Friday / November 8 / 2019
Written by Lauren

We started by reading Act 5, Scene 2. One woman told the group that “this is a good story!” and that she never studied it in school. When we put the scene on its feet, the same woman acted out Gertrude. Her feedback to the group was that the words are hard. This was a good opportunity to explain to the new people that it’s okay to slow down reading. If the sentence is difficult to say, then it is probably meant to be read slowly anyway.

We moved on to Act 5, Scene 3. Our Gravedigger put a table on its side so she could act behind it as if it were an open grave that she had climbed into. She also utilized hats as “skulls” for props. She would “climb” in and out of the grave clumsily, and was very fun to watch! She liked that there was more to physically do in this scene. Her scene partner is new and was eager to act. She improvised a lot, including dancing when the Gravedigger sings. After the scene, she wanted to run her part again so she could try out some ideas she had second guessed the first time through. She added that it felt “real nice” to move around in the scene as opposed to standing still.

“Gertrude” from Act 5 Scene 2 had mentioned earlier in the night that she wasn’t comfortable acting as Hamlet again after her difficult time with the “To be or not to be” speech, but she ended up volunteering to act out Hamlet for this scene anyway. She had fun with it! After, she told the group that acting it out helped her understand the scene a lot more.