Other Shakespeareans known to be on board the project are Anthony Hopkins, who plays Thor’s father and king of the gods, Odin, Colm Feore of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival *and Julie Taymor’s Titus). English actor Tom Hiddleston, a RADA grad who won an Olivier award for his Leonatus in a stage production of Cymbeline, will play the villain, bad-boy Trickster god Loki–can’t wait for that!

Thor is due out in 2010. The cast also includes Natalie Portman, Stellan Skarsgard and Rene Russo. Thor will be played by Australian actor Chris Hemsworth, who played James T. Kirk’s father in the recent J.J. Abrams Star Trek.

For your reading pleasure, here are some links:

• the IMDb page on Thor
• Associated Press report on Branagh at the recent Comic Con in San Diego.
• How Did Kenneth Branagh Get Thor Job?
• Roundtable interview with Branagh about Thor

Here’s a vidclip of an interview with Branagh (pronouced “Branner”—who knew?) from Comic Con:

Click here to view the embedded video.

And here’s another Branagh interview at Comic Con, this one discussing how Thor fits into the Marvel universe of Iron Man and Captain America:

Click here to view the embedded video.

One of the more discussed (at least in my hearing) choices made by Bill Rauch in the 2010 production of Hamlet has been the casting of deaf actor Howie Seago as the Ghost. Now, I’m suspecting that at some point this sort of thing will cease to be considered a Big Deal; rather like racial-blind casting, which has been the norm at the OSF for some time and now inspires remark mostly from newbies—folks who haven’t yet caught on that theatre is by nature a far more metaphorical and poetic medium than, say, the movies; that, as Henry V‘s Chorus reminds us,

’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o’er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass:

A production’s ability to call forth the desired experience from the audience—that mysterious and magical thing that people call “great theatre”—depends as much on what the audience brings with them into the auditorium as what the actors bring to the stage. In terms of what the actors bring to the stage, their effectiveness, in turn, depends more on skill and intelligence and qualities of energy and personality than whether they fit a preconceived mold in terms of how they look or sound or dress. But then there are also, probably always will be, audience members who feel that Shakespeare isn’t Shakespeare unless the actors are all white, in doublet and hose, and speaking with British accents.

However, since Howie Seago’s casting as the Ghost has raised some comment in a few quarters, mostly of the “But I miss Shakespeare’s language!” variety, I would like to point out why I think this casting was particularly effective.

First, those who complain about missing the language are people who probably know it so well already they could speak it in their sleep, and have been known to do so in their seats right along with the actors. (A problem so chronic with Shakespeare in performance that Peter Brook dealt with it in his marvelous production (which we in Clan Murphy have taken to calling the “Zen Hamlet“—see John Murphy’s review here), by shifting soliloques out of their usual place, and having the Players enact the Hecuba scene in its original (source) Greek.

How wonderful and fresh, therefore, in this OSF production, to “see” Seago’s passionately expressive sign language putting a whole new spin on the Ghost’s horrific narrative of his murder at the hands of his brother.

Dan Donohue & Howie Seago, OSF 2010, photo by David Cooper

And as for those who aren’t familiar with Shakespeare’s language, I dare say they catch the drift easily enough with Hamlet’s “translation”, and probably more easily than those hearing words such as these for the first time:

Sleeping within my orchard,
My custom always of the afternoon,
Upon my secure hour thy uncle stole,
With juice of cursed hebenon in a vial,
And in the porches of my ears did pour
The leperous distilment; whose effect
Holds such an enmity with blood of man
That swift as quicksilver it courses through
The natural gates and alleys of the body,
And with a sudden vigour doth posset
And curd, like eager droppings into milk,
The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine;
And a most instant tetter bark’d about,
Most lazar-like, with vile and loathsome crust,
All my smooth body.
Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand
Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatch’d:
Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,
Unhousel’d, disappointed, unanel’d…

Unhousel’d…unanel’d?

Be all that as it may, having Hamlet and the Ghost communicating in sign language—one might describe it almost as their “private” language—also served to produce the (in my experience, unique) effect of putting the father-and-son pair in a sort of psycho-spiritual bubble, contra mundum; a bubble that excluded all others and highlighted Hamlet’s isolation. The relationship between father and son portrayed in most productions comes across as distant, severe and (on Hamlet’s part) rather worshipful, even awestruck. In this production the father/son relationship is portrayed as having been loving and paternally intimate, which makes Hamlet’s reaction to his father’s tale of murder all the more harrowing.

All this supports the later dramatic development of something like madness in the Prince of Denmark. For if the Ghost’s visit isn’t harrowing, either in the supernatural or the psychological sense, preferably both, then Hamlet’s subsequent unhinging will not be properly set up. In fact, in my viewings and re-viewings of eighteen or so Hamlet productions, I’ve only seen two others that have, in my view, fully understood and capitalized on the importance of this setup/payoff dynamic: One was at the American Players Theatre back in the mid-nineties starring Lee Ernst; it featured a chained ghost with a booming voice who seemed to be suffering all the torments of hell. The other is the famous Russian language Hamlet of Grigori Kozintsev, with a truly haunting, almost horror-movie slo-mo apparition of a Ghost, monstrous cape whipping in the wind behind him, stalking the craggy walls of castle Elsinore like a walking nightmare.

Finally, in the OSF production’s captivating use of sign language—for me it put the icing on the cake, as it were—there were several very nice bits of stage business when we see, in a couple of key scenes, Gertrude and even Claudius breaking briefly into sign language when speaking of the late King Hamlet. These fleeting moments from the ancien regime seemed to signal, as it were, breakings-in of conscience and former ties of familial love into the toxic little Gertrude/Claudius bubble—that “rotten” thing poisoning Denmark.

Alas, I can’t show a vidclip from the OSF production, but here’s one of the Ghost scene from Kozintsev’s Hamlet:

Click here to view the embedded video.

The show is directed by Grant Turner, Artistic Director of Portland-based Northwest Classical Theater Company. (See below, scroll down, for cast list.) All shows are at 3 pm unless otherwise noted. The park schedule is:

July 31, August 1 – Laurelhurst Park
August 6 – Director Park, Downtown Portland at SW 9th & Yamhill (7:30 pm)
August 7*, 8 – Washington Park
August 14 – Raleigh Park (6 pm)
August 15 – Gabriel Park
August 21 – Maryhill Museum in the Gorge (7 pm)
August 22 – Lynchwood Park
August 28, 29 – Concordia University
Sept. 4, 5, 6 (Labor Day) – Reed College

*Sign language interpreted performance.

Other information:
- Directions to park locations are available at www.portlandactors.org.
- All shows are outdoors, blankets or low sand chairs are recommended

About the organization: The mission of Portland Actors Ensemble has remained unchanged since its first season: To bring financially accessible classical theater to Portland communities in a non-traditional environment. Portland Actors Ensemble began performing free Shakespeare-in-the-Parks productions in 1970 and is run by a volunteer board. PAE is funded by grants and donations and is a 501(C)(3) organization.

Portland Actors Ensemble, P.O. Box 8671, Portland, OR 97207
503-467-6573
www.portlandactors.org

CAST LIST
Victoria Blake -Courtesan
Sam Burns -Antipholus of Ephesus
Margaret Darling -Adriana
Lindsay Fischer -Luciana
Dennis Fitzpatrick -Duke Solinus
Curtis Hanson -Egeon
Gildevin Jagudajev -Dromio of Ephesus
Jon Lakey -Antipholus of Syracuse
Cyndi Rhoads -Balthasar, a second Merchant
RaChelle Schmidt -Angela the Goldsmith
Christine Shields -The Abbess
R. David Wyllie -Dromio of Syracuse
Vanessa Elsner -Officer/1st Merchant/Dr. Pinch

And why did that young scamp Ireland do it? Many historians, including his new biographer, Doug Stewart, author of The Boy Who Would Be Shakespeare , think it was to impress his father, Samuel Ireland.

Listen to the audio (or read the transcript) of the NPR feature here.

The 1999 documentary seems a poorly constructed affair, more a collection of vaguely sinister-sounding talking points—random bits of pro-Oxford evidence wrapped in conspiracy-theorish suggestions that the only thing propping up the Stratfordian position is regard for the tourist industry in Stratford. As someone who has, even as an amateur, read enough bardolatrous literature of the academic sort to know that there are plenty of smart Stratfordians out there with no vested interest in the British tourist trade, this is a gross oversimplification to put it mildly. I mean, if we’re going to look at things like that, one had better not enlist the support of (for example) the present Earl of Oxford, whose family could only gain in every possible way if he were to be at some point acknowledged a direct descendent of Shake-speare. I mean, who else would have more to gain? Think of the boon to the tourist trade in Essex and Hedingham Castle!

But be that as it may, as I said, this little documentary isn’t well organized or argued. It may preach eloquently to the Choir, I couldn’t say, but newbies to the Authorship Question would, I think, get a better introduction to the Oxfordian position by watching the PBS Frontline program. PBS doesn’t seem to be selling them anymore, but you might have some luck on ebay or Amazon Marketplace. A transcript of the program is available from the PBS website linked above.

But here’s a little  preview of The Shakespeare Conspiracy:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Dan Donohue as Hamlet, photo by David Cooper

Part 2 of a series on the 2010 Oregon Shakespeare Festival Hamlet starring Dan Donohue and directed by Bill Rauch

SPOILER ALERT!!!!

Once again I urge readers who have not yet seen the production, but who are planning to, to stop reading now: I will be discussing some of the more surprising elements of the production and have no wish to spoil anyone’s delight in discovery. (For tickets, go here.)

First off, you know as soon as you enter the Bowmer theatre that you’re in for something a little different, for the audience members attending Bill Rauch’s production (many of whom are no doubt familiar with Hamlet and its famous “play-within-a-play”) are treated to something of a “play-before-the-play”: Young Hamlet (Dan Donohue), his eyes shaded by sunglasses, is already seated there on stage before the draped and candlelit casket of his dead father. The red lens of a security camera blinks down at him from the castle’s parapet above. The funeral, clearly, is over, everyone else has gone home, and Hamlet alone remains to mourn the late King, his father. Palace retainers quietly carry off the empty folding chairs, obviously wondering how long the guy in shades is going to keep sitting there, thus preventing them from finishing their jobs so they can go home, too.

And so Hamlet remains for the entire time the auditorium is filling: sitting there silently as we playgoers find our seats and fumble with our cell phones and chat about this or that production we’ve seen, or what we’ve been up to since we got into town, or the trials brought about by Mom’s worsening dementia…whatever. Both times I’ve seen the show (so far) I heard someone nearby wonder aloud whether the actor on stage could hear what people were saying, and what he thought about it all. The whole business served to underscore, for me at least, the somewhat unsettling sensation that we, the audience, were the ones on stage being scrutinized, being “sifted”, not the actor. It called to mind a comment by Shakespeare critic Harold Bloom to the effect that, “we don’t read Hamlet, Hamlet reads us”.

And for a play that is (among other things) all about being observed—about having those around you trying to “pluck out the heart” of your “mystery”—what better way to locate us all, emotionally speaking, in treason-haunted Castle Elsinore?

And then the damnedest thing happened, both shows:  a good two minutes before the doors closed and the play began, the theatre went absolutely silent in anticipation.

I’ve never seen that before, and it was a shiver-inducing preamble to the paranoid opening question posed by the playwright: “Who’s there?”

(Editor’s note: This is part one in a series by Debra Murphy on the 2010 Oregon Shakespeare Festival  production of Hamlet at the Angus Bowmer Theatre in Ashland, Oregon until October 30.)

Dan Donohue as Hamlet, OSF 2010 -- photo by David Cooper

When it was announced back in the summer of 2009 that the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2010 season would include a Hamlet directed by Festival Artistic Director Bill Rauch, Clan Murphy went all a-flutter (and a-Twitter).  First off, we figured that Rauch would bring some warmth, theatricality and menschlichkeit to a play that seems to invite catastrophic Scylla vs. Charybdis production choices.

I mean, how to do this wonderful, gnarly, hoary terrifying play? If you’ve seen more than three or four Hamlets, you may know what I’m saying: On the one side is the creaking-at-the-knees Thou Shalt Not Mess with this Sacrosanct Relic school of theatre production, and on the other, the acrobatically innovative “high concept” approach that resembles nothing so much as Pretzel-Position No. 108 in The Shakespearean Tantric Sex Manual.

Moreover, since “you can’t have Hamlet without the Prince”, the other half of the Clan’s flutteratility had to do, natch, with casting. Instantaneously and unanimously we all began sending Positive Thoughts in a Heavenly direction to the effect that Dan Donohue, much missed in the 2009 season after his jaw-dropping Iago in 2008 (see here and here), would be the One. A barefoot pilgrimage to Compostela was discussed, but alas the economic downturn put the kibosh on the notion and Clan Murphy had to settle for a Novena.

Notwithstanding, our Piety was rewarded, DD it was to be, and the Clan spent a goodly seven or eight months on tenterhooks as to what Rauch & Donohue & Co would give us with their Dane.

Well, what they have given us is one of the funniest–you read that right, “funny”–most surprising and downright entertaining Hamlets I have ever seen. That is no small achievement given that I have seen, by last count, filmed or staged, eighteen different productions.

Yikes, it’s a disease.

So I’ve seen traditional BBC-ish Hamlets and Oedipal Hamlets; I’ve seen political and philosophical and surrealist Hamlets; I’ve seen fey and ADHD and melancholic and existential and romantic and postmodern and Russian Hamlets. Cataloging them all makes me sound like dotty old Polonius. Could it be then that my “overexposure” to the material has made me love this quirky version so much, just because it’s a little different? Could it be that if I had only seen two or three prior productions, I might be less inclined to favor the—one might almost say— “eccentric” treatment given us here? I doubt it. It sure as heck wasn’t a Hamlet I would have ever come up with, were I a director; but it’s still one of my favorites, and I’d like to tell you why…

But first, leave us acknowledge that in spite of glowing reviews (see here and here) groundling-grumblings have been noised abroad among some of the locals. (See here and here.) A couple of the production’s less “traditional” approaches have not met with universal approbation. Still, in my personal hearing at least, I think it is noteworthy that complaints have come exclusively from folks my age (56) or older, while the young people of my acquaintance (and family) have come away positively jazzed about this Hamlet.

Does this connote some sort of generation gap in theatrical and artistic sensibilities? If so that ‘s odd, given that we AARP-eligibles folk are products of the topsy-turvy Sixties & Seventies. (Did we, long ago, not worship at the altars of the Beatles and Led Zeppelin, whilst our elders bemoaned the Death of Music?) Still, it is rather amazing (and amusing) to note how many of us bardolatrous ex-hippies, even in a town as “progressive” as Ashland, have developed des idées fixes about how we want our Shakespeare (especially this Shakespeare) staged.

And so it has always been.  Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

As for me…well, maybe when one has sat down to as many versions of this play as I have, one’s perspective needs must acquire more than one’s usual allotment of flexibility. All I know is, where I sit, there seldom seems anything “new under the sun” to be had from this or that Elsinore, and all I ask anymore of a production, whether “traditional” or “high concept”, is that it display dramatic energy and a coherent vision. For me this production had both in spades…plus a few eye-popping never-seen-that-before-but-where-have-you-been-all-my-life surprises that made this jaded Hamleteer sit up and take notice.

For that reason—before I chat about some of these very cool innovations — oh that word — I’d like to take this opportunity to issue a major SPOILER ALERT. If you haven’t seen the production yet this season and are intending to, which I strongly urge you to do, stop reading and come back here afterward. There are goodies in this 2010 OSF Hamlet that are way too much fun to have spoiled by prior information.

Stay tuned. Next time, part two: The Play-before-the-Play

Well, for bardolaters at least the list of actors who have been lassoed into being interviewed by Dan Poole and Giles Terera for their documentary is anything but dull: Ian McKellen, Derek Jacobi, Zoe Wanamaker, Alan Cummings, Jeremy Irons, Helen Mirren, Ewan McGregor, Fiona Shaw, Alan Rickman, Brian Cox, Baz Luhrmann, Trevor Nunn, James Earl Jones…they have me at Hello.

Here’s a vidclip:

Click here to view the embedded video.