..sitting in a theatre for four hours. Doctor Who/David Tennant fans have had the web all a-buzz this week, due to the fact that Mr. Tennant (along with Patrick Stewart and a superb ensamble from the Royal Shakespeare Company) is premering his Hamlet--as I write this, if what I've read is at all correct.
I cannot help but wonder, how the play has been interpreted by the director, or the dramaturg or whomever. If left on its own, Hamlet will run around 4 hours....a good thing if you're playing to either some real Shakespeare anoraks, or a house full of insomniacs.
If memory serves me, there are three main versions of Hamlet--and forgive me if I've gotten this wrong--we spent all of two weeks intensively studying Hamlet in college the summer of '04--so not a lot of time to memorize facts, while trying to read and comprehend one of the greatest plays of all time)...anyway, I THINK there's the first folio, the second quatro, and...sorry, I forget what the third one was. Then, there's all the modern edited texts, of course.
I'm guessing that whomever choose this play, would do a bit of re-writing, to make the play more palatiable for the modern audience--which, being that the play is being performed in Shakespeare's home town, so to speak, I'm guess the audience will be a mixture of Shakespearean scholars, advid theater goers, casual theater goers, first-timers and...fan-girls.
So, I'm of the mind that the director may be using one of the shorter original texts---now, if I'm correct in remembering, the origianl longest text, I think, had over 3500 lines in it. Waaayy too long for today's audiences! And, tiring for the actors, as well, to maintain. Yet, I'm sure, being that they are the RSC, they would want to be as true to the original texts as possible.
So, I am quite curious as to how the director or whomever did the re-write, pitched this play. What sort of balance did he (or she) choose, between the modern audience and the orginal Elisabethan text? I'm thinking three hours, in length--which means some cutting, but not so much as to lose the character and true meaning of the play--just enough to keep the audience from yawning.
Hamlet, the ultimate manic-depressive, has these mood swings--they are an intregal part of the play. But, it is a complicated play, and even one cut in the wrong place--I imagine--could completely undo the cohesion of an entire scene.
However it was done, I'm sure it was done brilliantly, and--whether Tennant is in the role or not, envy anyone with the chance to see Hamlet performed in Stratford Upon Avon.
