Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Eyewitness: Shakespeare in the Park, New York City 2008

Matthew Carlson played the Danish Captain in this performance which starred Michael Stuhlbarg, featuring Six Feet Under's Lauren Ambrose as Ophelia and Sam Waterson's Polonius. On his blog, he describes one electric performance:
"The weather is always part of the performance when acting outdoors, but on one night in particular something remarkable happened. We found ourselves in a windstorm, which began slowly but became increasingly violent. At first the trees simply whispered in the wind, but as the night wore on they began to move and sway. Eventually, leaves and branches began to break from the trees and blow through the theater and across the stage. Now doing a play like Hamlet, which centers around a prince visited by the ghost of his murdered father, you can imagine that a windstorm like this might begin to take on a strangely supernatural feel. The weather began to affect the performance in subtle ways, as Michael incorporated the wind and allowed it to affect him."
Matthew also mentions that he shot Horatio at the end, which gives a whole new meaning to "Go, bid the solidiers shoot".

2 comments:

Matthew Carlson said...

Thanks so much for linking to my blog. I should mention though that I played the Norwegian Captain in that production (Piter Marek played Fortinbras).

Stuart Ian Burns said...

Yes, sorry, with all the Hamlet I've watched this week I had the F on the brain. Have corrected it.