Tuesday / December 3 / 2019
Written by Maria
What with the PCAP art show and winter sickness working its way through the facilitators, it was a small group of us today. The energy seemed a little subdued, as is wont to happen around the holidays, and no one was really interested in playing a game.
We did start to get into the nitty gritty of things though, like how to cut this monster of a play down and what roles people are starting to be interested in playing. A couple of women said that they were interested in playing Ophelia but didn’t want to sing. I assured them that if that was the only thing holding them back from considering that role, to go for it, as there are plenty of ways to get around the singing noted in the script. Another woman, who was originally only interested in pulling the curtain, said that she is considering playing Fortinbras or the Ghost. This made one of our veterans very happy, and she noted that this woman’s consistency and dedication are what’s needed to make the play a success.
We hopped around the play a bit, looking at cuts to Hamlet’s speech in Act 4 Scene 4 after meeting the captain and seeing Fortinbras for the first time. Then we jumped to the last scene of the play so we could have a little fun with the sword fight. Our Hamlet got a bit overzealous with the fighting, and I had to jump in a few times to pause the bout, as there was important dialogue between King Claudius and Queen Gertrude, and poor Laertes was trying to both follow the story and defend herself.
It seemed to lift our spirits, though, as almost all of us hopped onto the stage or called out a line or two from the audience during the play’s final scene. We left the theatre eager to start working with a trimmed down script, and with a renewed focus on working towards casting the play.