On a related topic, the effect of Hamlet’s soliloquies can be vastly different if they are played as “Hamlet talking to the audience” as opposed to “Hamlet talking to himself.” Most seem to do the latter, but Jacobi did the former, and in my own production I’d have Hamlet speaking to the audience. I wouldn’t necessarily make that choice for ALL Shakespearean soliloquies, but Hamlet in many ways anticipates metatheater.
Like Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout, Hamlet is the rare fictional character astute enough to intuit that he’s fictional…
On a related topic, the effect of Hamlet’s soliloquies can be vastly different if they are played as “Hamlet talking to the audience” as opposed to “Hamlet talking to himself.” Most seem to do the latter, but Jacobi did the former, and in my own production I’d have Hamlet speaking to the audience. I wouldn’t necessarily make that choice for ALL Shakespearean soliloquies, but Hamlet in many ways anticipates metatheater.
Like Vonnegut’s Kilgore Trout, Hamlet is the rare fictional character astute enough to intuit that he’s fictional…