Modern Hamlets and Their Soliloquies: An Expanded Edition (Studies in Theatre History & Culture) (Studies in Theatre History and Culture) - Softcover

Maher, Mary Z.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 087745826X ISBN 13: 9780877458265

Publisher: University of Iowa Press, 2003

Synopsis

In this volume, Mary Maher examines how modern actors have chosen to perform Hamlet's soliloquies, and why they have made the choices they made within the context of their specific productions of the play. Adding to interviews with, among others, Derek Jacobi, David Warner, Kevin Kline and Ben Kingsley, this text offers two more insightful interviews, one with Kenneth Branagh, focusing on his 1997 film production of the play, and one with Simon Russell Beale, discussing his 2000-2001 run as Hamlet at the Royal National Theatre.

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Review

"Modern Hamlets provides fresh insights into the acting process, while also emphasizing Hamlet as a performance text. Maher's impressive descriptions of the various Hamlets reinforce the notion that Hamlet is the ultimate 'personality role' which allows for a broad range of fascinating interpretations. Scholars and practitioners alike will benefit from this balanced, insightful, and entertaining work."

From the Back Cover

The Shakespearean soliloquy has always fascinated scholars, readers, and theatregoers, and none is more famous than those found in Hamlet. Dreamed of by aspiring actors, memorized by schoolchildren, and coopted by Madison Avenue sloganeers, these best-known and most repeated lines from Shakespeare's oeuvre have been the inspiration for numerous critical studies on the soliloquy. Now, for the first time, Maher's Modern Hamlets and Their Soliloquies takes a performance point of view in examining the challenges and problems of delivering the soliloquies in Hamlet. Modern Hamlets offers a detailed record of how various twentieth-century English and American actors, beginning with John Gielgud in 1936 and ending with Kevin Kline in 1990, have dealt with these challenges. At the heart of this fascinating study is a series of eclectic and provocative interviews with Kline, Derek Jacobi, Ben Kingsley, David Warner, Anton Lesser, David Rintoul, and Randall Duk Kim. Maher also worked closely with Gielgud and Alec Guinness to offer chapters on their presentations and has included a discussion of filmed Hamlet performances with attention to the work of Laurence Olivier and Richard Burton. Maher describes each actor's mode of performance and explores the factors that influenced each actor's performance choices within specific production contexts. No one knows how Richard Burbage, the actor for whom Shakespeare created Hamlet, performed it - but here is an inside look at how modern Hamlets have approached performance options and forged unique readings of the part. The interplay of these interpretations and the similarities and differences among the actors both challenges much of the received wisdomabout soliloquies and provides an absorbing new look at what Olivier called "pound for pound the greatest play ever written". Modern Hamlets should be required reading for all those who would read, watch, or perform Hamlet and for all those fascinated by theatre and the performance arts.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Iowa Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 087745826X
• ISBN 13: 9780877458265
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288