Cleveland Jewish News Review here. Exactly what I wanted to read before leaving town.Why does that read as sarcasm, it's not. "Sarah Morton's heroic performance adds dignity and nobility to the portrait of the troubled Hamlet." See, that's what I thought.
I shouldn't have been surprised by the hot & cold responses the production has brought. As if I imagined the theater world would have said, "A woman playing Hamlet? Yay, just what we've been waiting for!" My own father said something to the effect of, "I liked it ... I'm not sure I agreed with it ..."
Agreed with it? I don't remember making a political argument, I was just putting on a show.
Today I am juggling my work with last-minute packing - all the packing, last minute. I have swung from dread to intrigue as those around me have reminded me what I am in for. Quiet. No one needing anything from me. I get to sit on an airplane for eight hours and, what? Read? Watch tee vee? Sleep, hopefully. No one needing me to take them to the bathroom, read to them, cut up their food, no one to take care of.
I do hate to be alone, which is why it's nice that Kelly will be with me - a full-grown adult who could just as soon ignore me for several hours. And I am very attached to being needed. But for forty-eight hours, it's the Dave Show, all Dave, all the time.
Of course, maybe that's every day and I just don't realize it.
4 comments:
Are you making a point or just doing gender-blind casting? both?
Making a point? No, just being artistic. I saw this great old silent film where Hamlet is a woman who has always passed as a man, read up on it, and thought Sarah M. would be brilliant in a stage adaptation.
Having said that, once you decide to alter a story in one way, a lot of other elements come following after. What about romantic entanglements, what about the difference between how sons and mothers talk as opposed to daughters and mothers. Hamlet (Shakespeare's original Hamlet) seems to think poorly of women in general, why would a woman posing as a man think that? And so on.
Having said that, we were still trying to, primarily, tell the actual story of Hamlet, the whole avenging the father's death thing. But that's colored by the other.
So I can't say there weren't "points" we were making, but the point of the production wasn't to make those points, but to tell a great story.
Fran seems to be the only critic who actually bothered to think about what you were trying to accomplish, in relationship to your source materials.
It does take a huge leap of faith to believe that nobody recognizes her as a woman (the 'Clark Kent' syndrome). If you can't get beyond that, it's going to be difficult to enjoy the work as a whole.
Have a great trip!
Yes. For example: "Claudius' unlikely ignorance of the secret."
I see. A ghost you're cool with, but the drag thing you have difficulty swallowing.
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