To be or not to be...

[fajrdrako]

I saw Hamlet at the National Arts Centre today. How I love that play. It strikes me as exciting and wonderful - it draws me in every time I see it. (Except for the really bad productions!) It pushes every Romantic button I have - my love of heightened drama and poetry and swordplay and attractive men in Elizabeth boots. Men who play Hamlet are always attractive. I can't think how they do it, but they do. Hamlet is as sexy as Bruce Wayne is.

Hamlet in this case was played by Tom Rooney, whom I have only seen once before - also at the NAC - in A Winter's Tale, in which he played the sexy-but-sinister duke. His Hamlet was edgy and angry, very full of motion, very expressive. Good moments:

• at the end of the scene between Hamlet and Gertrude, after his anger and passion on haranguing his mother and seeing the ghost of his father, Hamlet lay his head in his mother's lap and wept. Then the conversation about him going to England was low-key and sweet, a nice contrast.



• Great costuming. It looked like late 16th century costume until you looked closely and saw that it really wasn't - there were distinct oddities. Hamlet of course was in black, with a white shirt; most of the cast was in subdued colours; but Gertrude and Claudius wore bright reds, oranges, yellows and greens. Ophelia wore a cream-coloured gown till she went mad, when she wore white. My favourite of the costumes was Hamlet's travelling coat, a long coat like a trench coat but with a square Renaissance-type square fur collar.



• Ophelia was young and bright and pretty and very, very good - most touching in the mad scenes. (The actress was named Michelle Monteith.) At times, I found her voice very ugly.



• Horatio, sadly, wasn't so attractive, at least, not to me. But from time to time the two actors' looks and body language, and their lines, made me think of Sam and Frodo.

Why is it I never get tired of this play, however many times I see it?

Comments

[monsieureden.livejournal.com]

I love Hamlet too!! Favorite Shakespeare. Heh.

And I love men in Elizabeth boots too. Why don't they wear them anymore? :(

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

Favorite Shakespeare. Heh

Yup. Though there are other great characters in Shakespeare (and other sexy heroes too) it's Hamlet that gets me in the heart every time. I can't even analyse it. Maybe it has something to do with how he's angsty and funny and smart and confused at the same time. Or how he acts and reacts to those around him - paring his relationships down to the essence.

As for Elizabethan boots - maybe it's just as well more men don't wear them. I'd be weak in the knees all the time. Either that, or I'd desensitize and they'd lose their thrill. Still - it would be nice to see such a thing a little more than we do! (Thinking of getting out my videotapes of Hamlet... but it isn't quite the same on tape. Almost as good, though.)

[ladyeclectic79.livejournal.com]

*grin* I'm a big Shakespeare fan too, although usually more his comedies. :) I was able to go to Ashland, OR a few years back for the Shakespeare festivale there and saw LLL and A Winter's Tale, both of which were fantastic, then saw (I believe?) 12th Night in London. I've memorized several Shakespearean passages as well, mostly from drama in HS but some on my own; I love the history of how he almost single-handedly solidified the English language. :D

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

My favourite of the comedies is Much Ado About Nothing - I love the Beatrice?benedick relationship, and some of the brilliant dialogue.

I don't think I've ever seen Love's Labours Lost, except the Kenneth Branagh movie. I also saw A Winter's Tale last year (here in Ottawa) and loved it. I saw Twelfth Night at Stratford, Ontario once, and once in England - probably at Stratford-on-Avon. Both versions were good but it isn't my favourite of the plays, I'm not sure why. I quite like Portia.