Hamlet at Shakespear Santa Cruz
Aug. 21st, 2003 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
learnteachWow.
Best production of Hamlet I've ever seen, stage or film. No, really. Really, yes. It proves to me that two things are paramount: the words, and the movement, both in the fight scenes and out of them.
At no time did anyone truely appear to be acting enough to break my disbelief. At no time was any effect so gross that I thought "Stagey" rather than "Neat!" At no time did any soliquy seem out of place, or staged in. The actors ran up and down the aisles; the Ghost appeared from behind trees; the fight scene took the whole of the front of the stage, and had the right spirit completely. Hamlet's speeches had depth I hadn't seen before. Poor Ophelia, you could see exactly how the roots of her world were undermined and her sanity poured out.
I highly, highly recommend this production. Over Branaugh, which I respected. Over Gibson, who did the grave scene almost as well.
Who is a better builder than any archetect? Why, a gravedigger, because what he makes lasts to the end of the earth...
Best production of Hamlet I've ever seen, stage or film. No, really. Really, yes. It proves to me that two things are paramount: the words, and the movement, both in the fight scenes and out of them.
At no time did anyone truely appear to be acting enough to break my disbelief. At no time was any effect so gross that I thought "Stagey" rather than "Neat!" At no time did any soliquy seem out of place, or staged in. The actors ran up and down the aisles; the Ghost appeared from behind trees; the fight scene took the whole of the front of the stage, and had the right spirit completely. Hamlet's speeches had depth I hadn't seen before. Poor Ophelia, you could see exactly how the roots of her world were undermined and her sanity poured out.
I highly, highly recommend this production. Over Branaugh, which I respected. Over Gibson, who did the grave scene almost as well.
Who is a better builder than any archetect? Why, a gravedigger, because what he makes lasts to the end of the earth...
