast a pen full of pigs in his two-hour language-less performance, Goldberg soon discovered that they were too messy.) Animal acts are a tricky business, but Beall insists that Hamster is a serious exploration of the tragedy, and Goldberg is quick to point out that the other characters will be played by humans. A peep show for passersby   To sleep, perchance to dream: For those who havent gone home to sleep, midnight cabaret performances in the marathon include painter/writer Kathy Hemingway-Jones in her multimedia interpretation of the play; Rob Roy in Words, Words, Words: A Video Hamlet by Mark Young; and performance-art doyen Stuart Sherman in a post-narrative presentation of Hamlet (Or Else What?), first staged 10 years ago. Beall will close the festival with a self-directed solo production titled A Play Within a Player using only one chair, one film projector and one screen.Its as much of the First Folio as one actor can do alone and the audience can stilt find bearable, Beall muses. All the curtains will come down for A Play Within a Player, and the turned-around audience will be able to view the passersby on Ludlow Street (who will, in turn, be able to view the performance in the theatre) throughout the evening. Beall explains: I want to contrast the life inside the playwright with the actors inner life, as wel l as the life inside the theatre with the life out on the street. .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 , .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .postImageUrl , .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 , .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50:hover , .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50:visited , .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50:active { border:0!important; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50:active , .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50 .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .ued546ad5277bae2c22e6ed1414d58e50:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: Seers on the rim EssayNADA has made a bargain with itself to do the same thing with a 20-play Faust Fest next year, and Beall feels confident that there are plenty of downtown artists with similar strivings. He likes the idea of opening each season with a four-month exploration of one play. Of course, he adds, it has to be a great script like Hamlet, or there wouldnt be enough interest.