Tears at rehearsal

We begin our third week of rehearsals this afternoon, and everything is going swimmingly. The play is blocked, all of the roles are filled, and the work is coming along apace. The actors are making interesting choices, taking risks, and diving into creating indelible characters. So far, we’ve had both laughter and tears during rehearsal – portents of future excellence. Working out the nunnery scene with Hamlet and Ophelia last week had both me and DeeDee, the production coordinator, in tears, but then the actors broke off in the middle of the scene because, they said, they “weren’t feeling it.” We said, who cares if you’re not feeling it? We’re feeling it. DeeDee and I believe that they stopped because they were too close to something rippingly painful. It was beautiful and terrible. That’s the thing with Hamlet, I think. In order to do it justice, the actors have to go to some dark and painful places. It was the same with Macbeth two years ago. Luckily, there's plenty of humor in the play to offset the more intense scenes. Good on you, Shakespeare.

Casting

Casting was hard, as I knew it would be – not only because it always is, but also because the competition for Hamlet was earnest, and I knew going in that someone was going to be majorly disappointed. I just didn’t know who it would be. The two top contenders (and only fellows with the balls to try for it, BTW) are both excellent young actors, and both have played leading Shakespearean roles before: Luke was Biron in Loves Labors Lost, and Bragg was Petruchio in The Taming of the Shrew. Both memorized lengthy monologues for the audition, and both had moments of real grace. Neither was “better” than the other. Ultimately, the one not playing Hamlet would be playing Claudius, so the choice really came down to which Hamlet/Claudius configuration made the most sense. I believe we’ve made the best choice for the story we’re looking to tell, and I know that both of these actors will grow significantly as artists from this experience. Before auditions, I combined roles so that I needed seventeen actors to play the 28+ characters, but only eleven actors showed up to read, so I have cut a character and doubled more roles to make a cast of thirteen. I have complete confidence that we will find two actors to fill these nine multiple roles. One would think that kids would be lining up down the block to have the chance to be in a production of Hamlet, but one would be wrong. This makes me sad. Our organization exists in part to help people come to love Shakespeare as much as we all do, but it’s hard to break through that too-difficult-to-understand-it attitude people have. Due to the number of bitty roles the kids are going to have to play, we are pondering the idea of using masks for all of the minor characters. Since everyone in the play is lying and spying, it makes sense that some characters have actual masks while others have only the masks their faces can contrive – masks that are harder to perceive but which are there, as they are on all of us in our everyday lives. We will play with this idea for awhile and see if it’s a keeper. We start with our first table read tomorrow evening. If you know us, here’s the cast list. If you don’t know us, I’m pretty sure you’ll be hearing some of these names again: Luke Tyson (Hamlet); Bragg Hammac (Claudius); Sydney Yeager (Ophelia); Gennifer Lundquist (Polonius, priest); Lila Brustad (Gertrude); Caroline Sullivan (Laertes, player); Grace Trombly (Horatio); Daisy Brustad (Rosa Crantz, Clown 1, Francisco); Hanna Hammac (Gilda Stern, Clown 2, Bernardo); JD Thiemann (Ghost, pirate, player, Fortinbras); Emily Hammac (Marcellus, captain, player, pirate).

Two Days Before Auditions

In two days, we will cast the Southeastern Teen Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet. It’s our tenth anniversary year, so we’re finally mounting the mother of all Shakespeare plays. It’s the play I’ve seen produced most often. I’ve seen Val Kilmer, Stephen Lang, and Ralph Fiennes perform it professionally (Val Kilmer was my favorite), I’ve seen local college productions, and I’ve (of course) seen all the movie versions. In all of these productions, there has been something lacking for me, and I hope to find what that is in this process. And I hope that in our production there will be nothing lacking. Some people would say attempting a production of Hamlet is insanity itself, much less attempting a production with teenagers. And yet the wisdom of teenagers has surprised me again and again in the seven years I’ve been directing this company. However, as this is our tenth anniversary year, we have invited company alums, who might have reached the sage age of as much as 29, to come and play. The cast will be a mixture of young actors who have experience playing in such works as Macbeth, The Tempest, and Love’s Labor’s Lost along with actors who have never been on stage before. The learning curve is huge. Hamlet is a four hour play. I have cut it down to three hours. I couldn’t find ways to cut more than that without seriously affecting the flow. We have six weeks of rehearsal, and we will be rehearsing afternoon and evening. Can we produce a coherent and effective Hamlet in that amount of time? I think we can. I will be writing about the experience here. I hope my language doesn’t become too pointed when I become frustrated (and I know I will). The venue where we are renting space for the production has informed us that they cannot give us any platforms except for the squeaky, portable units that they rarely use and keep piled in a closet. So, no levels. I have worked out a design using those platforms that I believe will work effectively for the staging. We will attempt to fix the squeak with a little 3-and-1 oil, but if we are unsuccessful (WD40 failed us in the past), I do hope that the squeaking of the stage will add to the atmosphere. Cross your fingers. We will not be updating the play. Sets and costumes will be minimal. We will be mining the language and reaching deep for substance. We will not play the caricatures I have too often seen. We will not play the “English teacher’s” version. We will begin by tossing out everything we’ve ever seen or read: we will begin with the words. I will report on our challenges (and triumphs) as they arise.