Hamlet - Benji Lord

In today's society, mental health is something that isn't talked about much, especially with men. This may be because of the stereotypical 'man' is someone who doesn't talk about their feelings as it might be considered 'feminine' or whether it is something that is just genetic. Statistics source: https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/statistics/mental-health-statistics-men-and-women - In England, women are more likely than men to have a common mental health problem and are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders. - In 2013, 6,233 suicides were recorded in the UK for people aged 15 and older. Of these, 78% were male and 22% were female. - 10% of mothers and 6% of fathers in the UK have mental health problems at any given time. One in five (19.1%) women had CMD symptoms, compared with one in eight men (12.2%). - Between 2003 and 2013, 18,220 people with mental health problems took their own life in the UK. - Suicide is th...

When performing a classical text such as Shakespeare, articulation is one of the most important things. Getting your mouth around large words can be a challenge so these are some exercises I tried and they proved effective: Tongue-twisters Unique New York New York Unique To sit in solemn silence in a dull dark dock In a pestilential prison with a life long lock Awaiting the sensation of a short sharp shock From a cheap and chippy chopper on a big black block1 Red Leather, Yellow Leather She says she shall sew a sheet What a to do to die today, at a minute or two to two, a thing distinctly hard to say, but a harder thing to do. For they’ll beat a tattoo at two today a rat a tat at two, and the dragon will come when he hears the drum at a minute or two to two today at a minute or two today. She stood on the balcony, inexplicably mimicking him hiccupping, and amicably welcoming him home.1 A big black bug bit a big black bear and the big black bear bled blue b...

DREAMING AND SLEEP We set our version of the play at 5am, inside Hamlet's mind. I like to think it takes place in a kind of lucid dream.  A Lucid dream is a dream where the dreamer is aware that they are dreaming. In some cases, the dreamer is able to have some sort of degree of control over the dream. Early references to the phenomenon are found in ancient Greek writing. For example, the philosopher Aristotle wrote: 'often when one is asleep, there is something in consciousness which declares that what then presents itself is but a dream'.   Celia Green concluded that lucid dreams were a category of experience quite distinct from ordinary dreams, and predicted that they would turn out to be associated with rapid eye movement sleep (REM sleep ,a unique phase of sleep characterized by rapid movement of the eyes, low muscle tone throughout the body, and the propensity of the sleeper to dream vividly). Green was also the first to link lucid dreams to the phenomenon of ...

MY HAMLET My two main parts of this play happen near the start and near the end. I have scene 4, where Hamlet pretends to have an odd disposition when he is speaking to Polonius. He also talks to Laertes, and figures out that he was sent by the King to spy on him. In this scene, Hamlet is still grieving his father and I think this is some of the motivation behind him acting so strangely. In scene 12, my other scene, Hamlet is angry. He has made the decision that he will eventually kill Claudius. His anger towards Claudius slowly develops from the first scene, and I think scene 12 is one of the first points where he really lets it out. I think the fact that he bottles everything in for a very long time is eventually what drives him mad. Hamlet is an intelligent man and I think it takes a lot for him to really unleash his feelings. I feel like I should be careful on how I use Hamlet's anger, considering his intelligence, I feel that he might be a lot more conserved at points. Th...

In today's rehearsal, our movement director wasn't with us so we had a heavily text based lesson. We looked at one of Hamlet's most famous monologues. A basic explanation is it's just Hamlet explaining how to act. It has some very useful advice to actors. Here is a translation of the speech, I have highlighted the parts I found most important: Perform the speech just as I taught you, musically and smoothly. If you exaggerate the words the way some actors do, I might as well have some newscaster read the lines. Don’t use too many hand gestures; just do a few, gently, like this. When you get into a whirlwind of passion on stage, remember to keep the emotion moderate and smooth. I hate it when I hear a blustery actor in a wig tear a passion to shreds, bursting everyone’s eardrums so as to impress the audience on the lower levels of the playhouse, who for the most part can only appreciate loud noises and pantomime shows. I would whip a guy for making a tyrant sou...

SPARKNOTES ACT 2 - Scene 2 - Page 7 Some of my lines i have to translate so that i understand them a bit better: IAMBIC PENTAMETER Here is some work I did on figuring out the iambic pentameter of a speech: BOLD = Stressed syllable. Some lines do not fit into the Iambic Pentameter. I think this means that Shakespeare wanted this line to stand out more and maybe it meant something a lot more important.  Now might I do it pat . Now he is a-praying.   (the "he is" part could be blended to make 1 syllable or you could make it not fit in Iambic)  And now I’ll do ’t . And so he goes to heaven .  ("heaven" is 1 syllable) And so am I re venged .—That would be scanned. A vil lain kills my fa ther, and , for that , I, his sole son, do this same villain send   (this line and the small line below do not fit into Iambic.  To heaven.                     ...