As longtime readers know, I used to blog a lot more about blogging. Every once in a while I’d write a post asking where all the blogs were on a particular subject. For example, where are all the funeral blogs? Or theatre blogs?
These posts live on in the long tail of search, and occasionally somebody comes by and leaves a comment promoting their theatre/funeral/whatever blog.
Their most recent post discusses ‘taping out the floor’. This is a ritual that stage managers undertake during the rehearsal process. This involves laying coloured tape on the floor of the rehearsal space so that it reflects the ground plans of the set design. This enables the performers and directors to rehearse with some sense of where entrances, exits, trapdoors and stuffed moose will appear once the set is actually finished. The blog post has a photo–they ought to post more to give you a sense of this tedious but necessary duty.
The theatre’s artistic director also recentlyinterviewed American playwright Edward Albee, which made for a fascinating read.
I was looking at something on YouTube the other day (maybe it was this animated project from Bud.TV), and noticed a so-called “Director Video” (I gather these are pay-for-placement) featuring an 18-year-old doing a monologue (not “To Be Or Not To Be”, to his credit) from Hamlet, apparently in a vacant lot:
He’s certainly givin’ ‘er, isn’t he? He’s got plenty of passion and enthusiasm, which is great. And he’s got the thing down, memorization-wise.
What the Words Mean
I’m no Shakespearean performance expert, but this piece highlights a really common difficulty in performing the Bard’s work: you can’t do a great job if you don’t understand the words. All the words. And not just what they mean, or meant in the 16th century, but also some context for their usage. A ‘fishmonger’ isn’t just a guy who hocks cod–it’s also a slang term for ‘pimp’.
Anyhow, I’m not picking on this kid–he seems to have the heart and spirit. You can probably teach the rest.
I did get to thinking about what other Hamlet-related videos I could find on the Tube.
As you might expect, there are many earnest, exceedingly-awful recitations of monologues. I’ll spare you those, but here’s a top tip to aspiring thesbians: memorize the speech instead of reading it off your screen. Here are some of the more interesting videos I found:
The wonderful (if overly fey) Derek Jacobi, along with Patrick Stewart as Claudius:
I’d forgotten all about Cat Head Theatre:
“Hamlet the Musical”, from Gilligan’s Island. That’s truly priceless: “From Ophelia, no one can steal ya, you’ll always be my own”.
And finally, here’s one young actor who’s got her lines down:
Jason Neufeld and Alix Sobler have a clever idea for a pair of Fringe shows. They’ve been together as a couple on the Fringe circuit for five years, but this year they allegedly broke up.
Hi. My name is Alix Sobler. For almost 5 years I dated the most selfish, laziest, unromantic jerk in the world, and now its pay back time. So maybe he is extremely good looking and insanely smart. So what? Just because he always did the dishes and never stayed out late and forgot to call, am I supposed to just stay with him the rest of my life?
It’s a great approach, and (I think) quite original. There’s all sorts of cross-promotional opportunities–apparently they’re going to picket each other’s show.
The only risk? What if one show is great and the other is awful?
I heard these folks interviewed, as below, on the CBC’s Q.
