John Simm as Hamlet, Sep 25
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The phrase "what is this I don't even" was never more appropriate. I honestly have no other reaction to this. What. Just . . . what.
Right. On to more pleasant things.
I went to see John Simm as Hamlet on Saturday! I got up early and went on a ridiculous 7-hour bus trip up to Sheffield, because apparently, John Simm's too much of a srs bsnz actor to play his Hamlet on a London stage like everybody else. (Okay, yes, David was in Stratford, not London, but eeh.)
I arrived there about two hours before the performance was scheduled to start, so I tried to find a WiFi spot I could use to go online. Seriously, if you ever need a way to start conversations with Random Guys, get a netbook and sit somewhere looking like you're trying to get online. I was doing that a lot on Saturday, and was offered help by no less than three guys of various degrees of handsomeness throughout the day. They were nice enough, but even their manly manliness wouldn't magically boost the WiFi signal, so I never actually got online. But hey, netbooks. Apparently, they are infallible ice-breakers.
The theater is called the Crucible and has a thrust stage, which was set up with a balcony along the back wall, behind which they had some trees and window panels that they could pull up and down depending on whether the scene was interior or exterior. There were three (or four?) ladders leading from the balcony down to the stage, which had tile patterns in the center which kind of merged into beaten-dirt-track design at the edges. And they had a chandelier that they lowered down whenever the scene was interior.
I . . . wasn't a fan of the stage design. I mean, the layout was fine and everything, cleverly thought through, but I didn't think it was being very well used by the direction--the ladders were used once or twice in the first couple of scenes and then never again--and I didn't like how "down-to-Earth" it looked. Hamlet, to me, always feels like a play that needs to look swanky, and big, and false, almost kind of Hollywood. And then there's Hamlet in the middle of it all going I HATE THIS can I have something real around here? Just once? Personal taste thing, of course, but yeah. The stage design felt too gritty, to me, as well as trying too hard to represent a "real" environment. The huge effort that went into separating outdoors from indoors, for example. You're never going to be able to make that distinction properly, and really, in a Shakespeare play, it matters very little whether the people are outdoors or indoors. So I felt that a lot of detail in the stage design went towards something that was of little use in the play.
John Simm has a ridiculously high-pitched voice when he's doing upset Hamlet monologues. Took me a while to get used to that. And I don't know, I'm starting to get the suspicion that this might just be me, but I didn't like his take on the "too, too solid flesh" monologue, either. That was the only thing I disliked about David's Hamlet interpretation, and I wasn't a fan of Simm's, either. Maybe it's just me. Most productions seem to be all about underlining Hamlet's grief in those first few scenes--which makes sense, considering Claudius tells him to man up about it--but Hamlet being so very openly emotive about it never sits well with me. Because he's still a part of the community at that point in the play; he starts to drift away from them only after he saw his father's ghost--so he should be playing by the community's rules, which means no emoting. Or at least no emoting that's so very open and unashamed.
Simm's Horatio was a lot less slashy than David's. This makes me sad, because I love woobie!Horatio going BUT I JUST CAME BACK HERE TO SEE MY BOYFRIEND, why is everyone dead? Simm's Horatio was more distant; he seemed less like Hamlet's student buddy and more like his business partner.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern actually worked better in this version, for me, than they did in the RSC version--or, well, at least I actually noticed them in this version. The RSC versions were very pale.
Claudius I didn't like--he was sort of a thug, and I don't like that take on the character. Same with Gertrude. I love Barbara Flynn, she's a great actress, but the way they portrayed Gertrude in this production, she was just kind of stupid. Which I disliked.
Polonius was great; he was the exact right kind of funny. Laertes was alright, if a bit pale. Ophelia I liked very much; probably more than the RSC version--in the RSC production, she was so flighty. This production kept her a bit more practical, which worked better for me.
I thought Simm did a good job throughout, but the production he had to work with wasn't the best he could have had, so I felt he didn't get to play the part to his full potential. I did enjoy it, though. John Simm brandishing a sword = always fun.
Also, I got his autograph. MWAHAHA I AM SO IMPRESSED WITH MYSELF. I had an aisle seat right next to the exit, so the moment the actors went offstage after the applause, I was out of my seat and heading down to the stage door. I was one of the first to show up down there, but it didn't take long for a bunch of others to join me. I almost got Barbara Flynn as well, but she just kind of slipped past and looked in a hurry, so I didn't want to bother her.
I did kind of feel sorry for Simm. The man so obviously hated the whole program-signing-picture-taking routine. He was extremely polite about it, though. And good lord, he's even scrawnier in real life. THAT MAN IS TINY. And scruffy, but I think that was part of his Hamlet look.
And . . . that was it, really. Except for the two hours I had to wait for my bus, and the 7-hour bus trip back to SO. I definitely preferred the RSC production, but not because I prefer Tennant over Simm--I just really thought the RSC production hit the tone of the play, whereas this one didn't, so much. At least not for me.
Oh, and I am not keeping the autograph. That wouldn't be fair. I got to see the play, so Jasper is getting the autograph. ;)
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The phrase "what is this I don't even" was never more appropriate. I honestly have no other reaction to this. What. Just . . . what.
Right. On to more pleasant things.
I went to see John Simm as Hamlet on Saturday! I got up early and went on a ridiculous 7-hour bus trip up to Sheffield, because apparently, John Simm's too much of a srs bsnz actor to play his Hamlet on a London stage like everybody else. (Okay, yes, David was in Stratford, not London, but eeh.)
I arrived there about two hours before the performance was scheduled to start, so I tried to find a WiFi spot I could use to go online. Seriously, if you ever need a way to start conversations with Random Guys, get a netbook and sit somewhere looking like you're trying to get online. I was doing that a lot on Saturday, and was offered help by no less than three guys of various degrees of handsomeness throughout the day. They were nice enough, but even their manly manliness wouldn't magically boost the WiFi signal, so I never actually got online. But hey, netbooks. Apparently, they are infallible ice-breakers.
The theater is called the Crucible and has a thrust stage, which was set up with a balcony along the back wall, behind which they had some trees and window panels that they could pull up and down depending on whether the scene was interior or exterior. There were three (or four?) ladders leading from the balcony down to the stage, which had tile patterns in the center which kind of merged into beaten-dirt-track design at the edges. And they had a chandelier that they lowered down whenever the scene was interior.
I . . . wasn't a fan of the stage design. I mean, the layout was fine and everything, cleverly thought through, but I didn't think it was being very well used by the direction--the ladders were used once or twice in the first couple of scenes and then never again--and I didn't like how "down-to-Earth" it looked. Hamlet, to me, always feels like a play that needs to look swanky, and big, and false, almost kind of Hollywood. And then there's Hamlet in the middle of it all going I HATE THIS can I have something real around here? Just once? Personal taste thing, of course, but yeah. The stage design felt too gritty, to me, as well as trying too hard to represent a "real" environment. The huge effort that went into separating outdoors from indoors, for example. You're never going to be able to make that distinction properly, and really, in a Shakespeare play, it matters very little whether the people are outdoors or indoors. So I felt that a lot of detail in the stage design went towards something that was of little use in the play.
John Simm has a ridiculously high-pitched voice when he's doing upset Hamlet monologues. Took me a while to get used to that. And I don't know, I'm starting to get the suspicion that this might just be me, but I didn't like his take on the "too, too solid flesh" monologue, either. That was the only thing I disliked about David's Hamlet interpretation, and I wasn't a fan of Simm's, either. Maybe it's just me. Most productions seem to be all about underlining Hamlet's grief in those first few scenes--which makes sense, considering Claudius tells him to man up about it--but Hamlet being so very openly emotive about it never sits well with me. Because he's still a part of the community at that point in the play; he starts to drift away from them only after he saw his father's ghost--so he should be playing by the community's rules, which means no emoting. Or at least no emoting that's so very open and unashamed.
Simm's Horatio was a lot less slashy than David's. This makes me sad, because I love woobie!Horatio going BUT I JUST CAME BACK HERE TO SEE MY BOYFRIEND, why is everyone dead? Simm's Horatio was more distant; he seemed less like Hamlet's student buddy and more like his business partner.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern actually worked better in this version, for me, than they did in the RSC version--or, well, at least I actually noticed them in this version. The RSC versions were very pale.
Claudius I didn't like--he was sort of a thug, and I don't like that take on the character. Same with Gertrude. I love Barbara Flynn, she's a great actress, but the way they portrayed Gertrude in this production, she was just kind of stupid. Which I disliked.
Polonius was great; he was the exact right kind of funny. Laertes was alright, if a bit pale. Ophelia I liked very much; probably more than the RSC version--in the RSC production, she was so flighty. This production kept her a bit more practical, which worked better for me.
I thought Simm did a good job throughout, but the production he had to work with wasn't the best he could have had, so I felt he didn't get to play the part to his full potential. I did enjoy it, though. John Simm brandishing a sword = always fun.
Also, I got his autograph. MWAHAHA I AM SO IMPRESSED WITH MYSELF. I had an aisle seat right next to the exit, so the moment the actors went offstage after the applause, I was out of my seat and heading down to the stage door. I was one of the first to show up down there, but it didn't take long for a bunch of others to join me. I almost got Barbara Flynn as well, but she just kind of slipped past and looked in a hurry, so I didn't want to bother her.
I did kind of feel sorry for Simm. The man so obviously hated the whole program-signing-picture-taking routine. He was extremely polite about it, though. And good lord, he's even scrawnier in real life. THAT MAN IS TINY. And scruffy, but I think that was part of his Hamlet look.
And . . . that was it, really. Except for the two hours I had to wait for my bus, and the 7-hour bus trip back to SO. I definitely preferred the RSC production, but not because I prefer Tennant over Simm--I just really thought the RSC production hit the tone of the play, whereas this one didn't, so much. At least not for me.
Oh, and I am not keeping the autograph. That wouldn't be fair. I got to see the play, so Jasper is getting the autograph. ;)
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