Overview
Shakespeare’s Hamlet, one of the most world-renown play, has been tackled by thousands of actors and directors. However, due to the plays popularity current actors and directors are faced with multiple challenges. Actors and directors of the present compete among the many of those who pursue hamlet, while simultaneously are being compared to those who preceded them.
Competition Among Hamlet
Generations upon generations of actors and directors pursuing the play has made it much more difficult for both actors and directors to seize the spotlight. With so many before them having performed the same piece of art, making oneself known becomes a difficult task. In order to compete among the many, actors and directors must pose whether to stray from tradition or to be the new heir of past performances. Constant comparisons require both to be knowledgeable about their competition, thus placing their performance's success on the dependence of their accumulated knowledge. Yet, not only must they both be aware of the previous acts of Hamlet, but how the critics interpret these performances as well.
Bad Collection
Critiques
Critics create a large portion of stress for both actors and directors. Based on their response to plays of the past, current actors and directors create their own version of hamlet. However, with so many different opinions, it is impossible to please all. Therefore actors and directors end up placing a lot of their performance on what the critics think, thus minimizing their own creative decisions and willingness to step out of the box. They tackle the task of finding a balance between what they want to do and what the critics as well as the audience likes to see.
Both of these challenges relay Hamlet to represent a bad collection because they require the actor and director to lack independence. The actor and director depend on those previous to them. They have said that they are “haunted by those who preceded them” because they don’t know whether to incorporate such tradition or change them. Actors and directors are also dependent on the reactions of the audience and critics in that in trying to please both parties, they tackle an impossible challenge of finding the perfect ratio of originality and tradition to fit everyone’s liking.
Aspects of Performance
"To Be or Not To Be"
Kenneth Branagh
Kenneth's performance of the soliloquy, To Be or Not To Be, focuses more on the production aspects and the performance's dependence of the director's choices. By questioning and contemplating suicide through the mirror, his reflection is no longer just an image of himself, but it begins to act and exist more so as Hamlet's conscience. Speaking to his reflection also allows the reader to assume the perspective that Hamlet is truly alone throughout his plot of vengeance: no one to truly console him through his father's death and re-appearance or to keep his mind lucid. The background music is faint, but apparent to emphasize the solidarity as well as tension of the scene. To commence the closing of the scene, the camera pans closely to his reflection, thus placing his physical body out of frame. Through this action the directors symbolize Hamlet's inability to control his body and actions as his corrupted conscience has begun to take-over.
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