Hamlet

Thanks Gordon, for clarifying....and for being a good sport. >>"Like the myriad of kids and teachers, I thought I was about to see Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ and so foolishly spent much of the performance trying read between the lines, in order to link your contemporary production to the theme and gist of the true version." Do you NOT think you saw Shakespeare's Hamlet?? While Steven made edits to the script (as do virtually all productions), the script was undoubtably Shakespeare's. What do you mean by 'the theme and gist of the true version'? While we have modernised the setting, virtually every decision was in order to strengthen and clarify the 'theme and gist' of character relationships, situation, and plot, in the eyes of our modern audience. It is therefore very true to the text. I assume by 'true version' you mean 'original version', in which case you are not talking about the script, which remains constant, but of directing choices. And obviously, the original production of Hamlet would have been staged in a style that would seem relevant and comprehensible to the audience of the time. You call ours a 'contemporary production' but we are doing no less than Shakespeare's own King's Men would have done with the text...performed it in a style accessible to the audience it was played for. I personally consider it an odd concept to believe that the 'true' way of performing something would be to adopt a style and costume from 400 years ago. Shakespeare didn't ever do that. That's not a play so much as it is a history lesson. You know I took no issue with any of your OPINIONS of the show - thankfully most of them were highly positive! I respect both your RIGHT to have any opinion, and the ACTUAL opinions you put forward. No conflict there. It was purely and simply the demonstrably incorrect statements (that can be verified as such from the script) that I was making fun of. "Who cares, it wasn’t 1600." In my experience of seeing any Shakespeare play, it is pretty rare that it will actually be set in 1600. They are almost always set in a different time to when it was written - most often in the current era of the audience watching, but a close second is to set it in a time consistent with a particular design element (the 70's hippy era, or the 40's war era, etc). As it's almost a given it wouldn't be set in 1600, it seemed quite odd for you to arbitrarily decide it was set 9 years ago....but I see now perhaps you meant to say this DECADE of the 2000's, and so you are definitely right. The point of 'Denmark Corp' was to justify the script mentions of Denmark, while we were denying it to be the country. (I've since discovered it's exactly what Michael Almereyda did in his film starring Ethan Hawke and Kyle MacLachlan, making Hamlet's world an American business corporation. Or you might be more familiar with Baz Luhrman's film of Romeo & Juliet, where he gives their pistols brandnames like 'Rapier' to avoid changing any of the dialogue.) If you didn't find that clear, I guess it wasn't. I guess the film is still a bit confusing to you. There is NO paraphrasing. It is the 'play within a play' (to catch the conscience of the king) spoken by the player King and player Queen. Shakespeare himself names it 'The Mousetrap'...nothing to do with Agatha Christie! In the original staging, Hamlet tells some actors to enact a particular murder story in front of his uncle. In our version, Hamlet tells some mates to make a film of it to show his uncle. (It solved us needing any more than 7 in the cast). Hamlet makes so many comments degrading the performance, that it is not uncommon to take it that the players aren't actually that good...so in parallel we deliberately have a film that is rather cheesily made. And so the jokes of the Dallas theme, and to put Rosencrantz and Guildernstern (who do not appear in our version) in the credits, were simply that - jokes. I thought most people got this, but obviously some did not. I'm interested to find out if you really thought Hamlet was 'thinking of his mother' when he hesitated over Ophelia because of anything I ACTUALLY conveyed, or whether you have imposed this interpretation simply because you had previously heard of the Oedipus complex links? As I thought I explained to Garreth, I certainly didn't doubt that there is a theory of the Oedipus complex related to Hamlet - in fact I emphasised that there IS, because what I DID doubt was that it is CONTROVERSIAL. That's the only word I was taking issue with. I think the Freudian reading is rather a common interpretation, so not controversial at all. Having said that, MY interpretation of Hamlet's moment with Ophelia was a moment of personal confusion, shame and regret..even as he expressed anger and longing. After all, later in the play Hamlet professes that he really loved Ophelia, and I choose to believe him. I therefore need to believe there is hope of a relationship in the previous scene, even as Hamlet screws it up. And so for me, while he both loves and despises his mother, there is no consideration of a desire to sleep with her; so in our production at least, there is no Oedipus complex as it is commonly understood. Maybe you saw an Oedipus simplex. I concede that perhaps 100 students (probably more) may horrify me with their lack of knowledge about this play...but it doesn't alter the point I was making to Garreth, which was that I consider the INTERPRETATION of a classic play to be more interesting than the REITERATION OF THE SCRIPT. (hint.) Cheers, Craig PS I'm still interested to know just where the 'Catholic vs Protestant' theory can be demonstrated... Feel free to let me know via Facebook. ~<8>-/====\---------