Hamlet

From the Playbill - Director 's Notes:

Like life itself, it is simply too big to get on top of, like Nepal's Mt. Everest before Hilary. Yet, like George Mallory, we continue to try "because it's there..."

So how does one prepare to go into battle with the unbeatable dragon? With courage, wonder and stamina. When Darren Bridgett, Will Marchetti, and I sat down to discuss our approach to this daunting undertaking, I realized we had over a century of theatre experience among us.

We are now in a new century and there must always be a new Hamlet. Over the last 12 seasons as Artistic Director of Marin Shakespeare Company I've had a number of actors volunteer to play the role. One of the much-discussed themes in this play is delay. How appropriate then that my choice for the part was someone who didn't ask for it and was reluctant to try it. In our popular The Complete Works of Wllm. Shkspr. (abridged), the entire second act was devoted to a zany examination of Hamlet.

One of the trio of actors is thoroughly daunted, cowed, terrified, even nauseated by the challenge... 'It's so big! There are so many words!' That actor was Darren Bridgett. He reluctantly goes along with the others and at one point in the madcap buffoonery suggest they omit the speech that begins 'I have of late lost all my mirth...' and in this backdoor fashion begins a recitation of one of Hamlet's most moving soliloquies. Every night hundreds of spectators were brought to absolute rapt stillness. I knew that the clown in the orange pumpkin pants was my Hamlet.

The trick was convincing him. Hamlet-like, he delayed, knowing all too well what a challenge was being offered, saying in effect that the time was out of joint. And I understood.

- Robert S. Currier, Director

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