By: Orlando

Orlando — Mon, 18 Nov 2013 01:35:41 +0000

Was feeling I needed to write a whole blog post myself about this, but feared it would come out sounding merely like a bad review, which is not my intention. So perhaps better to respond to your judicious thoughts. You see, I am enthusiastically pro-cutting, and a great believer both in taking a piece of theatre on its own terms, and that no damage is done to a play by people trying out stuff with it. The play remains there, ready for the next performer, director and designer to respond to it. And a production is by nature more an essay on a play than it can ever be “the play”, in some whole, Platonic sense.

However (that word had to come next, didn’t it?), it would be hard to make the case that Stone hasn’t missed something crucial about the dramaturgy of this play. Hamlet is above all a communicator. He lacks all capacity to play the sullen adolescent who withdraws, when given the least prodding he talks and talks and talks. This version took away his Horatio, offered itself up to hack jokes about economising with a Rosenstern, and instead gave us an implausibly chummy dead Da. We couldn’t build a relationship with him because our conduits were excised. And then so was our catharsis. Directors who don’t get how much an audience needs that duel at the end will always look like they chickened out.

By: James Waites

James Waites — Sat, 16 Nov 2013 13:18:01 +0000

Very interesting. It’s late at night so I skipped some of the links. But will go through the whole piece tomorrow as constructed. Whether people agree or disagree with your argument here Augusta is beside the point. Sometimes it feels like you are only person from the same generation (the ‘Stone’ generation) writing critically who has not swallowed the marketing, or branding or vision – whatever we like to call it – hook line and sinker. You invite us to engage freshly with our own experiences say of this Hamlet, you challenge us to think again, follow our own lines of thought and test them for leakage. A critic can never claim to be right or wrong or more right – or another critic is more wrong – though they all belong to the set of tools we have available in our adventure in ‘criticising’ a work of art. You excel where most critics fail – in encouraging (dare I say ‘forcing’) us to go back and have another go – freshly armed with a set of often highly challenging questions that we have hitherto not even begin to consider. I do not know your generation like you do – I never will. So I appreciate your good eye for hype and your courage to point out certain flaws – or strengths – many in your generation possibly share. I would like to hear more from your cohort, your generation. Do they agree or disagree with you. Because that I guess, is one of your accusations – that your lot are too self-regarding to ever take time out to question their own motives. For me, as an older person, this near silence appears almost self-incriminating. xxxj

Comments on: Hamlet | Belvoir

By: Orlando

By: James Waites