It would be funny if you could bring in a god – like for court or something.
Like, say, put him on trail for that tsunami or earthquake. They call him as a witness. He takes the 5th. Submits to the court.
Until he tires of the proceedings and just goes ahead and sends a tornado to carry the courthouse into the ocean.
This is one of those words that makes contemporary kids crack up. Whenever it shows up in the plays, they fall about laughing.
To them “Ho” means “whore.” And a very particular brand of whore, no less.
What they almost never realize is how many actual references to whores there are in the plays. These accidental whorish moments are hilarious to them – meanwhile the actual whore jokes sail right on past.
But I am not the sort to make sure they get them. I might be the sort to suggest that there are many references like this in a scene and send the students in search of them. It’s always more fun as a discovery. May I never be that creepy teacher who’s like, “This is a sexual allusion, kids. Get it? Get it? Let me explain it.”
Ick.
I have leadership and authority on the brain.
This line has an authoritative ring.
I rarely sound authoritative.
I realized this when teaching young people about directing. I remember a game of Mother May I (AKA Grandmother’s Footsteps) that opened my eyes.
When in the role of the Mother, the leader is charged with telling the others what to do. The usual method is:
“Betty, take 3 giant steps forward.”
And Betty is supposed to reply, “Mother, May I?”
And the leader says, “Yes, you may.”
Anyway – in playing this with a group of kids, I noticed a lot of them saying, “Betty, could you take 3 giant steps forward?”
At first I suggested that they be more direct – and then I realized that they were doing exactly what I had done.
It was me who was leading by saying, “Could you…” instead of direct instruction. So I worked on becoming more direct. But also on embracing a softer leadership that could ask, “Could you…”
I would like to see the scene outside the door. I would like to see Hamlet with the guards. I picture the guards like the ones at Buckingham Palace and Hamlet just cutting up with them. Maybe playing a little game of “There’s something on your shirt” or doing a little antic dance. I feel like this would be a great moment for Hamlet the Clown.
Of course the king is most concerned with Hamlet’s location. He’s probably worried about him popping out behind an arras at any moment. Is he hiding in a cabinet? The broom cupboard? Check under the bed before you go to sleep.
You could be eating breakfast – and BLAM – he comes out from under the tablecloth. There could be a Hamlet hiding in the garden, behind a tree during an afternoon walk – or a Hamlet under the stairs – or a Hamlet rolled up in a rug like Cleopatra delivered to her lover. There could be a Hamlet in the basement, a Hamlet in the throne room, a Hamlet in the hall.
He could be anywhere.
I love the inversion in this line. It’s like – you’d think you’d SAVE the words “dead body” for the end of the sentence…that if you’re working yourself up to a difficult bit of language, that “dead body” would be at the end. As in “We cannot get from him where the dead body is bestowed, my lord.” Or even better, “My lord, we cannot get from him where he has bestowed the dead body.” That’s how most of us would phrase information like this… we’d save the dead body, a thing we don’t like to discuss, for the end. But for Rosencrantz, he leads with the dead body and is saving for the end, instead, his own failure.
I decided to re-write this one because the first one was just so brief and so disconnected from the line and the spirit of it was so different than the sense of the line. I wrote that one after the first day of a process I’d been painfully nervous about but which had turned out beautifully. Nothing had befallen because it went so much better than I feared.
Now, today, in a year wherein it feels like something new and horrible befalls us very day, I actually received good news, which is overriding all the bad for me. So once again, I have a good artistic surprise on a day when I’m encountering this line that asks what bad has happened.
Throw a rock in this town and you will hit an actor. Unless you need one for your project and then somehow they all disappear.
I cast more than I need because I know I will lose them. And then I lose more than I expected – and I have to expand my search, beyond my first tier.
That’s when I start looking around me whenever I find myself, wondering, “Are you an actor? Might you be free tomorrow?” And no one looks like they are. I see marketing execs and social media managers and salespeople and graphic designers – but I can’t spot any actors.
Normally, they drive me crazy by appearing to be everywhere. Today they must all be at auditions.
Ooooh. An instance of historical context being very illuminating. Apparently, this line has a lot in common with something Guy Fawkes said. This boosts up Claudius’ villain cred. Because Guy Fawkes was clearly enemy # 1 and if Claudius is using his language, it is a cue to the audience for how to feel in this moment. Even if you don’t know it consciously, if that language is in the water, it might be working on your villain responsiveness.
If I had to guess Claudius’ survival strategy up to this point, I’d say it could be summed up in the first part of this line. I bet he’s trained himself to bear all smooth and even. He has a finely crafted public persona. Despite the fact that he is a murderer, he almost never lets anyone see his feathers ruffled. He probably has said this thing about bearing all smooth and even to himself his whole life.
Archive 1980–2024
Feldenkrais for Artists in NYC
You aren't stuck in traffic. You are the traffic.
The Hamlet Project 