I could probably cobble together a whole personal manifesto from lines in Hamlet. But use all gently. The readiness is all.
I mean, Hamlet’s talking about readiness for death here – which is not what I mean when I think about this line, when I use it in a theatrical sense or a Feldenkrais sense. When I think of readiness as a value, it’s about potential, about the ability to move in whatever direction the art demands or that the body wants. A piece of theatre with a coiled up spring ready to be released is my favorite.
I will watch a state of readiness for a good long while. It is much more interesting to me than something complete. The theatre that is a well oiled machine, a well-rehearsed execution, a flawless demonstration – none of that satisfies me. Readiness is what I want to see and then I want to see it released.
And in Hamlet’s case, the release is death. But it’s the readiness that is the play.
The Hamlet Project 