Jan

16

The Play Really Is The Thing.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

January 16, 2008 |

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival is beginning its 20th Anniversary season with one of Shakespeare’s darkest and best plays: Hamlet. The production runs from January 17th through February 2nd. From its beginning, with an army advancing on Elsinore and a ghost disturbing the guards, to the final act which begins with two gravediggers throwing around bones and making jokes, Hamlet is a play suffused with death. Most scholars, as blogger Michael Prescott notes, believe Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most autobiographical play. Among others, poet and critic John Berryman  suggested Hamlet and other tragedies written around the same time were Shakespeare’s response to the death of his son Hamnet, who was only eleven when he died.That may be a risky assumption, especially with the ongoing debate about whether Shakespeare really wrote Shakespeare’s plays, but that’s another story.

Hamlet may also be one of Shakespeare’s most quoted plays. Once, during the intermission of a production, a minister and I were talking in the lobby and he mentioned how many of the play’s lines were attributed to the Bible, such as “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” (from Act I, Scene 3). Other frequently quoted (or paraphrased, or mangled) lines include:

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in ‘t”

“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark”

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

“To be or not to be, that is the question.”

And every actor and theater patron knows, “The play’s the thing!”

This particular production is directed by the company’s Artistic Director Denice Hicks. Hicks has been with the company for several years, and has had some memorable performances, including a brilliant Puck in the 1994 summer production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And if that ain’t enough to convince you, check out the commercial:

Whether you see the production or not, I hope you’ll always remember–

This above all: to thine ownself be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man.


Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Bones » The Play Really Is The Thing. on January 16, 2008 1:18 am

    [...] Here’s another interesting post I read today by Just Write [...]

  2. Joke of the day » The Play Really Is The Thing. on January 16, 2008 2:57 am

    [...] post by Just Write and software by Elliott Back This entry is filed under Joke of the day. You can follow any [...]

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

<< Post Navigation >>

« « Book ‘Em: Going Bananas. | Life In Black And White. » »