Tuesday / January 31 / 2023
Written by KFG
Every night that we get to facilitate the program feels more and more like no time has passed. There may be new faces, but the core of the program remains the same as ever. We have a small but very dedicated ensemble so far, and they are eager to dive right into Hamlet. I’m encouraged by how participatory the group has been during check-ins, and how well the group seems to be bonding. This is owing in no small part to one of our veterans, who has really done well in getting the ball rolling in conversations about the text and in performance. It makes such short work of encouraging the new ensemble members to have such a great example in the room.
Tonight we focused most of our attention on a 20-minute version of Hamlet that SIP staff wrote a few years ago. There were only six ensemble members tonight, and with 15 characters in the script, that meant that everyone read multiple parts, sometimes playing whole scenes where all the characters were one virtuoso actor. The ensemble loved it. I don’t know who coined the term “Silly Hamlet,” but the name stuck. It was a great way to get through the whole plot of the play in a short, approachable way. We finished the night with some improv games, and laughed until my face hurt!
Friday / February 3 / 2023
Written by KFG
We had another really incredible night with our ensemble. It really feels like we are diving into the text and getting into the process. Tonight we talked about whether we wanted to stage our silly, 20-minute version of Hamlet or the real text. It was pretty unanimous that the ensemble wanted to keep working their way through the original text, and so we took a deep dive into act 1 scene 2.
It’s a very long scene that can be broken into three or four sections, and there are a few famous sections, so we took our time to make sure we hit all the bases. There were some very nuanced observations, and it was great fun collecting all the theories that can start on just the second scene of the play. A lot of focus was on King Claudius, and I had to continually remind everyone about what the audience knows at that point in the play; the ensemble had really taken “Silly Hamlet” seriously and were using the knowledge from last week to shade this week's reading. “I think Claudius has a guilty conscience about killing the king!” said one ensemble member. “[Gertrude and Claudius] had something going on behind the scenes” said another. “I think they were just giving at each other looks until the king died!” A spirited debate followed.
The real magic came when we got the scene on its feet. We decided that we would not try to complete the whole scene, and instead focused on the last section: the exchange between Horatio and Hamlet. I sneakily added the famous soliloquy (“Oh, that this too too sullied flesh…”) to the scene and the ensemble took turns performing. Everyone performed at least once (including our brand new member!), and we talked about what we gained in performance. “I feel like it's easier to get the inflection and emotion when you’re in it,” one woman said. One member, who played a very emotionally connected Hamlet, said, “It’s difficult to just read it… He’s throwing his heart into it, and his heart needs to hear it a certain way.” We talked about ways to improve, and that they were free to work on the monologues during off-nights and bring something back that they’ve worked on. One member summed it up really nicely, “I like seeing others get it up on its feet. We have different takes on it.” All that work took us right to the last minute of the night, and we finished up with plans of what they wanted to work on next session.