Hamlet - Benji Lord

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...