October 7, 2009

My first real Hamlet rehearsal last night. It was a bit shocking. We are far from the finish line, but we have far to go. Hamlet is going to be–is-- very good, but can he carry the whole show? Will he have the stamina to fight the inertia round him? A as Hamlet is a real actor truly trying in all the right ways to shoulder his way into one of the most difficult roles on the English stage. To watch him is to watch discovery, exploration, daring, community with the other actors. In the brief time we are on stage together I feel electricity. I am grateful he is the only person that I, being the Ghost, ever relate to. He is a living presence in what is otherwise a waxworks of community theater stylization. Horatio is inexperienced, but possesses the right spirit and the right look and was better with each line delivered. Ineptitude is easy to cure. Set-in-concrete misapprehension is not. This was only Act I, and not all of that. Experience tells me Ophelia and Laertes and the Player King are likely to be on the mark, though I didn’t see them in action. As for the rest– Claudius is an automaton, spitting out his not-comprehended lines like a musical comedy actor delivering a pattersong. Unbelievably, he offers notes on the performances of others. Gertrude vanishes before that gale.