Promenade Hamlet
Promenade Hamlet
For this production we are going to need a bigger boat. But seriously, the play is going to be on a boat that actually sets sail and the audience is going to move around this boat to experience Hamlet. Why a boat? Well I like the symbolism behind this idea of being moorless for in many ways the characters either begin or descend into a moorless sense of self. The show would start with passengers boarding the boat for an at the sea wake (get it?) in which the ashes of Hamlet's father are to be scattered at sea; for like Peter the Great Hamlet's dad also had a connection to the sea. So the audience boards the boat and they are led into a main room where they are seated at the tail end of the wake. Grieving spouse, Claudius, framed picture of dad, coffin, you get the idea. It's somber- it's heavy. Hamlet is the last to give his eulogy but can't bring himself to do it so his family and the court leaves, and once they are out he delivers the speech he wanted to give about how his mom is basically being an awful person and not mourning enough and how he idolizes his too-soon-dead dad.
The ghost scene would happen on the stern of the ship and we'd pump in some fog to obfuscate things and ideally you'd have Hamlet's dad rigged so he could fall off the front of the boat safely out of sight of the audience. While all this is happening the main room where the wake was is altered so that it is two spaces separated by a curtain which will serve to act as different rooms for scenes as well as convenient for the Polonious stabbing and subsequent dumping of the body overboard, complete with fake body and satisfying splash.
Horatio is to be in the audience until he makes his debut with Hamlet- so that will be fun for the audience to perhaps interact with him and see him, not knowing that he is actually one of the performers.
Ophelia will be a wandering performer slowly descending in to madness and there will be glimpses of her that some audience members are able to steal as the show descends in to a darker and darker place.
There is a point where we sail to a small island, that we've set up to be a royal cemetery and there is a bit where the audience and the pallbearers bring the casket to the island cemetery to lower Ophelia's body in to the ground. This will also serve for the Alas Yorick moments as well as helping to discuss all of the Hamlet has been at sea references.
The audience is not free to roam during this performance it should be stated. Instead they are directed by masked guides that usher them to the new scene locations.
In the final scenes the curtain is removed and we the audience are privy to the play within a play performance as well as the final fight where pretty much everyone dies.
Finally the boat arrives back at the original dock and the audience disembarks.
For this production we are going to need a bigger boat. But seriously, the play is going to be on a boat that actually sets sail and the audience is going to move around this boat to experience Hamlet. Why a boat? Well I like the symbolism behind this idea of being moorless for in many ways the characters either begin or descend into a moorless sense of self. The show would start with passengers boarding the boat for an at the sea wake (get it?) in which the ashes of Hamlet's father are to be scattered at sea; for like Peter the Great Hamlet's dad also had a connection to the sea. So the audience boards the boat and they are led into a main room where they are seated at the tail end of the wake. Grieving spouse, Claudius, framed picture of dad, coffin, you get the idea. It's somber- it's heavy. Hamlet is the last to give his eulogy but can't bring himself to do it so his family and the court leaves, and once they are out he delivers the speech he wanted to give about how his mom is basically being an awful person and not mourning enough and how he idolizes his too-soon-dead dad.
Horatio is to be in the audience until he makes his debut with Hamlet- so that will be fun for the audience to perhaps interact with him and see him, not knowing that he is actually one of the performers.
Ophelia will be a wandering performer slowly descending in to madness and there will be glimpses of her that some audience members are able to steal as the show descends in to a darker and darker place.
There is a point where we sail to a small island, that we've set up to be a royal cemetery and there is a bit where the audience and the pallbearers bring the casket to the island cemetery to lower Ophelia's body in to the ground. This will also serve for the Alas Yorick moments as well as helping to discuss all of the Hamlet has been at sea references.
In the final scenes the curtain is removed and we the audience are privy to the play within a play performance as well as the final fight where pretty much everyone dies.
Finally the boat arrives back at the original dock and the audience disembarks.
Wow, dude! This is such a cool idea! I would offer that you may also be able to bring the play back to its Norse roots in terms of the look of the ship, etc. You could have a dramatic full-on viking burial for old Hamlet, for example. I'm not sure how much proto-Hamlet would be useful in this endeavor beyond aesthetics, but if it interests you here is some damn fine medieval source material: http://omacl.org/DanishHistory/book3.html
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, the reference to Hamlet (Amlóði) in the Prose Edda is a kenning for the SEA, Austin!!! The kenning in question is "Hamlet's mill" (or, more precisely, according to Anthony Faulkes' translation: "Here the sea is called Amlóði’s mill"-- http://www.vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Uppsala%20Edda.pdf). It invokes a kind of churning and power! But most importantly, it provides even more evidence that a ship is the perfect place to stage the tragedy.
I love how the contained nature of being on a boat gives you so much control over the audience's focus! There are only so many places to look and only so many parts of the ship they would be able to access. I'm so bloody into this! Please do it for real!