Hamlet: Dissemination

We closed on Sunday. 

The set has been broken down, the costumes are in bags in my car awaiting a wash.

The leftover programs are stashed in a file.

I relaxed, I celebrated, I glowed, I basked in the finale of two years of hard work.

And then I crashed.

On Tuesday night.

Dissemination takes time.

So although the goop is out of my hair and the last of the mascara has been wiped away, I left on the nail polish.  Call me superstitious, but I can’t take it off yet.  Not yet.

So I’ve left it on. For now.

To remind me of the day I found out I’d be wearing black polish and how much I disliked the idea, but kept my trap shut, painted it on anyways, and discovered I liked it quite well.

To remind me of the smell of the basement in Lowell which was sweetly relieved by the scent of Gertrude’s own shiny polish application.

To remind me of Claudius’ elegantly and perfectly shaped feminine nails being coated quickly and diligently before each show, or so it seemed to me.

To remind me of the look on Gertrude’s face behind my hand as I held up a tiny portrait.  And the smell of Ophelia’s hair as I tried to carefully swung her around and shout at the top of her head, my nails flickering at me as they encircled her slender arms.

To remind me of those damn curtains which never landed right in fight call, but always placed themselves perfectly in performance regardless of how I grabbed them.

To remind me that the end of a project is really just the beginning of another.

Because dissemination takes time.  And I’m not quite sure I’m ready to let go.

Hamlet: Re-Tech in Somerville

Hamlet: Spending Time

On these, my first three days off from Hamlet, I had a little respite from:

• Waking up to lines running through my head
• Listening to my “Hamlet-anthem” way too loud and way too many times in a row
• Wondering if my legs and stomach could possibly be any more tired
• Getting another line note, and another, and another, and then messing them up anyways
• Saying goodbye, again, to my 3 year old daughter, and reassuring her I would see her, again, tomorrow

I spent three days:

• Going to bed before the sun and waking up far after she had risen
• Eating. Eating. Eating.
• Waking up not to lines, but to my child, snuggled up in the curve of my side, shoving her face up against mine for more kisses

Yesterday, on the fourth day:

• I woke up to the lines in my head.  Anticipating the return to the stage.  Nervous I’d lost some in the few days since I uttered their famous syllables.  Hoping that maybe time and space would make it easier to remember them.

This morning, on the fifth day, the day when I get to return to the theatre:

• I woke up wondering how five days could pass so fast, and being thankful that they did.
• This experience is far more than rehearsals, lines, packing dinner, saying farewell/hello, it’s about being a part of something larger.  It’s about watching a cast of phenomenally talented women prepare, knowing I get to look each of them in the eye on stage.  It’s about an audience, watching, listening, learning, thinking.  It’s about bringing opportunity to life.
• I love it.

Field Trip!

Hamlet, Ophelia, Laertes and their ever-supportive stage manager, Samson, went on a field trip today to Girls, Inc. of Lowell.

In under an hour they covered warm-ups, bodies, voices, games, Shakespeare, history, scenes, love, and sword play.

As one girl of around 9 years put it “[Shakespeare is like] learning new things everyday and not even knowing it.”

Sneak Preview: Graveside Fight Rehearsal

Becky W. (Horatio) takes you to fight rehearsal.

Hamlet: Thinking Too Precisely

I awoke this morning.

Like a block of lead.

Tonight’s our last rehearsal.

I, as usual, had lines running through my head even before I realized I was no longer dreaming:

“Whether it be beastial oblivion, or thinking to precisely on the act: a thought which, when quartered is but one part wisdom and ever three parts coward…”

It is only now, as we inch our way towards opening and I dream of the night I will perform knowing exactly what my intention is on every single line, that I begin to understand why it is this play can enrapture so many imaginations.

Stand each scene on its own, indeed, stand each line on its own, and it carries the weight of the world.  An entire story in a singular interchange.

Put them all together, line them up like little ducklings headed for slaughter, and a world beyond takes flight.  At the center of the storm, self-involved, self-righteous, foolish, prideful, loving, powerful, people.  And along the edge, dutifully and honorably flitting in and among the scattering detritus are the truly wise.  If only the loud and powerful would take the time to see them.  If only the wise would open their mouths to speak a little louder.  If only our own soliloquies would work their magic as swiftly as these.

It is our world.  Magnified.  Intensified. Revealing what, perhaps, we would rather keep secret.  Our shames.  Our desires.  Our fears.

Hamlet: I have a muscle there?

It began with my shaky legs from lunging with swords and outfacing people at graves.

It wasn’t long before I had sore arms from grabbing people left and right.

After some additional grave outfacing, my tummy felt like it had faced several hundred rounds of crunches.

And then I spied the ghost, and man my neck hurts.

Not to mention the ol’ memory muscle.

I do believe that, by the time we open, I will have become reacquainted with every under-used muscle I never knew I had.

Production Management: A Clear Vision. A United Group

Working from a production standpoint, I’ve had the rare treat to sit in on a couple rehearsals for this extraordinarily special process. From the moment I heard about this endeavor and met SerahRose (Hamlet) and Chris (Director), there was no hesitation on my part to be involved with what the two of them were cooking up.

It’s exciting! I love that this is happening. How many discussions have I had with fellow actresses about the lack of roles for women in theatre? Many. How many steps have I personally taken to rectify the situation? Not so many. Gan-e-meed, many thanks therein.

Now, as if the simple concept were not enough—look, ho! An ensemble of painfully talented women, intelligent and dedicated to the task at hand have sprung forth to create this historical event.

Tell all, bring all, and learn something at this production next month. This work is, for lack of a better word, bad-ass. I was on the edge of my seat. I was inspired. I was amazed by how much SerahRose channeled Sara Bernhardt. If you don’t know who that is…look her up and learn something. Because from all involved in this, I sure have…and will continue to do just that.

xoxoxo

Melanie, Assistant Production Manager

Rosencrantz/Marcellus/Osric: Bardolic Power

Last night I ended up not having rehearsal, but instead of doing something “constructive” like working on lines or washing the sinkful of dishes, I spent a lot of time thinking about the play, our culture, and Shakespeare in general. Basically, the question of relevance kept gnawing at me. I know that our production (and the Bard’s entire cannon) is relevant, but knowing it in my gut and being able to support that assertion are two different things.

Why is Shakespeare still the gold standard for dramatic literature? I think one reason is the plays are both theatrical and poetical. The drama doesn’t overshadow the voice, and the voice doesn’t slow down the drama. Indulgently, I love Shakespeare because the words are so delicious and if you listen to them, they propel you forward on your character’s journey.

There are so few stage directions, so we have to glean everything from the text. As Chris said the other day at rehearsal, there is no subtext. That makes the rehearsal process full of constant discoveries. Nothing is laid out for us, so we are responsible for figuring everything out from the text. Because we have to search, it demands that we go with our characters through their journeys, and we experience their journeys as our own in our time on stage.

But it’s more than just the solvable mystery. I am convinced that the way the words are put together resonates at the same frequency as the human body. It’s not just the iambic pentameter, even though some people like to attribute their power to the meter’s imitation of the heartbeat. But there are plenty of Shakespeare’s contemporaries who wrote in iambic pentameter but whose dialogue is clunky and cumbersome in ways that don’t serve the character or the actor or the play. Though the iambic pentameter contributes, there’s more. The parts that we can’t define, sometimes can’t even identify, are the ones that really give these plays their sticking-power.

Changing gears slightly, I don’t think a single interpretation can make an old piece pertinent; rather, that productions set in any era are capable of enlightening proves the plays’ persisting relevance. During this rehearsal process, we have talked about our characters’ relationships to each other through contemporary lenses. For example, Guildenstern and I have talked about how we are only “facebook friends” with Hamlet, not real friends. These relationships are infinitely translatable to our own culture.

One of my favorite columns to read is The New York Times’ Modern Love. Every week, a different person writes about how love has surprised him or how her perception of love has changed. It’s written about love between parents, children, spouses, ex-spouses, friends, strangers, siblings.

Drawing on inspiration from those articles and other things I’ve read recently, I started thinking about what relationship would be the subject of the column if each of my characters wrote an installment. Every person in the play could write rich, enlightening perspectives on what love is (“More than Kin and Less than Kind” would be an excellent article), stories that would inform and shock us. It makes me think that maybe our love isn’t so modern and that the story isn’t so old. The story is relevant. It could be a column in the newspaper or it could be a masterpiece for the stage. But we understand it and it moves us.

This is my first blog entry ever, but if you have managed to make any sense out of it, do you have any thoughts? Why is Shakespeare still so powerful, 400 years after it was written?

One last thought: Happy Birthday, Jessica!

Hamlet: On Stamina

About six months ago, Chris told me to start running.

I did.

I’m so glad I did.

It turns out that rehearsing each scene on its own is far far removed from rehearsing the play in its entirety.

By the time I got to act III, which contains both Hamlet’s scene with Ophelia, the play-within-the-play, and the Closet scene (with his mom), I felt like I was on a speeding train with no breaks.

going downhill.

towards a missing bridge so I had to make the long jump.

with the cars intermittently skittering off the tracks as I went.

Holy Bleep.