Sarah's Performance Review

I thoroughly enjoyed this production of Hamlet, I would see it again in a heartbeat.

Things I enjoyed:

• The music they played in between scenes- It intensified the effects of the ending scene, and built anticipation for the next. 
• The soliloquies- instead of having the actor be the only one on screen they just darkened everyone else, and slowed down time.  This had the excellent effect of really seeing into the characters mind. 
• Benedict Cumberbatch as Hamlet- who doesn't love Benedict Cumberbatch? He did a fantastic job. 
• The slowing down of time when Hamlet kills Laertes- this served to intensify and sadden the moment.
• The special effects- in particular the effect just before the intermission when what looks like black ash blows into the court. It was a deeply affecting symbol of the "something rotten in the state of Denmark." The camera shots also helped a lot with this because they blocked out anything that wasn't included in the special effect, making it the sole focus of attention. 

Things I enjoyed less:

• The costuming- for the most part it was well done, but there were times that the costumes were confusing and distracted me from what was actually happening onstage.    
• Ophelia- as mentioned by other classmates Ophelia's descent into madness could have been better portrayed.     

Continue Reading...

Isaac's Performance Analysis (now in technicolor)

This is now my favorite performance of Hamlet. If I ever end up teaching high school, this is definitely the adaptation that I will show to my students. It captures the feeling and the nuance of Hamlet, while including humor, emotion, and extraordinary stage choices. I will remark on what I saw as the most significant of these choices.

The first choice that stood out to me was the connection between the first and last scenes. In the first scene, everyone is clothed in white, with white hides draping the table and white flowers hanging from the ceiling. These white elements could symbolize life (in flowers) and death (in hides and antlers on the table). However, Hamlet, placed in the center of the table, is clothed all in black. He is the "angsty teenager" in this scene, brooding over his father's death and his mother's marriage. By contrast, in the last scene (shown above), everyone is clothed in black, except for Hamlet, who is clothed in radiant white. I could see this choice being read in two ways: 1) The white in the first scene is an ironic reading, showing how everyone thinks they're innocent but are really complicit in the murder of King Hamlet, except for Prince Hamlet himself, who is starting to see the corruption. This reading would suggest that in the end, Hamlet is the guilty one (of causing so much death and destruction), thinking he is innocent. This would also mean that everyone else is innocent, at least of the slaughter that has happened since Hamlet sees the ghost of his father. 2) The other way to read this would be to say that Hamlet is in mourning and trapped in inability, signified by the black, until the last scene, when he changes his character and decides that he will no longer sit in the den of indecision, but will fight. Either way, it is telling of how Hamlet changes during the play in relation to the rest of the cast.

Another choice (that has been touched on in others' posts) is in regards to time. Time is played with in many different ways during this production. Time slows down when Hamlet gives his soliloquies, showing how his thoughts race in real time while being surrounded by others. Time speeds up many times in between scenes (accompanied by a large musical bass element that gives a melancholy, intimidating feeling). These variations of time lend the most meaning to the play itself when Hamlet claims that his parents have been married for two hours. When questioned on this, he says that he has lost all concept of time. The choices of this production to use variations of time could be read as Hamlet's own experiences with time, that it slows down and speeds up as he experiences his grief. It could show how overwhelmed he is and how mad he is actually becoming.

Other things to remark on:

• Some productions portray Ophelia's madness as simply madness--numbness to reality--complete disjunction with what is happening in life. This production shows how she is mad but how that grows out of her grief for her father. I appreciated this connection to life and how she's not a completely different person. It becomes more sorrowful for me.

• The shadow on the wall of Hamlet considering murdering Claudius as he prays. It showed the actual dark powerful potential of Hamlet, although he never actually acts on that potential. 

• I thought it was interesting that they skipped the first scene. I didn't know what to make of that choice. 

Overall, it was a masterful performance by the actors, by the director, and by the stage manager. I'm glad that I was able to be exposed to this performance.

Continue Reading...

Micah's Performance Review

While I thought the National Theater Live take on Hamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch, was both fresh and engaging, I had a problem with three things:

1. Representation of Ophelia: Having read the play all of one time, I am a perfect expert on how this character should be portrayed on the stage. 

Kidding. But even with my amateur sense of Ophelia, I was a little disappointed with the actress playing her, Sian Brooke, or at least, how she was written. She seemed less like the favored daughter of the court than a timid little mouse, and while the scene where Cumberbatch's Hamlet confronts her was very effective, given how much larger he was, looming over her and menacing as he tells her, "get thee to a nunnery," the overall effect was dissatisfactory. Why? Because Ophelia is a mix of unrequited love, grief, confusion, frustrated hopes, obedience, beauty, despair--there's got to be emotion of all kinds, but most importantly, this sense of infectious madness that overtakes her as her world descends into lunacy. And while the actress was conveying emotion, I didn't really get a sense of deterioration. In one scene, she was timid. The next, upset. The next, grief-stricken. And that was as far as she went. She didn't go from obedient daughter to resident lunatic. Sure, they've got her wandering over a stage full of debris in a torn black dress. But even that wasn't far enough for me. And I disliked her haircut because it didn't look wild enough; the bangs were too rigidly controlled, even when she was supposed to be raving at Gertrude. 

2. Scenery:   As mentioned in Elise's post, the setting was a little confusing because they had props from different eras. For example, a stage straight from Victorian England, a war table from the London underground tunnels of Churchill, and then WWI-era soldiers. The one effective instance of this sort of chronological confusion was when Cumberbatch's Hamlet donned a makeshift doublet over his David Bowie t-shirt. Seeing him contemplate murder in Converses while fingering a rapier sort of symbolized his mental tumult and psychological confusion. At other points, however, the "timelessness" they were perhaps attempting to evoke became more distracting than anything. Besides that, there were all sorts of toys--wooden doll-houses, tin soldiers, and a rocking horse--beneath the stage. The soldiers became part of a scene with Hamlet (which I thought immensely effective) but the remainder of the toys' presence puzzled me. Did they symbolize a loss of childhood? A romantic Elizabethan world gone sour? The ghost of Christmases past? I really have no idea what they were going for.

3. Claudius' Evil Asides: They cut out several important lines in Act III, Scene I, where Claudius murmurs something about his conscience being awakened as Polonius is instructing Ophelia to put on a show of loveliness and occupation to catch Hamlet unawares when he "happens" upon her. While I doubt the staging could have allowed for these few lines to be delivered without stretching the audience's powers to believe the other characters' hadn't heard, I still feel that the audience loses something if they're left to suppose Claudius' conscience is awakened by the boldness of the play alone. His internal struggle is supposed to be building and building to the climatic moment where he prays and his nephew contemplates murder. It was perfectly all right as it was . . . but still. It bothered me. 

Everything I Loved:

- the guy playing Claudius, Ciaran Hinds--during his monologues, you could feel the twisted ambition oozing off of him like pus from a wound. It was great

- the guy playing Fortinbras--I don't know how he managed to convey the struggle of a grieving son in one scene, but he totally did. The backlighting and scenery really helped; he was literally overlooking a war-torn landscape

- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern--they seemed like two weird friends Hamlet would have, appropriately perplexed by his behaviors

- the scene with Hamlet peering over the balcony at his unrepentant uncle, the camera focusing on the shadow Cumberbatch cast on the wall--really got at the demons in Hamlet's mind

- The slow-motion movements of the actors during Hamlet's asides. This showed he was clearly removed from the world around him, despite being physically present.

- The soundtrack--overbearing, but effective.

- I don't know how you could get a better Hamlet than Cumberbatch. He was menacing at times, perpetually brooding, but so obviously despairing, you wanted to rush through the screen and hug him. His wild antics were appropriately ridiculous, his violence believable, and his interactions with Ophelia, Claudius, and his mother were thick with tensions and double entendres. During the play scene, he was practically snarling at Gertrude and Ophelia. Sometimes childlike and obviously missing his father, but just as often a dark incarnation of his former self, he knew how to appropriately convey internal tumult and profound mental conflict. It was all moving.
- the guy playing Horatio, Leo Bill. He just looks like Horatio, constant and practical and loyal to a fault. A bad casting choice could have really messed up the play, but he was the perfect fit

Continue Reading...

Karee's Performance Analysis of Hamlet

Hamlet, as well as many of Shakespeare's plays, has so many different elements to focus on and emphasize when performing it that each version can be so dramatically different than the next. I was impressed with the National Theater Live performance of Hamlet last night for many reasons: the actors, lighting, props, but most of all the use of music.

Music in this addition was used to amplify the emotions of certain characters. While I have seen versions of Hamlet that use music and sound effects to enhance the overall experience, in the National Theater Live's version of Hamlet, music is used by the characters in times of great emotion and seems to amplify the emotions of the characters.

Hamlet for example, is listening to a record when the play first begins. The music is slower and as I watched I could relate to the need to listen to music for comfort after a painful experience. The music amplifies Hamlet's sadness. While Hamlet is sitting looking through memories the music slows and eventually stops. Though the audience doesn't know, one can infer that this record might have belonged to his father, the late King Hamlet. And the emotions related to memories are running through Hamlet's mind as he listens. Hamlet restarts the music and seems to find the strength to go to dinner.

His record player comes out once again when Hamlet seems to have gone mad. He has reverted back to childish play and the music is upbeat and dramatic. Hamlet's dancing around with the music amplifies his going mad.

Ophelia also uses music to amplify her emotions, however, she makes her own music on the piano. First she plays a duet with her brother right before he leaves to go back to France. The music that they create together is sweet and flows. Contrasting with her later version of the music that seems to be broken, stuck on a note or rhythm, which not only amplifies her sadness/madness, but it also can symbolize what she has become: broken.

It is interesting that the directors decided to allow these characters to use music to amplify character's emotions because it invites the audience to feel with them. More sadness, more love, more confusion, and more madness. Music can add powerful emotions, but when actors us the music to let us into their heart, the effect is even more powerful.

Continue Reading...

Elise's Performance Analysis of Hamlet

Overall, the National Theatre Live was phenomenal. The actors performed stupendously, and I particularly enjoyed the depiction of soliloquies. Rather than completely isolating Hamlet, his thoughts are shown as happening simultaneously with a slowed-down version of reality as depicted by the characters around him. This helped the audience maintain Hamlet's feelings and actions in context.

The only trouble I encountered in this version of Hamlet was the unsuccessful attempt to incorporate different eras into the costuming. Horatio appeared to be a modern-day hipster, Ophelia seemed stuck in the sixties, while Gertrude stuck with a classical, timeless look. I spent so much time trying to decipher the visual clues (a camera, old-fashioned telephones, etc...) that it detracted from the performance. While I normally enjoy "modernizations" of classic literature, I feel that Hamlet's portrayal was only half-hearted.

However, as I mentioned before, this was the only complaint I had; all other aspects of the play were wonderful.

Continue Reading...