Hamlet

"Ten thousand dancing girls kicking cans across the sky
No reason why
Why ask to pay yourself for the call of the wild?
You found this child
Now raise him."

-- "These Are the Fables," by The New Pornographers

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Some Thoughts About the Staging of Hamlet:

(A play I would love to act in and perhaps, some day, direct)

A friend from an acting summer job some years ago was tagged in a Facebook album entitled, simply, “Hamlet.” The production appears legitimate--that is, professional--because the production value is high. Crisp costumes. Thought-provoking stage pictures. Bold lighting, very bold. And, though what is captured by a camera by no means bears exact resemblance to the actual happening on stage, clear acting. Clicking through the photos, I can usually tell what part of the play we’re in; for some photos, I can guess at the specific line.

So, props to the photographer. The photos make me want to see the show, which is exactly what production shots should do.

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There's a specific photo that received no caption and as of yet no comment, probably because the captured image speaks for itself. The scene is obvious: Claudius, shaken from the play-within-the-play, is attempting to pray. Hamlet comes upon him and draws his sword, only to put it back up again. After Hamlet leaves for his mother's room, Claudius reveals that he is unable to pray earnestly.

Wonderful scene, right? It's fraught with tension, as critics like to say, and Hamlet's decision not to kill Claudius is a perfect example of dramatic irony. Tension and irony: two fantastic ingredients in any play.

But it's a puzzling scene, too, if you think about the play as a revenge tragedy (and nothing else). Until this point, there is no hard evidence that Claudius killed Hamlet's father, and so we can question Hamlet's motives until we hear Claudius incriminate himself. And at this point, Hamlet becomes more than a mere avenger. He assumes the role of judge, jury, executioner, and God. He will not just kill his uncle; he will damn him, as well.

No doubt, many college freshmen have written English essays on that very topic. The reason I mention it here is that the photos of that scene showed it to me in a way that I'd never encountered before.

The stage is dark. Claudius, praying, kneels at center stage. Behind him, we see a creepy, creeping Hamlet through a translucent veil that drops from above. Hamlet holds his blade in both hands, contemplating, but the gesture is one of offering rather than homicide. The veil is lit with golden light, so that it seems as if Hamlet has dropped here from heaven. That's the first picture.

Here's the second: Hamlet has gone, and Claudius is now behind the veil, still praying, looking upward. The lighting--the golden light that speaks of salvation, the divine right of kings, the very eye of God--has not changed. That impossible-to-stage idea of Hamlet's inclination to evil and Claudius' to goodness appears in two dynamic, beautiful stage pictures.

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So, props to the director and lighting designer, too.

Now, why not just post the pictures and spare the two thousand words? Copyright. That lusty, lusty wench.

Another--perhaps the most obvious--indication that this production was totally legit. Wish I was in New England to see it.