Directors’ Interpretations Flashcards
Lazarus production
Older generation aren’t present - voiceovers instead.
Idea of outer powerful forces / God-like parents who dictate their life.
Younger generation as gathering in symbolic ‘group therapy sessions’ - show the destructive impact of older generation = condemned them all to tragedy.
‘The Motive & The Cue’
Richard Icke, In Act 3 Scene 1…
While Ophelia give back her letters, Andrew Scott feels her coller for microphones - surveillance
Inner conflict: Tries to kiss her violently during ‘painting’ lines
Richard Icke, In Act 3 Scene 2…
While play is going on, the characters are in the audience, cameras in their face - SUPER METATHATRE
Michelle Terry at the Globe
She plays Hamlet, and when under the antic disposition assumes a chaotic clown costume - playing the role of fool and using humour to make poignant points about society and life
Richard Icke, In Act 3 Scene 3…
Instead of just making an excuse, the audience is shown Hamlet Shaking holding gun - inability to do it / pull trigger on Claudius (not just because he is praying)
Richard Icke Ending
no definitive sense of damnation = everyone goes behind the gauze / curtain together, no differentiation between characters
KENNETH BRANAUGH
Act 3 Scene 1
Hamlet dragging Ophelia around by her hair in ‘get thee to a nunnery’ - very violent and cruel - impassioned and violent action / doesn’t actually love her?
RSC / DAVID TENNANT
Claudius & Ghost both played by Patrick Stewart (shared manipulation & corruption)
https://www.rsc.org.uk/hamlet/past-productions
RSC - GREGORY DORAN 2008
The production was filmed for DVD and broadcast on BBC Two in 2009. In the film, the theme of observation continues as the action is occasionally viewed as images on a CCTV monitor, and Hamlet films the players’ performance with a Super-8 camera.
RSC Set
In Robert Jones’ set, weighed down with enormous sparkling chandeliers, all the action was reflected in the glossy black mirror-like floor and the huge full-height mirrors at the back of the stage, which shattered dramatically when Polonius was shot.
- detached and cold environment as home (spacing between characters in 1.2 - very separate)
RSC Ophelia
Spends much of A1S3 on her knees - being spoken down to
Eddie Izzard
Ghost as green spotlight
Marcellus and Horacio same character
Claudius in scene 2 addresses audience-sense that we are his subjects
R&G as puppet hands
First soliloquy steps off main
I call you “king?” Separate
Clinical / mental asylum notes
Door opening at the end
Self-centred
