To die would be an awfully big adventure

[cyrano]

We closed out with Hamlet, and Dan Donohoe in the title role. He is not a bad actor--you don't get to do Iago and Caliban at Ashland by sucking--but there is something about his style that irritates me. In this performance, despite reminding me of Robin Williams too often, I had less trouble with him, and he was still good.

I like it when people try new things, especially with a work as well played as this*, but I felt like the players didn't fit well. The performance itself was flashy and I liked it, but when the rest of the setting is sixties (Mad Men or Mod men?) then suddenly flipping a single aspect significantly ahead without a discernable reason is jarring. And while I'm asking about jarring, what was up with the surveillance cameras? In the Tennant RSC production, you had the 'you never know who's watching' thing, but these cameras are on stage the entire time. You know exactly when you're being watched, and it's right now.

Despite reservations, I enjoyed it.

*Ophelia's crazy scenes were different and I admired them even if they didn't work as well as one might hope. Hamlet dies before finishing his last line, and that made me giddy.

Comments

[a-belletrist.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed Dan Donohoe's rendition of Hamlet, and I enjoyed pretty much all aspects of the staging. I had a couple of issues with a couple of the other actors, but Dan Donohoe and Jeffrey King I thought were fabulous. I also thought Ophelia's mad scenes were pretty much genius.

It was, by far, my favorite show of the Festival.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Then we concur--this was my favorite show of the week as well. Throne might have contended if it weren't for the story issues, but this is a story that's really hard to beat.

[jakejr.livejournal.com]

I took the timing as if the court were more traditional and in the past a bit, and Hamlet in his life away from court was more modern. YMMV. And I thought the red lights on the cameras went off and on at different points, but I may not have been paying that close attention.

BTW, I'm pretty sure he did finish his last line, he just did the last word in sign rather than speaking it aloud. We thought this was a particularly nice use of the actor playing dead King Hamlet (Howie Seago I think?), because having Hamlet Sr. be deaf meant that (as you saw) Gertrude and Hamlet were prone to dropping into sign when talking or thinking of him, almost as if he were still in the room (which sometimes he of course is), which we liked.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Okay, that would definitely work with the players, and would also explain Laertes's hippie back packing outfit. (:

And if he did sign 'silence' then I still love it. (: I saw Twelfth Night and finally twigged that the player was probably Deaf, and I really like the way that the troupe is working with him and his presence. Although I snickered more than mature people should on lines like "He was about to speak!" and I was intensely curious to see how they'd do the whole 'ghost shouting at them' bit on the walls.

[jakejr.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I think this is his second year with the company. We saw him as Marcellus in The Music Man last year, which was a fun production (although no one will ever be Robert Preston). I don't know the ASL for "silence," but the hand movement Hamlet makes where the word should be certainly looked like a plausible sign for it to us.

[cyranocyrano.livejournal.com]

Aaaah! And I won't see Music Man because I was in it. (:

I would be a little concerned about shows where he has a large role, because my ASL is so frickin' rusty that I'm relying almost entirely on context and knowlege of the script in advance. But I have faith that OSF will handle the situation well.

[jakejr.livejournal.com]

We've seen him in four or five things now, and generally they have the person he's talking to translate him as he signs if it's important to get his exact words, but if he's a page or something where it's not so important, the reaction to what he says is sufficient. For "Shepoopie" or however the song Marcellus takes the lead on is spelled, other people did the vocals and he signed and danced, so even in a musical they made it work.