Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
March 6 - 17 2007
"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't." |
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Hamlet(Zorba Dravillas) is an intellectual who has come home from the university of Wittenburg in Germany to attend to his father's funeral. His mother remarries soon after. Her choice for a husband is her brother-in-law: the king's younger brother Claudius. Hamlet is unhappy with the speed with which his mother has jumped into bed with another man.
Hamlet's friend Horatio has also come home from university and tells Hamlet about a ghost he has seen who very much looks like Hamlet's father. Hamlet persuades Horatio to show him the time and place of the spectral visitation. In the dead of night, they see the frightful spirit who leads Hamlet to the edge of the castle walls and tells him that he is indeed the ghost of Hamlet's father and that he was murdered by his younger brother Claudius. The ghost demands that Hamlet seek vengeance. Hamlet swears Horatio to secrecy.
Hamlet, of course has no proof that what he saw was not an evil spirit that lied to him in an attempt to damn him into murderous actions so he acts as if he has gone mad with grief. He assumes that if the king and queen don't think he is in his right mind, then they might be more open about what they have done. The desire for vengeance pushes him away from his girl friend Ophelia. He drives her away with cruel behaviour,
Shakespeare's Genius
Hamlet is an intellectual that wanders through this extravagant play, commenting like the fool on the madness of the world. Hamlet is Shakespeare;s smartest creation and the one that young men of any century can identify with. The rebel without a cause. Heroic and misunderstood, he is a thinker and at some point realizes that he has to be a doer. Hamlet moves from sheltered academic to action hero. He is as cruel and unkind as any of those lined up against him, but through Shakespeare's genius we have a front row seat to what is going on in his mind. While earlier plays portrayed more the outward character, Hamlet is forever the actor, shifting roles, as he walks through this play that is happening around him. He is the intelligent fool that wreaks havoc and brings down a kingdom
Hamlet's Indecision
Hamlet is a very human creation, and as a very human creation he is not going to immediately run somebody through just because the plot suggests he should. Men who would never run anyone through even for the most grievous sins applied against them, suggest that it is a mystery as to why Hamlet doesn't start running everyone through in the same way Sir Lancelot did in 'The Holy Grail'; Monty Python's epic. These men are of course academics and critics. They obviously don't see dramtic art as a mirror for real life.
Hamlet is a truly great and frustrating piece of art through which we can only vaguely catch a glimpse of the genius that is Shakespeare.
CAST
- Zorba Dravillas as Hamlet
- Steve Powell as Claudius
- Barbara Bell as Gertrude
- Leigh Ann Bellamy as Ophelia
- Mike Sheppard as Horatio
- Nathaniel Fried as Laertes
- H. Benjamin Ellis as Polonius
- Mitch Nasheim as Rosencrantz
- Greg Ridge as Guildenstern
- Jeremy Ennis as The Ghost
- Paul Tye as Osric
- Ian Shanahan as Marcellus
- Steve Anglin as Gravedigger
- Shavid Robinson as Gravedigger
- Ana Donefer Hickie as Player
- Brian Collins as Player
- Hannah Smith as Player
- Directed by Charles Robertson
- Stage Manager Anne Marie Mortensen
- Assistant Stage Manager Carin Ann Crabtree
