What a fun and convincing take! I am now imagining a heretical production in which we see Fortinbras dress a confederate up as the Ghost before the play starts, and in which Hamlet knows that Claudius and Polonius are eavesdropping on his “To be or not to be” soliloquy, which he performs for them.
You would have loved Michael Urie’s Hamlet, which I saw a few years ago in DC. For almost the entire play, he was very mannered and used almost Brechtian gestures to make it clear that he was putting on a performance. Only at the end if the play, when he decides to face death (“the readiness is all”) does he drop all the artifice and play it straight. It was such a powerful and original interpretation of the role.
What a fun and convincing take! I am now imagining a heretical production in which we see Fortinbras dress a confederate up as the Ghost before the play starts, and in which Hamlet knows that Claudius and Polonius are eavesdropping on his “To be or not to be” soliloquy, which he performs for them.
You would have loved Michael Urie’s Hamlet, which I saw a few years ago in DC. For almost the entire play, he was very mannered and used almost Brechtian gestures to make it clear that he was putting on a performance. Only at the end if the play, when he decides to face death (“the readiness is all”) does he drop all the artifice and play it straight. It was such a powerful and original interpretation of the role.
what an awesome analysis! More Shakespeare takes please !