Hamlet Essay About Deception Example For Students

Hamlet Essay About Deception Think of a play that has a character who always dresses in black; a child disinherited because of a parents remarriage; a young man with an Oedipal complex; meditations on the nature of writing and art; and a play-within-a-play. If you guessed Hamlet, youd be right. But youd also be right if you guessed The Seagull. The American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Mass. has programmed both plays this season, using the same cast, and audiences who saw Hamlet, which closed in January, will get to see Chekhovs play beginning Feb. 14.The idea for the double dose of melanccholy came from ART artistic director Robert Brustein, who suggested it to guest director Ron Daniels. Although Daniels is directing both plays, he says hes of two minds about promoting the parallels.A play has got to stand on its own and reach its audience as a live piece of theatre, without extraneous references, he says. That being said, then you start investigating certain connections between the two plays, and interesting things begin to emerge.Chekhovs characters are continually quoting Hamlet, Daniels points out. Obviously the central relationship between Trepley and his mother is very Hamlet-like. Then there is the dead father and the usurper Trigorin. And finally Nina, like Ophelia, undergoes a great emotional stress.But such parallels, says Daniels, are mechanical. What interests him is Chekhovs attitude toward his characters, which, unlike Shakespeares is profoundly ambivalent. Chekhov was exasperated by the Russian intelligentsia, who had potential for goodfor reformbut was incapable of action, he explains. The Russian Hamlet is a superfluous figure, and therefore he is swept aside. Or, actually, Treplev sweeps himself aside.In Danielss view, its Chekhovs women who are heroic: Arkadina, a voracious survivor; Masha, who has grit and a determination to endure; and particularly Nina. It is Nina who escapes the entombment of this world, and survives and endures and changes, he says, whereas in Hamlet, the Nina character Ophelia is destroyed. She refuses to fight for her life in the river.The productions are cross-cast, so that Mark Rylance, who played Hamlet, will play Treplev; the actress who played Ophelia will be Nina; Gertrude will be Arkadina; Claudius will be Trigorin; and other Danes will become Russians.Daniels originally directed Hamlet in 1989 at the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he spend the past 14 years as an associate director. For its remounting at ART, a coproduction with the Pittsburgh Public Theater, Daniels brought with him lead actor Rylance, composer and musician Claire van Kampen, and designer Antony McDonald. The director credits McDonald with nudging him away from location Shakespeare over the past four or five years. The moment you say, |Im going to set Pericles in modern Palestine, a set of inevitable solutions arises. I think its very easy to do productions of that nature, but its more interesting to try to find an inner logic, an inner coherence.McDonalds set for Hamlet is dominated by an immense window in the upstage wall, sharply titled onto a corner, through which the audience sees painted gray breakers mounting to the top. When the back wall opens for outdoor scenes, like Fortinbrass march and Ophelias funeral, the turbulent ocean threatens to engulf the stage.McDonalds costume suggest various periods of the early 20th century. The womens dresses look vaguely Edwardian (although Ophelia enters in a satin gown she might have borrowed from Jean Harlow), while male courtiers wear maroon-and-gray uniforms, jackboots and Sam Browne Belts, implying a fascits, 1930s Denmark. Perhaps the most arresting image was Rylances teary-eyed Hamlet wandering through Elsinore in dirty, rumpled pajamas, like a lost child. Daniels says the idea arose because of Rylances youthful looks. Through the play it was possible to investigate the whole trauma of adolescenceadolescent breakdown, schizophrenia, suicide, despair, says the director, who is a father himself. (A son, 23, has just joined the RSC; his daughter is 19.)The idea of a modern man reduced to a figure in pajamas has obsessed Daniels recently: his Richard II in 1990 wore the pajamas of a concerntration camp, and he says the image may resurface in The Seagull. .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 , .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .postImageUrl , .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .centered-text-area { min-height: 80px; position: relative; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 , .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265:hover , .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265:visited , .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265:active { border:0!important; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .clearfix:after { content: ""; display: table; clear: both; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 { display: block; transition: background-color 250ms; webkit-transition: background-color 250ms; width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #95A5A6; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265:active , .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265:hover { opacity: 1; transition: opacity 250ms; webkit-transition: opacity 250ms; background-color: #2C3E50; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .centered-text-area { width: 100%; position: relative ; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .ctaText { border-bottom: 0 solid #fff; color: #2980B9; font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0; padding: 0; text-decoration: underline; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .postTitle { color: #FFFFFF; font-size: 16px; font-weight: 600; margin: 0; padding: 0; width: 100%; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .ctaButton { background-color: #7F8C8D!important; color: #2980B9; border: none; border-radius: 3px; box-shadow: none; font-size: 14px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 26px; moz-border-radius: 3px; text-align: center; text-decoration: none; text-shadow: none; width: 80px; min-height: 80px; background: url(https://artscolumbia.org/wp-content/plugins/intelly-related-posts/assets/images/simple-arrow.png)no-repeat; position: absolute; right: 0; top: 0; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265:hover .ctaButton { background-color: #34495E!important; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .centered-text { display: table; height: 80px; padding-left : 18px; top: 0; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265 .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265-content { display: table-cell; margin: 0; padding: 0; padding-right: 108px; position: relative; vertical-align: middle; width: 100%; } .u6872b82394602411c2a42d715fa73265:after { content: ""; display: block; clear: both; } READ: NEA emerges intact: Congressional process is a tortuous path EssayFor the latter play, McDonald has created a visual parallel to the wild ocean: Chekhovs lake dominates the background. The design is vast, says Daniels. It starts off with huge landscapes, and gradually reduces, so the final scene is set in a minuscule, tomblike space. Nina emerges from this tomb and ventures through the storm toward a new life, leaving the rest to disappear into history. Daniels says he and McDonald intend to uproot Chekhov out of the sepias and the linden trees and the long flowing Victorian gowns, setting the play considerably later. Im anxious to explore color. Its not necessarily a play about sepia nostalgia; its vibrant, says Daniels. Apparently Matisse was a great favorite in Russia at the time the play was written, so McDonald has incorporated colors from the painters palette into the design. Danielss arrival at ART renews an old friendship with Brustein and other company members from Brusteins tenure at Yale Repertory Theatre, where Daniels directed plays by Brecht, Bond and Rudkin in the 1970s.The director, who is 49, was born and raised in Niteroi, a city across the bay from Rio de Janeiro, but established himself in England after a coup that toppled the Brazilian government in the 1960s. He became a free agent earlier this year when Adrian Noble reorganized the RSC, using freelance directors rather than house directors.ART, meanwhile, has asked him to stay in Cambridge as associate artistic director, a prospect which excites him. Im very interested in doing more than ad hoc productions, Daniels says. I like the sense of continuity at ART.The third stage of my life, which is going to happen in America, will tap both my early daysthe colors, smells, abandon and chaos of South America and my European years the discipline and rigors of the Old World. In America, I look forward to bringing those two things together.