Spotlight! E-news from Theatrefolk
Issue 3 - The Creative Process: ContinuedWelcome!
Welcome to our third newsletter, where we continue our look at The Creative Process. This is a great resource for anyone interested in plays and where they come from. Even if you're not a writer, you're sure to gain some valuable insights.
And, of course, don't miss out on your chance to download the first 20 pages of Lindsay Price's brand-new cutting of Hamlet.
In this issue:
- THE SCRIPT BANK - Our innovative new licensing program is now on-line!
- THE CREATIVE PROCESS - Playwright Bradley Hayward discusses his newest plays, Apostrophe's and The Waking Moment.
- WORDS, WORDS, WORDS: EDITING HAMLET - Lindsay describes the creation of the latest play in our Shakespeare-in-an-Hour series.
- FREE DOWNLOAD - Hamlet - The first 20 pages of Lindsay Price's one-hour adaptation - A newsletter exclusive!
- BOOK REVIEWS - Lindsay reviews two books about productions of Hamlet.
- YOU ASKED FOR IT - We answer your questions.
- IN THE NEXT ISSUE - What you can expect next.
- STAY IN TOUCH - Contact info/Read our blog.
The Script Bank
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The Creative Process
We didn't get to introduce Bradley Hayward to you last newsletter, so here he is! Bradley is quite a diverse writer, as you'll see in his plays The Waking Moment and Apostrophe's. We're very proud to have both works in our catalogue.
WRITING THE WAKING MOMENT
Anyone familiar with my body of work knows that I generally lean towards comedy over drama. In fact, it’s almost a rule that my plays tackle various subjects with broad slapstick and snappy punchlines. So when I finally did sit down to write a drama, as I have with The Waking Moment , I was faced with an enormous challenge. How could I tell a story that involved serious issues, such as teen pregnancy and sexual abuse? It sure wasn’t going to be easy. However, as I interviewed many teenagers during my research, I was startled at the number of kids that were dealing with such adult issues. That’s when I asked myself a much more important question: How could I not write this story?
Over the years, I have seen dozens of “high school problem plays.” While there are many great ones out there (specifically Juvie by Jerome McDonough, or Theatrefolk’s very own Power Play by Lindsay Price), the vast majority of them are overly didactic, preachy, and worst of all… boring. After pouring over many of these scripts, particularly the ones I found less than entertaining, it occurred to me that they were mostly stories about the issues, rather than stories about characters going through the issues. That’s when it hit me to write the play through the eyes of a young girl. Suddenly, my main character (Julie) came to life and I wrote the entire play in one sitting.
I was very nervous when the first high school chose to produce The Waking Moment. A million questions raced through my mind. Will the actors like being in it? Is it too heavy? Is it too subtle? Is it… heaven forbid… boring? All of those questions were answered when the production turned out to be an enormous success. It was so popular, in fact, that they ended up touring the show around the area. But the greatest moment came when I received an email from one of the actresses in the play. Her words were short and simple: “Julie changed my life.”
Unbeknownst to her, those words changed my life. They were not: “You changed my life” or “Your play changed my life.” No, it was the fact that one of my fictional characters found their way into the heart of a real, live person. It fills me with such pride to know that Julie, who started out as merely words on a page, suddenly has a life of her own. And now that The Waking Moment has graciously been made available by Theatrefolk, my hope is that Julie will continue to live on, telling her story over and over again.
WRITING APOSTROPHE’S
The idea for Apostrophe’s hit me one day while I was driving by a high school. There was a giant marquee out front that read (I kid you not): “The drama club present’s Guy’s and Doll’s! Ticket’s $5.00.”
I’d always been annoyed at the improper usage of apostrophes, but after seeing this particular abundance of punctuation (at a high school, no less), I knew something had to be done.
So I got to thinking, why do people insist on adding punctuation at random? We live in a society that has gone to great lengths to make things simpler, so the idea of adding things where they don’t belong just doesn’t make any sense. Yet for every cell phone or DSL modem, there’s a sentence out there that’s decorated with too many, as my first grade teacher would say, “raised commas.” Once I came up with an explanation that seemed to make sense, the play just kind of wrote itself.
To that end, writing Apostrophe’s was a blast! And I do believe that students will have a terrific time with the kooky characters and endless possibilities for physical comedy. In fact, I was once asked why I write primarily for high school students. I was stunned because, to me, the answer was obvious. Teenagers are brimming with sheer enthusiasm, endless creativity, and kinetic energy. Bring those qualities to the stage and they simply explode under the spotlight, which makes for a highly exciting theatrical experience. And that’s what a play should be - an experience. So if there’s any way I can be a part of that energy, and eliminate extra apostrophes in the process, I’m all for it!
Bradley's personal website can be found at: http://www.bradleyhayward.com/
Words, words, words: Editing Hamlet
At first it seems like a logical step: we publish one hour cut and annotated versions of Shakespeare plays for high school actors, Hamletis studied in high schools, we should have a one hour Hamletin our catalogue. Sounds simple enough. Great! I’m on it!
I’ve got my Riverside Shakespeare, my Arden, my Oxford, even my Pelican Shakespeare.
I’ve got my Elizabethan English dictionary, my Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, my numerous websites all with numerous opinions on Shakespeare’s most famous character. I’m all set…
Until I actually sit down with the text.
The text is the thing, wherein I’ll catch the conscious of the enthusiastic editor. The text is huge. Overwhelming. At its full length it runs four hours. The questions loom over the page as Hamlet Senior looms on the platform in front of Marcellus and Francisco.
How am I going to get this down to an hour? How am I going to get all the necessary notes into that tiny sidebar? Am I going to ruin Hamlet?
I really like Hamlet. I think it’s a fabulous play and on more than one occasion I looked up from the page with a "wow" after reading a certain soliloquy or scene. It was a joy to study the text in detail for this cutting. I also loved reading the various opinions on who Hamlet is and what he does. It really helped me form my own opinions.
My favourite story came from a compendium of 18thcentury viewpoints on the play: in theory, the reason the Queen talks about Hamlet being “fat and scant of breath” during the duel at the end, is that the actor who originally played Hamlet also played Falstaff, who was quite a rotund fellow.
We provide cut version of Shakespeare because we want students to not only readthe plays butperformthem. We believe that these hour-long versions provide a manageable way to do that. We also provide as much story, character and vocabulary help as we can to help lift the fog that is Elizabethan English. It is always our hope that once students get a grasp of a particular play with our version that they will go and read the full thing. The main thing is to connect the play to the student as much as we possibly can.
If you are considering tackling the Bard for your own pared-down version, here are a few elements to consider. They are what I think about when I am approaching the text for our one-hour versions.
ONE: Decide what you want your length to be.
One hour? Forty-five minutes? Knowing how long I wanted the script to be was pretty helpful in terms of knowing how much I had to cut. After getting through the first round of general cuts, I knew right away that I needed to do more.
TWO: Know the story inside-out.
Because I knew the story fairly well to begin with (I played Horatio in a gender-twisted production of the play a long time ago) I had a pre-made list of cuts, such as the Fortinbras storyline. Knowing the story also helped out when I had gone too far: I originally cut most of Act IV scene vii (a lengthy dialogue between Claudius and Laertes) until I realized this was the only mention of the poisoned sword Laertes intended to use during the duel. It’s important to be aware of holes you might be creating in the story by removing text.
THREE: Decide what’s important to you to get across to your actors.
What exactly is your purpose for cutting? For us, it’s providing a manageable performance text which hopefully leads students back to the original. To that end, our focus is on highlighting the characters and the main story revolving around Hamlet. Know why you’re doing what you’re doing - it will help deciding what to cut. For example, although I think it’s interesting to learn what happens to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, it’s not essential to Hamlet’s story. The "players" section where the lead player does parts from different plays for Hamlet is again, interesting, but not necessary.
FOUR: Decide on your faithfulness level.
I knew from the beginning that the story and the characters were more important to me than the poetry of the text. To that end I was not faithful to the iambic pentameter in the verse sections. It makes it easier to cut when you’re not worrying about matching up the beats! Don’t get me wrong - I think beat analysis for Shakespeare is essential (and fascinating) to gain access to the characters and what’s going on. I love textual analysis and in the few times that I performed Shakespeare I went whole hog with it. But if a student actor can’t even get through a page of text without falling asleep, they’re certainly not going to get through learning how to count the beats in a line. On the other hand, if you think that it’s a crime to break up the verse, then by all means keep that at the forefront of your editing.
It took a long time to get our version of Hamlet to the publishing stage (over a year!). But in the end I’m pretty proud of the finished product. “The rest is silence.”
Free Download
Newsletter Exclusive...Download the first 20 pages of Lindsay Price's new cutting of Hamlet by visiting here:
http://www.theatrefolk.com/spotlight/download/1
Book Reviews
Shakespeare in Production: HamletEdited by Robert Hapgood
Cambridge University Press
1999
The best acting parts are those which admit of the largest number of different interpretations.
Since we have an article about our one hour version of Hamlet, I thought it would be fitting to review a book that discusses Shakespeare's most famous play. Shakespeare in Production: Hamletlooks at the numerous productions and interpretations of the work.I love seeing different version of Shakespeare and thus enjoyed this book very much. Having said that, the book is dated - the last theatrical production listed is from 1989 and the last movie referenced is Kenneth Branagh's from 1996.
Nonetheless, it is quite interesting to read the thoughts of various directors, actors and filmmakers over hundreds of years.
To start with, there is an extensive introduction of nearly 100 pages which works as an history lesson of sorts as it details the various Hamlets through the ages. There is a production list that starts from 1600. There are descriptions of how some of the “famous” Hamlets have played the part from David Garrick, Edmund Kean and Olivier. It also offers production illustrations and photos from 1754 to 1989. One from a 1988 production shows Hamlet trying to sponge off Polonius' blood after killing him.
The bulk of the book is an annotated version of the text, with the commentary consisting of notes from various productions. It is truly fascinating to see how different actors and directors have tackled the play.
For example:
In Act 1 scene 5 when the Ghost (Hamlet's father) tells Hamlet how poison was poured into his ear to kill him, one production decided that the Ghost would speak right into Hamlet's ear: “The Ghost, by speaking directly into Hamlet's ear poisons him with words of revenge.” (p137)
In the nunnery scene, a production prompt script has Ophelia about to kiss the packet of letters she is to return to Hamlet “...when she seems to remember she is being watched. She drops her arms slowly and offers them to him.” (p181)
At the end of the play when Gertrude stubbornly decides to drink from the cup (“I will, my lord. I pray you, pardon me”) it is because the actress had decided Gertrude “had developed a drinking problem.” (p271)
Some productions have Hamlet dying with Horatio. A 1905 production had Hamlet “embracing his mother and dying on her body.” (p275)
The notes also reference how different actors emphasized different words in lines and even goes so far as to give specific gestures.
I think that a book like this is a great place to start for directors thinking of tackling Hamlet. It will give you a good idea of what you might like to try, or definitely don't want in your own production.
I also think it could be a useful tool in the classroom. Students could try doing a scene the way they did it in a production from a different century. How does that change the interpretation of the scene? Do the students agree with the interpretation? How does a line change if students emphasize a certain word the way that certain actor does? There's lots of room for discussion here.
Hamlet Through The Ages: A Pictorial Record
Raymond Mander & Mitchenson
Salisbury Square
1955
The above book will certainly be hard to find (I read it at the Toronto Reference Library) but it was such a compelling read that I had to mention it.
“Hamlet Through The Ages” chronicles the play through pictures, set design drawings, movie stills and models from the simple to the elaborate.
There is a picture of a 1945 London production from the first scene of the play which gives off such an appropriately spooky aura, just from the set! It really surprised me.
There are numerous illustrations and photos from the 19th century showing Hamlet's first encounter with the Ghost. These clearly demonstrate how uniform and stylized acting used to be because the actor's pose in each are almost identical.
The book also covers international productions. It's interesting to see how the play is interpreted in other countries. In a Moscow production, the Hamlet and Gertrude scene (Act 3 scene 4) has the two characters in long nightdresses and caps.
There are also quite a few pictures of mad Ophelia. The most interesting (p112) shows Ophelia with her hair cut short and her flowers laid out in the shape of a cross in front of her on the floor.
Again, it's amazing how much one can learn about the play simply by seeing the decisions others make in their staging.
Here are a couple of other books that refer to Hamlet on stage:
Shakespeare in Performance: Hamlet
Anthony B. Dawson
Manchester University Press
1995
John A. Mills
Greenwood Press
1985
You Asked For It
Q: Our group wants to perform The Canterbury Tales on our local one-act competition. Can we cut it down?
These questions are always answered on a case-by-case basis.
It's best to submit a list of what you intend to cut, which we forward to the playwright for approval. We never issue carte-blanche permission to cut whatever you want.
In this particular case, Lindsay reworked the script, trimming it herself to the length required. It was a win-win situation: The performing group got the play to the length they needed, and the playwright was satisfied that the play still fulfilled her artistic vision.
We do everything we can to help you out. After all, we want you to perform our plays! But the final decision is always made by the playwright, not Theatrefolk. It's their play.
In the Next Issue
Scene and heard: All about scene-work!
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