If I can’t play Hamlet, I think I’d like to be Reynaldo.
There’s something about these little roles that I love.
Of the seven roles I played in the three plays on the Sweet Smoke of Rhetoric Tour, my favorite was the messenger/servant. In Henry IV, my messenger appeared for a few moments, said almost nothing – a blank page of a character.
If memory serves, this is why we named our theatre Messenger Theatre Company.
What’s glorious about these little roles is that there must be a whole world behind them that we will never see.
Reynaldo speaks several very short lines and never turns up again, so there is a vast canvas on which to paint this messenger/servant. We know he cannot/does not reveal anything about himself in this exchange but have a self, he must.
And an actor can invent one with just this little bit of information. Reynaldo can be terse because he is a dark mysterious spy or because he’s stupid with a limited vocabulary. He can be young, old, a peer of Laertes or an employee of Polonius.
Playing Reynaldo is a playground of choices.
The Hamlet Project 