Hamlet Extra Credit After seeing Hamlet performed and reading the original play, I've grown to appreciate the different interpretations of the play. At the Shotgun Theatre performance, they did not include every scene and line, and cut back the number of characters. As there were only seven actors, all but two actors played multiple characters. This led to an interesting new take on most of the scenes, because certain characters couldn't be on stage at the same time. Some of the characters, especially Osric and the Priest, were very different than how they appeared in the book. For some characters, this worked well and was a refreshing new take on the story, but for some of the other characters it was a bit over the top and did not aid in
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They cut out a lot of Hamlet and Ophelia's lines, and on stage they didn't convey their relationship and Hamlet's heartbreak well. Hamlet and Ophelia's break up is such an important part of Hamlet's mindset and heavily influences his actions throughout the rest of the story, and I think that by leaving parts of this out, they missed an essential part of the meaning of Hamlet as a whole. Another smaller portion of the play which they didn't include was the gravedigger and his companion. In Ophelia's burial scene, the gravedigger is alone, and therefore could not make all of his jokes with the other worker. Although this is not a huge part of the play, the humor adds to the story, and it was a shame that they didn't include the gravedigger's witty jokes. One thing that the play did really well was the actors all were clearly very comfortable with each other and did a really good job of conveying the complex relationships between all the main characters. This was especially clear in Claudius and Gertrude's scenes, and their scenes were especially enjoyable because there was some humor due to the fact that Claudius was played by a woman and Gertrude by a man. Overall, I found the performance of Hamlet to be really interesting and fun to watch, and a very good interpretation of
They cut out a lot of Hamlet and Ophelia's lines, and on stage they didn't convey their relationship and Hamlet's heartbreak well. Hamlet and Ophelia's break up is such an important part of Hamlet's mindset and heavily influences his actions throughout the rest of the story, and I think that by leaving parts of this out, they missed an essential part of the meaning of Hamlet as a whole. Another smaller portion of the play which they didn't include was the gravedigger and his companion. In Ophelia's burial scene, the gravedigger is alone, and therefore could not make all of his jokes with the other worker. Although this is not a huge part of the play, the humor adds to the story, and it was a shame that they didn't include the gravedigger's witty jokes. One thing that the play did really well was the actors all were clearly very comfortable with each other and did a really good job of conveying the complex relationships between all the main characters. This was especially clear in Claudius and Gertrude's scenes, and their scenes were especially enjoyable because there was some humor due to the fact that Claudius was played by a woman and Gertrude by a man. Overall, I found the performance of Hamlet to be really interesting and fun to watch, and a very good interpretation of