something is rotten in the state of denmark

last week, huntsville was lucky enough to be one of the stops of the american shakespeare center's stark raving sane tour. they did 3 performances: comedy of errors on wednesday, hamlet on thursday, and rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead on friday. stef and i went to hamlet thursday night, and gosh, do i wish i had gone to all 3 nights. it was amazing!

a couple of notes about how american shakespeare center (asc) plays are performed...they try to make the experience as accurate as possible. first, the lights remain on through the entire performance which means the actors can see the audience and interact with them (there wasn't any electricity when shakespeare was alive...duh). also, they utilize doubling. a shakespeare play could as many as 40 characters, but the traveling troupe of the period wouldn't have had more than 15 actors. so, the actors of the asc play multiple roles.

the performance thursday night began with a funny song involving all the cast members that recapped the story of hamlet,the prince of denmark, so the audience would know the basic story of the play. then they began the play, and simply put, it was excellent. it was so well acted. i put myself in the mindset of someone in the audience of the globe theater when the play was performed for the first time.. watching hamlet try to uncover the source of the stench in his country of denmark while contemplating life's big questions. i was carried away by the terrible feeling of loss and betrayel, the hilarity of the jokes and jabs, the fear caused by ghostly visitors, the intrigue, and the end-of-your-seat suspense of the last scene.

now, i'm obsessed. i'm dying to read hamlet & i want to watch all of kenneth branagh's shakespeare movies. i'm making plans to visit the alabama shakespeare festival in mobile to try to satisfy my shakespeare craving, and i hope that the performances live up to the standards set by the asc. if you hear that the asc is coming to a city near you, make the time to go out and see at least one of their performances. you won't regret it.


(did i mention that hamlet was super cute? that was an added benefit :)