“You don’t have to be good at anything but being yourself.”
Tuesday / November 18 / 2019
Written by Emma
Tonight’s session was the first time we met since finishing our initial runthrough of the play! At our previous session, we put the final scene of the play on its feet (and had some fun with pretend sword fighting). Our game plan for the next few sessions is to hop around in the play, giving newbies a chance to get to know some of the characters better and allowing everyone the opportunity to explore roles they may be interested in. With the temperature outside dipping, we may also try to incorporate more games to shake off some of the cold.
We got down to scene work. One woman had indicated earlier in the evening that she may be interested in playing Hamlet (after some encouragement from a fellow ensemble member). As such, we decided we should give 3.1 a shot. In 3.1, Hamlet is giving Ophelia the classic “get thee to a nunnery” spiel, which is one of the most pivotal moments in Ophelia’s descent into madness. The woman interested in Hamlet requested to see the scene once before she hopped in, so Kyle stepped in and read Hamlet, with a longtime member reading for Ophelia.
After the first run, we stopped to discuss. “Hamlet is being sincere and not trying to hurt Ophelia when he tells her to go to a nunnery,” one ensemble member said. “He wants her to save herself, but he’s bad at putting it that way.” A few other women agreed. The woman reading for Ophelia added, “It was good. I could have been more aggressive, to throw Hamlet's aggression back at him.”
And with that, we ran it again. The woman reading Hamlet seemed to be pleading with Ophelia, imploring her to save herself by stealing away to a nunnery. The woman playing Ophelia invested heavily in the physical movements of her character, sitting down and standing with an emotional emphasis that underlined the heavy dialogue. At one point, she even got down on the ground in desperation, confused by what Hamlet was telling her. It was a truly excellent run, with both women giving their all.
After the second run, a new member who has had her eye on Laertes asked if we could run 1.3. In this scene, Ophelia, Laertes, and Polonius are having a discussion before Laertes goes off to France. Out of the three actors in the scene, two were new members--something that was a real joy to see! It can be very tough to volunteer to read as a newbie, but these women are naturals. The scene went by quick, and afterwards we asked how the actors felt. The returning member who read for Polonius stated that it felt like there wasn’t a lot for her character to do during this scene, and that we were going to need to think of ways to keep the characters moving during these dialogue-heavy moments.
Next, we moved on to 1.5--the ghost scene. One of our newer members had quietly indicated that she was somewhat interested in reading the role of Hamlet, so she stepped up to read and Kyle read for the Ghost. The woman reading for Hamlet shone, looking engaged and animated throughout the Ghost’s long monologues. And when it came to delivering her lines, her words were full of emotion and her diction was excellent. After the run, Kyle asked her if she had considered playing Hamlet in the performance. She admitted that no, she hadn’t been considering it, because she thought the part should go to someone with more experience. Kyle encouraged her, congratulating her on a job well done and explaining that with this group there is no need to ever be worried about disrupting seniority. We work as an ensemble, and if she is interested in the part, she should absolutely go for it! Sitting next to her, I could see a subtle smile creep across her face.
Moving on, we did one read through of 2.2. During this scene, Hamlet sasses Polonius, calling him a fishmonger and flippantly insulting him. A returning member who has been interested in Polonius’ role stepped in to read the part. As the actors made their way around the stage, Polonius did a notably excellent job of separating the dialogue with Hamlet from the many audience asides. She would change her tone, turn to where the rest of the ensemble was sitting, and seem to confide in us in a way that was incredibly engaging and impressive. Moreover, she delivered the trickly lines with ease, suggesting she has been practicing outside of rehearsal.
After a quick wrap-up, we raised our ring. Colder weather isn’t going to keep this group down!
Friday/ November 22 / 2019
Written by Maria
When we asked what everyone wanted to do today, it was pretty clear that they wanted to start with a game. Lauren suggested “Animal Sounds”, as it is one of her personal favorites. Everyone gets into a circle with one person in the middle. The person in the center of the circle closes their eyes, points one finger straight ahead, and turns slowly clockwise while the rest of the circle walks silently counter-clockwise. When the person in the middle says, “Stop!” the person she is pointing to needs to make the “animal sound” that she is assigned. We started out with some easy sounds, like a motorcycle and drums, but we also had a snail making soup, a giraffe eating, sunshine, and Beyoncé. “It’s so much fun, I want to do it at my next party!” one woman said, laughing. There were a lot of laughs and smiles, and it got us off to a great start.
We then decided to go back and look at a couple of really important scenes for the play and for character development: the opening scene (which we haven’t read in months and a lot of our newer members had never read with us) and the play within a play in Act 3 Scene 2. In this version of the first scene, the Ghost was very aggressive, circling around the guards and moving chairs around. “Are we afraid of the ghost?” one woman asked. “Curious and scared, because we stay and keep talking,” another woman responded.
Before getting up on our feet to work the play within a play, we discussed our many staging options. We want the audience to be able to see King Claudius and Queen Gertrude’s faces when watching the play, but they need to see the players performing as well. Some of the women also seemed to be concerned that the audience wouldn’t be able to follow what was going on in the play. We decided to try staging the scene on a diagonal, which both the women acting the scene and sitting in the audience liked. “It allows the audience to see reactions while being a part of the action,” one woman commented. I asked about the dumb show before the players start speaking. Did we like the actors pantomiming the scene? Did we need both versions of the play? What if we had puppets? That really got the creative juices flowing.
If we had hand puppets, we would need some kind of flat for the puppeteers to hide behind. “Zannis! I knew we could put them in somewhere!” one woman jumped in, reminding us of last season’s Twelfth Night as we discussed who could help with setting up the scene. What if we had the poisoner puppet’s costume color coordinate with Claudius, another woman suggested. Another member expanded on that idea, suggesting that the puppet king could match the Ghost, who is dressed in armor with his family crest. One woman (who was very excited) suggested that the Ghost could come out and watch the play within a play from the back. We had discussed having the Ghost be more present in our production than the scenes that he is written in, and this prompted even more fast and furious ideas.
What if Ophelia’s death is pantomimed while Gertrude explains what happened to her? I suggested we use blue fabric to represent the water, but then someone had a much better idea: what if the Ghost wraps the same fabric he is wearing around the now-dead Ophelia? The Ghost could then become a sort of shepherd to the afterlife for the characters who die in the play. We mentioned that he could come out when Hamlet kills Polonius and do the same thing.
The facilitators were furiously trying to keep up with the ideas and excitement that were flying back and forth across the room, and before we knew it our time was up! It was a fantastic session with some scene work, fun and lots of great design ideas.