Tuesday, November 05, 2013
Seeking Students' Short 'Hamlet' Videos
NYTimes.com: “Brevity is the soul of wit,” declares Polonius in William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” And perhaps short videos of lines from one of the Bard’s most-loved plays will expose the souls of their performers, too. So The New York Times invites student actors and actresses to submit their performances of lines from “Hamlet” using Instagram.
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3 comments:
This is a very interesting endeavor taken by the New York Times. I love how the newspaper is reaching out to young people and giving them a chance to get their voices heard. It will be interesting to see the results of this "contest." In addition, I am eager to see what the New York Times will have to say about the content derived from the results of this contest in comparison to the multiple productions of Hamlet that are about to launch in New York. Hamlet is a play that is taught to and read by many young people across the world. It will be extremely interesting to see what Hamlet sounds and looks like through young people's eyes.
As our class is currently immersed in a semester-long class that revolves around Hamlet, I'm sure this article jumps out at most of us as having special meaning. Hamlet has been done and redone so many times, often not very well, and now the New York Times is putting its own spin on it in order to reach out to the younger masses who might not be so friendly with Shakespeare. Although the New York Times seems to be gearing this project towards actors and actresses, and no one in my class fits that title, I believe that this would be a great exercise for us to do. Even in the demonstration video, the cinematography, set, and lighting had a huge impact on the overall performance, and we could learn from making such a video huge in the design areas. Theatre is all about collaboration, so why not do so on a project like this?
I agree with Jess, this is a really cool article (yes the New York Times wins again). There have been SO MANY Shakespeare productions and there will be millions more. I think it is fun that the New York Times is going to the younger generation for their interpretations because in all honesty, the latest and greatest productions may very well come from the generation that the article is talking to. The language is so poetic and Shakespeare does not make his plays time specific, which is wonderful. There are an infinite amount of interpretations for "Hamlet" so I would love to see what people all over the country come up with.
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