The rehearsal for “Jack Crew’s Hamlet” at the New Burbage Theatre Festival

Season 1 of Slings and Arrows (which we discussed, beautifully, here.)

Yes, an obsessive post. Fun for me. Hopefully fun for all of you diehard fans of the show out there. What is so gorgeous to me about this TV series is how much it GETS the rehearsal process – the true STRUGGLES that must take place in order to, you know, get up and do it – and how that takes different forms in different people. It has respect for all of its characters (well, maybe not that bitch from Texas on the board, Holly!! She’s awesome – what a truly irredeemable character, and that actress is brilliant) and the journey of Jack Crew, an American movie star who has come up to Canada to “play Hamlet”, is one of the most moving in the entire series. He is young, hot, successful … and scared out of his mind. It takes a while for him to get the courage to … do this role … and here, in script-form and synopsis-form, is what that process was like for him.

Also: there is some damn fine script analysis going on here.

My favorite line in the entire thing? It comes from Geoffrey, and it’s one word: “Filler”.

Never thought of it that way before, and now that’s the only way I can think about it.

Opening credits for Season 1. Cyril at the piano in the theatre bar. He sings.

Cheer up Hamlet
Chin up Hamlet
Buck up you melancholy Dane
So your uncle is a cad who murdered Dad and married Mum
That’s really no excuse to be as glum as you’ve become
So wise up Hamlet
Rise up Hamlet
Hark up and sing the new refrain
Your incessant monologizing fills the castle with ennui
Your antic disposition is embarrassing to see
And by the way, you sulky brat, the answer is TO BE
You’re driving poor Ophelia insane
So shut up you rogue and peasant
Grow up, it’s most unpleasant
Cheer up, you melancholy Dane!

From Slings & Arrows, season 1.

Geoffrey: Greetings, actors! I have news from my planet! Darren Nichols is gone. He has been sent packing. You will no longer see him or his post-modern pseudo-Brechtian leather-clad schoolboy buggery of a production design again. There are some of you who will be terrified to learn that I am taking over direction of this play. There are others who will be thrilled because you know that in my production there will be little danger of you stepping in a pile of horseshit. [Crazy laugh] But I think there is one thing that the pro-Geoffrey and anti-Geoffrey camps can agree upon and that is that my reason may very well be hanging by a thread – well, my friends, it is my belief that the best stuff happens just before the thread snaps. So. Take out your scripts. Let’s begin. A free reading of the play – sitting, walking, standing, dancing, levitating – whatever it is you want to do – and Maria, I imagine we’re still waiting for Ellen?

Ellen: I’m here.

Geoffrey: Fantastic. Maria? Off we go.

Maria: All right then. Hamlet. Act One. Scene One. Enter two sentinels.

Frank [as Bernardo]: Who’s there?

Cyril [as Francisco]: Nay, answer me: stand, and unfold yourself.

Frank: Long live the King!

Cyril: Bernardo?

Frank: He.

Cyril: You come most carefully upon your hour.

Frank: ‘Tis now struck twelve; get thee to bed, Francisco.

Cyril: For this relief much thanks.

Geoffrey sits beside the hospital bed of May Silverstone, head of the Board of Directors, who has fallen ill. He fills her in on what is happening at the theatre.

Geoffrey: Anna is bleaching her teeth and they are getting whiter every day so we’re all very excited. What else …. Frank and Cyril say hello and they have baked you something but I can’t pronounce it.

May: (whispering) The play ….

Geoffrey: No, May, I don’t want to give you another heart attack. Okay. The play. Ellen is being Ellen. And Claire is absolutely horrible. But Jack ….. I don’t know. Ultimately, this is Jack Crew’s Hamlet, it’s not mine, and I’m not just saying that to make excuses, but I don’t know who he is. I don’t know what his thing is. I don’t know what he’s going to bring to the role, so I can’t see the Hamlet, so I can’t see the play. And that’s the problem.

Rehearsal for Hamlet. Jack Crew, American movie star playing Hamlet, is onstage, doing karate moves, supplying his own sound effects, as he kills Polonius. Ellen, playing Gertrude, stands by, script in hand. Geoffrey watches from the stalls, silent. The actor playing Polonius falls.

Maria (the stage manager) calls out the stage direction: “Polonius falls and dies.”

Ellen [as Gertrude]: O me, what hast thou done?

Jack [as Hamlet, improvising around the text. His actual line is: “Nay, I know not:
Is it the king?” Instead he says:
]: I don’t know. Who was it? Was it the king?

Ellen: O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

Jack: [again improvising – the actual line is: A bloody deed! almost as bad, good mother, As kill a king, and marry with his brother. But instead, Jack says:] Yeah, right. Almost as bad as killing a king and marrying his brother, right?

Frank [watching from the stalls, whispers to Cyril]: Why is he allowed to do that?

Cyril: It’s the Method isn’t it, ducky. He’s making it his own. That’s how they do it in America.

Up onstage, Jack discovers Polonius lying on the floor.

Jack: [his actual line as Hamlet is: Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell! I took thee for thy better – instead, Jack says:] You IDIOT! You stupid idiot. I thought you were the King. Oh well, no great loss, ey?

The ghost of Oliver hovers behind Geoffrey and he says to Geoffrey: How long are you going to let him shred the text like that?

Geoffrey: At least he’s making an effort. Ellen is barely in the room.

Oliver: She’ll claim she has nothing to work with.

Geoffrey: He’s giving her plenty to work with.

Oliver: Unfortunately none of it was written by William Shakespeare.

Ellen: [onstage] What have I done, that thou darest wag thy tongue
In noise so rude against me?

Jack: [his actual line is:
Such an act
That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,
Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose
From the fair forehead of an innocent love
And sets a blister there, makes marriage-vows
As false as dicers’ oaths: O, such a deed
As from the body of contraction plucks
The very soul, and sweet religion makes
A rhapsody of words: heaven’s face doth glow:
Yea, this solidity and compound mass,
With tristful visage, as against the doom,
Is thought-sick at the act. Instead Jack says:
]
What have you done? What have you DONE? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE? Fuck ME!

Geoffrey: Oh my God.

Oliver: [gesturing at his watch] Tick tick tick, Geoffrey.

Geoffrey: Well, can’t you do something? Cast a spell to make it all better?

Oliver: I’m not a witch, Geoffrey.

Geoffrey: Then what good are you.

Oliver: I’m a shoulder to cry on. A quip here and there.

Geoffrey: No, honestly. Why are you haunting me like this? Do you have some kind of purpose? Is there some kind of mystical task you’re supposed to perform before they let you move on because I tell ya’, I’ll help you my friend. I would very much like to help expedite that process.

Oliver: I’m sorry Geoffrey. I don’t know why I’m here. There was no pamphlet in the coffin. Anyway … he who is without sin …

Geoffrey: What?

Oliver: What is YOUR purpose here? Exactly?

Long pause, as Geoffrey realizes that the rehearsal has stopped and everyone is looking at him talking to what appears to be himself.

Maria: Would you like to take a break, Geoffrey?

Geoffrey: Yeah. 15 minutes, please?

Maria: 15 minutes everyone.

Ellen sweeps by Geoffrey saying to him as she passes: “It’s not my fault. He’s giving me NOTHING. Sorry.”

During the break, the actors mill around backstage, having snacks, looking at their scripts. Jack stands in a corner, pacing, talking to himself. Claire, who is playing Ophelia, sashays over to Kate (played by Rachel McAdams). Kate and Jack have been developing a relationship, and Claire is jealous.

Claire: Why doesn’t he just say the lines?

Kate: I guess it’s just part of his process.

Claire: Didn’t it ever come up? I mean, when you guys were dating?

Kate: I don’t want to talk about it.

Claire: (sashaying away) Fine.

Kate gets up and approaches Jack.

Kate: Hi.

Jack: Hi.

Kate: Claire’s a bitch.

Jack: Yeah. She’s a terrible actress too in case you haven’t noticed.

Kate: Why don’t you say the lines? Ever?

Jack: I can’t say the lines until it feels right.

Kate: If you want to run lines … I’m available.

Jack: No. I know the lines. I don’t own them yet, you know what I mean? When I’m improvising, those are my words so it feels right.

Kate: Oh, okay, yeah, I’ve heard of that.

Jack: It’s a Method thing I picked up when I worked with Howard.

Kate: Howard?

Jack: Ron Howard. (Claire starts laughing.) I know, Opie, right, ha ha? But the guy’s been around actors since he was like three. He knows his stuff.

Kate: Sorry.

Jack: I would like to run lines with you though, if that’s okay.

Kate: Okay.

Jack: You know, you wanted to take it easy …

Kate: Well, we’re just gonna run lines, right? We’re not gonna have sex.

Jack: To be perfectly honest, I want to do both.

Kate: Well, running lines is okay. Tomorrow night? Your place?

Jack: Great. I’ll pick up some Cheesies on my way home.

Kate: Cheesies! Classy!

Jack: If we were gonna have sex, I might spring for Nachos.

Moving on in the rehearsal process. The cast is rehearsing Act 4, scene 5. Ophelia’s mad scene. Horrible-actress Claire, with a wreath of flowers in her hair, staggers around onstage, singing in a terrible sing-song voice, “Oh will not come again …” It is horrendous. Everyone stands around looking on. Geoffrey sits with his head in his hands. Finally he can take it no longer.

Geoffrey: Stop. For God’s sake, stop.

Claire: What.

Geoffrey: Where is this coming from?

Claire: What?

Geoffrey: This staggering-about-with-your-mouth-open?

Claire: You’re being sarcastic again with me. Please don’t be sarcastic.

Geoffrey: Actually, I’m not.

Claire: Ophelia’s mad.

Geoffrey: Right.

Claire: I’m playing madness.

Geoffrey: Right. And how does staggering about with your mouth open suggest madness?

Claire: I’m not mad.

Geoffrey: Right.

Claire: And I never have been so I have to simulate it.

Geoffrey: Right.

Claire: I’m using sense memory. I’m remembering what it was like being stoned and I’m using that. I’m disoriented, my head is spinning – I think that’s what it’s probably like when you’re insane.

Geoffrey: Right. Well. It’s not. Trust me. That’s what it’s like when you’re stoned.

Claire: Forgive me, I mean no disrespect. I don’t have your experience with insanity.

Geoffrey: Right.

Claire: And this is hard anyway because I can’t take any meaning from the text. Ophelia’s just singing nonsense songs.

Geoffrey: Right. Claire. Claire. Claire with the hair. Ophelia is a child. She has been dominated by powerful men all of her life and suddenly they all disappear. Her brother goes to France, her father is murdered by her boyfriend, and he is shipped off to England. She is alone for the first time, grieving and heartbroken and guilty because, as far as she’s concerned, it’s all her fault. She ignored her brother’s advice and fell in love with Hamlet and now her father is dead, all because of her, and the pain and the loss and the shame and the guilt – all of this is gnawing away inside this child’s mind and it comes out as little songs. “And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no. He is dead. My father is dead and I killed him.” Kay? Now let’s try it again without the Vietnam flashback.

After this, the ghost of Oliver lets Ellen’s chameleon out of its cage backstage, and it crawls on the stage, startling Claire who is acting her scene, and she falls off the stage, breaking her ankle. This means that Kate, the understudy, is going to go on. There’s only a couple of days to opening. Geoffrey has been informed by Richard Smith-Jones, managing director, that there is no more money. Geoffrey decides, after having a dream of himself naked onstage, to have the cast do it in rehearsal clothes. On a bare stage. He walks into the theatre, the cast waits in the stalls. He pushes a clothing-rack in front of him

Geoffrey: “Lord, we know what we are but know not what we might be.” Who said that? Ophelia. (he bows to Kate in the front row) Welcome Kate. All right, let’s get started. Frank? Knock knock.

Frank: “Who’s there?”

Geoffrey: Excellent. First line of the play. The world’s longest knock-knock joke. Who’s there, indeed? Who are these people? Who is Hamlet and Ophelia? The answer is – whoever is playing them. I want this production to be about us. Now, I am going to modify the design. You might say, throw it out. I want everyone to have a look through this rack of costume pieces and find something that you need. Don’t worry about period. Shakespeare didn’t care about anachronisms and neither should we. Just find something that says Prince or Daughter, or in Cyril’s case – Queen. And Maria, I would very much like to move the rehearsal al fresco for today because it is a beautiful day today.

Ellen: No set?

Geoffrey: Nope. Some chairs maybe.

Ellen: Oh Jesus Christ, Geoffrey. No set? No Hamlet? It’s going to be quite a show.

Geoffrey: Thanks, Ellen. Thanks for caring.

Rehearsal goes on. Jack and Ellen are rehearsing Act 3, scene 4. Things are obviously still not going well, Jack still improvising, Ellen not really acting at all. Geoffrey paces around them.

Jack [as Hamlet]: Nay, but you live in the rank sweat of an unseem’d bed, stewed in corruption, and you SCREW in that bed.

Ellen: Are you done? (Jack nods)
O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

Oliver (whispering to Geoffrey): What is she doing? She’s up to something.

Jack: Uncle Claudius is a murderer and a villain —

Oliver: She’s testing you.

Geoffrey (to Oliver): STOP IT.

Ellen and Jack glance over at him.

Jack: You want us to stop?

Geoffrey: No. Ellen, you’re not here, you’re not in the room.

Ellen: Sorry.

Geoffrey: Polonius is dead, he’s lying there on the floor, your son is accusing you of having murdered —

Ellen: I know the story.

Geoffrey: Okay, well, then please join us.

Ellen: Fine. O, speak to me no more;
These words, like daggers, enter in mine ears;
No more, sweet Hamlet!

Jack: Uncle Claudius is a murderer and a villain.

Oliver: Look at her. She’s baiting you. You’d better deal with this situation, old boy before the situation festers.

Geoffrey: WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP?

Jack: I’m sorry, man.

Ellen: Are you in any condition to do this? Are you? Because your lunatic babblings are very distracting.

Geoffrey; Ellen, you are not participating in the process. It is very frustrating.

Ellen: I know. I know. I’m sorry.

Geoffrey: I cannot direct you if you refuse to act.

Ellen: How do I act in a play that doesn’t exist?

Geoffrey: I believe the play has been around for about 400 years.

Ellen: Yes, but I can’t SEE it. We have no set. And I can’t hear it. I know the play well enough but I’m not hearing any of the text. I mean, what are we doing here, Geoffrey? Are we putting on Hamlet? Do we even HAVE a Hamlet? I’m sorry, Jack. I’m sorry. But we open in nine days for the love of God. And I am terrified. I mean, we all are. We are absolutely terrified.

Geoffrey: Ellen, when you start coming to rehearsals on time, and when you stop sending Maria out for cookie and coffee runs and when you stop interrupting scene work so you can run out for a quick fag, and when you start showing your fellow actors just the tiniest bit of respect, then I will be thrilled to listen to you, but until such time you will please resist the urge of speaking for the group. FUCK. Maria?

Maria: Five minutes everyone.

Geoffrey goes out into the lobby and has a confrontation with Richard Smith-Jones, who tells him that they have “cannibalized” the Previews for Hamlet in order to save money – so now Hamlet will open right after dress rehearsal, an unheard-of and terrifying situation. No previews? The heat is on. No more fucking around. Geoffrey re-enters the theatre. Ellen stands in the back, smoking. He comes up beside her.

Geoffrey: All right, let’s see if he can do it.

Ellen: Please.

Geoffrey walks down the aisle, gearing up.

Geoffrey: Maria. (deep breath)

Maria: Are we back, Geoffrey?

Geoffrey: Jack? Three, one.

Maria: Act III, scene one, Claudius and Polonius –

Geoffrey: No. Just Jack. We’re gonna run the soliloquy.

Jack: Okay.

The two men go up onstage together, and speak privately, with everyone watching.

Geoffrey: This one scares you, yeah?

Jack: Yeah, it scares the shit out of me.

Geoffrey: Why? You know it.

Jack: Of course I know it. Everybody knows it. That’s the problem.

Geoffrey: Why?

Jack: Because when I say ‘To be or not to be’ the audience will be hearing every great actor who ever spoke those words. They’ll hear Olivier, and Burton, or you –

Geoffrey: More likely Mel Gibson.

Jack: When I say those lines they won’t be in the play anymore. They’ll just be watching some guy acting.

Geoffrey: Yeah.

Jack: Me specifically.

Geoffrey: This is a problem?

Jack: Yeah, that’s a fucking problem.

Geoffrey: Because you’d just be a guy acting … and Hamlet isn’t?

Jack: No. Well, he is kind of, in a way.

Geoffrey: So Hamlet is just acting – is that what you’re saying?

Jack: Yeah, he acts like he’s crazy – that ‘antic disposition’ – but then, no, not really –

Geoffrey: You have got to be specific. In this scene, Act 3 scene 1, does Hamlet know that Claudius and Polonius are spying on him?

Jack: I don’t know.

Geoffrey: You have to know. If Hamlet is aware of their presence, then when you speak these particularly famous words, you are performing for the guy who killed your father and for a meddling fool – both of whom are hidden in this room. And if you don’t know they’re here, then your audience is you – and those people out in the seats. But you have to decide.

Jack: Now?

Geoffrey: Right now. Right now. You can keep the decision to yourself if you want to, but you have to decide. (calling out) Claudius and Polonius, please.

Jack: Jesus.

Geoffrey: Jack, listen to me. There are a lot of people here who don’t think you can pull this thing off. I think they’re wrong. But you have to do it – and you have to do it right now – and you have to do it with the text. So let’s go. Do what you do. Act.

Geoffrey goes down and sits in the stalls. Jack sits in a chair. Nervous. He starts. Simply. Openly. He doesn’t push or stutter. He speaks the words.

Jack:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.–Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.

He glances to his left and sees Kate, standing there, as Ophelia, in tears, looking up at him, proud.

Kate: (whispers) That was great.

The cast bursts into applause, and gather around him to shake his hand. He did it. At least once. Now they will have one dress rehearsal and then opening night. Before the dress rehearsal, Geoffrey comes out to make a speech.

Geoffrey. Hello everybody. Here we go. Well, we only have one dress rehearsal which is not great but it’s okay because as the saying goes … a bad dress means…

Cast: … a good opening.

Geoffrey: Exactly. So we are protected. We are protected to a certain extent by a cliche. No, I’m sorry. This is actually going to be a nightmare. It is going to have that sickly sickly feeling of playing to an empty house except for a couple of ushers and maybe a sympathetic lizard. There’s no avoiding it, so just find your light, say your lines -a nd if you can’t find your light, shout your lines from the shadows. Get through it the best you can and we’ll fix what needs fixing tomorrow. It is going to be frightening. Have a good show. Oh, you know, there is one encouraging thing that I can say … I just happen to believe that this play is the single greatest achievement in western art. So we’ve got that going for us.

Backstage, everyone is freaking out, running around, in a panic. Jack has been throwing up for an hour in his dressing room. He comes out, and Richard Smith-Jones comes up to him. Jack looks like hell.

Richard. Just wanted to say have a good show.

Jack: Thanks, man.I’m pretty freaked right now to tell you the truth.

Richard: (in a soothing manner) I’m sure you are, Jack. I know that things have been kind of crazy, but I just wanted to say … Don’t worry. Nobody expects you to become a classical actor. You’re a movie star, and that’s the truth of it. Like Geoffrey said, youll sell us out no matter what. So just go out there and have fun.

Richard walks away, thinking he has just given Jack a huge GIFT. Jack looks devastated. After the dress, we see Jack come back to his dressing room, throw all his stuff into a bag and storm out. He leaves his script on the dressing room table. He walks out. Kate runs up to him, alight.

Kate: Hey, we got through it!

Jack blows right by her and storms out the door, shouting, “Mother FUCKER.”

Kate runs after him, calling, “Jack???” But she lets him go. She’s not sure what just happened.

The next morning, the day of their opening night, the cast gathers at the theatre, for notes and a partial run-through. We see everyone sitting around, waiting. Geoffrey paces. Kate looks panicked.

Geoffrey finally walks off the stage and out of the theatre.

Maria: Everyone is released. Fight call is at 7:30. Until then, relax. And stay by a phone. Please.

We learn that Jack didn’t show up for the rehearsal, and nobody can reach him. Maria has been calling his phone all morning. They waited two hours, until they finally canceled rehearsal. Nobody knows where he is. Nobody knows about the little tete-a-tete he had with Richard Smith-Jones. He told no one. He just vanishes. Kate, with her sudden day off, sets out around town to try to find him. She goes to his place. No go. But she does see that he has packed up his room and his bags aren’t there. He’s gone. She wanders around, looking at all of their old haunts, for sign of him. No luck. Finally, she finds him under the tree where they spent their first night together (platonically). She stalks up to him. He sees her.

Jack: I don’t want to talk about it.

Kate: Please?

Jack: Kate.

Kate: We had to cancel rehearsal!

Jack: So? It’s all bullshit, Kate. You guys talk a good game but it’s all bullshit in the end.

Kate: ‘You guys’? What are you talking about?

Jack: I feel hurt, Kate. Genuinely hurt. I know I’m here to sell tickets but I don’t need it thrown in my face.

Kate: Did someone say something to you? Claire?

Jack: Claire? Claire’s a fucking angel.

Kate: Well then who?

Jack: It was Richard, Kate. He said it didn’t matter what I did onstage, nobody expects anything of me. He told me that Geoffrey said the show would sell out no matter what. My fucking high-brow genius director.

Kate: Richard said that?

Jack: He said it last night right before I went onstage. I mean, what the hell is that? The New Burbage Theatre Festival, you know? I’d rather be in LA where the assholes tell you to your face that they’re assholes.

Kate: Jack, that doesn’t sound right.

Jack: No, it doesn’t sound fucking right, does it? I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I’m getting pissed off again.

Kate: Are you going?

Jack: I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I’ve gotten into three cabs today. I keep wanting to say Airport but I just end up going for a ride.

Kate: Are you staying because of me?

Jack: Kate, please, I can’t deal with relationship shit on top of all of this.

Kate: Sorry.

Jack: Just walk with me, okay?

They walk through the park.

Jack: Man, I feel like my brain is gonna explode.

They sit on a bench, quietly, looking around them.

Jack: Everyone’s gonna hate me for throwing a fit and running away.

Kate: No, no one’s gonna hate you. It’s just a screwed up process. So are you saying you want to do it?

Jack: Fuckin’ right I want to do it. I wanted to do it yesterday.

Kate: Well, then that’s the important part.

Jack: My head’s all messed up. Fuck. Who am I kidding? I have to do it. I’m an actor and it’s Hamlet. What am I gonna do, walk away? I’d feel like a loser my whole life.

Kate: So you’re afraid to do it but you know you have to and if you don’t you won’t be able to live with yourself.

Jack: Yes!

Kate: Well … I think you can use that onstage.

He looks at her. They kiss.

Soon, they head back to the theatre. It’s opening night. No preview period. Insanity reigns backstage. The well-dressed crowd starts flocking in. Jack and Geoffrey sit in Jack’s dressing room.

Jack: Why would Richard say that? Why would he go out of his way to fuck with my mind?

Geoffrey: I don’t know. Why would a man kill his brother and marry his sister-in-law?

Jack: It’s a fucked-up world.

Geoffrey: Yeah, it is. It is. Especially for actors. Actors are entirely dependent on other people for what they do. They need a writer, they need a director, they need someone to make their costumes, the sets, the props – they need a theatre – worst of all, they need other actors. That’s a lot of people. That’s not even including the audience. You bring all of those people into one place and the odds are that you are gonna get screwed by somebody. Usually by somebody wearing a tie.

Jack: I never looked at it that way.

Geoffrey: Well, you can’t, can you. Otherwise, you’d go mad. Are you up to some notes? I don’t want to overwhelm you or anything. It’s just blocking. I want you to be seen.

Jack: Yeah. What the hell. Shoot.

As the notes session goes on, Jack starts to become more and more agitated. His nerves are overwhelming him.

Geoffrey: Oh yeah, you’re drifting kind of to the right on Osric’s entrance. So just try and keep stage left. If you’re ever in doubt, just find your light.

Jack: Oh Jesus. I don’t know what that means.

Geoffrey: What?

Jack: Find your light.

Geoffrey: I’ve said it to you, like, a dozen times.

Jack: Every time you say it, I never knew what you meant. I just nod my head when you say it.

Geoffrey: Wow. Okay. Light is hot. And when you’re in your light, you can feel it on your face.

Jack: Look. My hands are shaking. I feel sick. FUCKING RICHARD, MAN. I can’t do this! The play’s too big! I can’t wrap my head around it! I’m just a face, you know? Normally, I don’t have to keep it up for more than 3/8ths of a page. Or it’s just a glance, you know? And you do it 20 times until you get it perfect.

Geoffrey: Well, forget about perfection. There’s nothing more boring than perfection. Imprecision, fear – this is what gets them to their feet.

Jack: Well, I should be brilliant then.

Geoffrey: And. It is not that big of a play.

Jack: Yeah, right.

Geoffrey: Come here. Sit down. Sit. Now look at me. I want you to think of it in terms of six soliloquies, okay? Count them off with me. ‘O that this too too solid flesh’. ‘O what a rogue and peasant slave am I.’ ‘To be or not to be.’ ‘Tis now the very witching hour’ – that’s a short one, that’s only twelve lines. ‘Now might I do it pat’. ‘How all occasions do inform against me.’ That’s it. Six. And the rest, as they say, is silence.

Jack: I think there’s some dialogue in between.

Geoffrey: Filler. Nail those six soliloquies, everyone goes home happy. Jack. Jack. You can do this. I’ll be there.

Maria’s voice over the intercom: This is your five minute call. Five minutes til the top of the show.

Jack gets up and vomits into the sink. Geoffrey nods in approval.

Geoffrey: I’ll give you a moment alone.

It’s the top of the show. Jack stands backstage, nervous as hell. Geoffrey comes up behind him.

Geoffrey: Six soliloquies.

The show begins. Jack paces backstage. Geoffrey talks to him.

Geoffrey: First one’s gonna be easy. You are just so sick of the world and all the people in it. You just wish you could melt. Stay up left of Laertes on your entrance.

Jack: I’m gonna throw up.

Geoffrey: Use it.

Jack walks onstage.

The scene is going on. We get shots of the actors (Frank, Cyril, Kate) watching on the monitor backstage.

Claudius: But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king’s rouse the heavens all bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

Cyril (looking up at the monitor): Here we go. Moment of truth.

Jack: O, that this too too solid flesh would melt
Thaw and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix’d
His canon ‘gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable,
Seem to me all the uses of this world!
Fie on’t! ah fie! ’tis an unweeded garden,
That grows to seed; things rank and gross in nature
Possess it merely. That it should come to this!

We see Geoffrey backstage, count off on his fingers: One.

The show goes on. Jack crosses backstage, Geoffrey walks with him, talking.

Geoffrey: You are disgusted with yourself. You are a coward. You are not man, you are weak and passionless. A failure.

Jack walks onstage.

Jack: O what a rogue and peasant slave am I …

Geoffrey walks with Jack backstage again to stage left, talking to him.

Geoffrey: On some level you long for this to be over. You long for rest, mental, spiritual rest …

Jack: I know this one.

Jack onstage, sitting in a chair.

Jack onstage:
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to …

The show goes on. We see other scenes. We see Richard Smith-Jones backstage, welling up with tears as he watches. We see the audience, rapt, really listening, really taking it in, laughing, pausing, listening. Now, Jack, onstage, with Soliloquy # 4. Geoffrey crouches backstage, mouthing along the words.

Jack:
‘Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,
And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on.

Geoffrey glances up and sees Ellen looking at him. He holds up four fingers, and she holds up two in return.

Jack‘s voice onstage:
Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann’d:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?

As he speaks, we see all his fellow cast members backstage, looking out at him, enraptured, cheering him on silently. Nahim, the janitor, stands beside Kate, watching, too. His face is aglow.

Nahim: Ah. Fate plays with our prince.

Kate: What?

Nahim: He cannot kill the King while he prays.

Kate looks up at him with a huge smile on her face. Beautiful moment.

Then – Jack onstage:

Jack: How all occasions do inform against me,
And spur my dull revenge! What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed?

We see Geoffrey watching from backstage. Oliver is standing beside him.

Oliver: It’s Number Six.

Geoffrey: He’s in the homestretch.

Oliver reminds Geoffrey that Geoffrey had promised to use Oliver’s actual SKULL in the famous scene in Hamlet – so Geoffrey has to dash off to his office where he keeps Oliver’s skull on his desk. He races back down, races underneath the stage, and places the skull under the trap door. Just in time. Jack reaches down and pulls it out.

We see Jack as Hamlet die.

Jack:
O, I die, Horatio;
The potent poison quite o’er-crows my spirit:
I cannot live to hear the news from England;
But I do prophesy the election lights
On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice;
So tell him, with the occurrents, more and less,
Which have solicited. The rest is silence.

As Jack’s head falls, it is away from the audience, and we can see him lying there, eyes open, with this huge beautiful smile on his face.

The audience goes nuts. Jack comes backstage, Geoffrey hugs him, and then pushes him back onstage to take an encore. Richard, tears on his face, comes up to Geoffrey, beside himself.

Richard: I don’t know what to say. That was incredible. You know, I saw Chorus Line when I was 16 years old–

Geoffrey: The critics are gonna slaughter us.

Richard: How can they?

Geoffrey: Because Jack is an American movie actor. That’s all they’re gonna write about, right?

Richard: They can’t ignore what happened on this stage tonight.

Geoffrey: What did happen? Exactly?

Richard: I don’t know. This is all new to me.

Geoffrey: Well, please. Join us again. We do eight shows a week, matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays.

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14 Responses to The rehearsal for “Jack Crew’s Hamlet” at the New Burbage Theatre Festival

  1. Courtney says:

    AHHHHH I love that so much. I’ve seen it probably 5 or 6 times and STILL got little chills reading this. So good.

  2. Britt says:

    Lovelovelove. I had to watch one of the Seasons again after your last post, so I blew through Season 3 last week. I was just in a Season 3 kind of mood. But my friend Sarah is DEFINITELY getting this one for christmas. Jack was fantastic in that final performance.

  3. Kristen says:

    I got chills, too. And palpitations. Such beautiful writing — you can’t help but become invested in Jack’s experience. It’s almost unbearably tense. And, God, that moment he has with Richard is so heartbreaking. “Nobody expects you to become a classical actor.” SHUT UP, RICHARD! Um, yeah … no one believes in you. Have a great show!

    Geoffrey: Well, forget about perfection. There’s nothing more boring than perfection. Imprecision, fear – this is what gets them to their feet.

    Yay! I need to watch this again.

  4. Kristen says:

    I got chills, too. And palpitations. Such beautiful writing — you can’t help but become invested in Jack’s experience. It’s almost unbearably tense. And, God, that moment he has with Richard is so heartbreaking. “Nobody expects you to become a classical actor.” SHUT UP, RICHARD! Um, yeah … no one believes in you. Have a great show!

    Geoffrey: Well, forget about perfection. There’s nothing more boring than perfection. Imprecision, fear – this is what gets them to their feet.

    Yay! I need to watch this again.

  5. Kristen says:

    I got chills, too. And palpitations. Such beautiful writing — you can’t help but become invested in Jack’s experience. It’s almost unbearably tense. And, God, that moment he has with Richard is so heartbreaking. “Nobody expects you to become a classical actor.” SHUT UP, RICHARD! Um, yeah … no one believes in you. Have a great show!

    Geoffrey: Well, forget about perfection. There’s nothing more boring than perfection. Imprecision, fear – this is what gets them to their feet.

    Yay! I need to watch this again.

  6. Kristen says:

    Um, holy computer freak out! Sorry!

  7. red says:

    Here’s one of the things I love, one of the details in this particular storyline:

    Ellen goes OFF on Geoffrey, about how “we are all terrified” – she defends her behavior, and lashes out. Geoffrey annihilates her in his speech about “don’t speak for the GROUP”. Everyone’s losing it. In that situation – they are BOTH right – equal partners in chaos.

    But then: after Geoffrey steps out for a bit, has the confrontation with Richard, and comes back in … he knows … he has taken in Ellen’s words and he knows that the time to make Jack BE Hamlet – is now. No more dicking around.

    It’s a beautiful moment, I think, of – well, sometimes you have to let off steam, especially when things are tense, and Geoffrey and Ellen are always saying unbelievably mean (and true) things to each other – but Geoffrey is an artist. The play’s the thing. Learning that he has lost the Preview week makes him see Ellen’s point. Jack MUST start speaking the text, and he MUST start to perform the thing and make some decisions.

    I just love that whole section – the argument and then Geoffrey saying to her, “All right, let’s see if he can do it.”

    Very nice script-writing.

  8. red says:

    Oh, and something else occurred to me: In my earlier post about Slings & Arrows, I commented that Jack, through playing Hamlet, had to come to terms with his own indecision. Not just about acting, but about finding a mate – and going out on a limb and CHOOSING a mate. He reflects Hamlet’s indecision.

    But it occurs to me that Geoffrey goes through a similar journey, although at a different life stage. Hamlet obviously has great resonance for Geoffrey, since it gave him a nervous breakdown 7 years before – and here he is, directing it again – and things are not going well. Claire is awful, Ellen is being rebellious and angry, and Jack won’t say the actual text. But Geoffrey doesn’t handle ANY of this. He sits in the back, watching … and Oliver keeps saying, “You have to do something about this – this situation is getting out of hand.” But still: Geoffrey doesn’t ACT. He waits, he hedges, he tries to cajole the actors, but in general – he does not intervene.

    Until finally his back is up against the wall, and he MUST intervene.

    So Hamlet’s indecision is not just working on Jack in this season – but also on Geoffrey.

  9. nightfly says:

    Kristen – I just thought of it as three performances of the same scene. =)

  10. Maureen says:

    After reading your other post, I rented the first season this weekend. I loved it! I can’t wait to see the other two, thanks so much for your entries.

  11. reba says:

    I love the knock-knock joke bit, just to read. On the screen, though, my favorite part is the exchange where Jack sheepishly admits that people keep telling him to find his light and he…doesn’t know what that means. That’s not how they do it in the movies. And Geoffrey’s expression is a perfect incarnation of “Seriously?! This is what I have to work with?” tinged with just a little “Oh, God, poor kid is in so far over his head….”

  12. JessicaR says:

    I love the payoff for the Claire as Ophelia scene when Kate gives a heartbreaking take of that line and in the audience you can see Claire angrily wipe a tear away.

  13. Jane says:

    Lovely post! You’ve really captured that through line that I love in all of the series – the passion for the integrity of the art. They do it so well without constant preaching or being stuffy – great writing.

    Your comment about Geoffrey mirroring Hamlet’s indecision reminded me of my ongoing game of connecting the characters in New Burbage to the characters of the series’ main production. I don’t think they all line up perfectly to match the play, but I’m struck by all the connections each time I watch. In this series I agree that Geoffrey is Hamlet and I really see Richard Smith-Jones and his girlfriend Holly Day as Claudius and Gertrude plotting to take over the kingdom. I guess that might make May into Polonius. And, if I’m really going to stretch it, Anna becomes Laertes and/or Ophelia. Fun to play with – another reason I can watch this show many times!

    Thanks for posting about this – it’s fun to read everyone’s thoughts.

  14. jordan says:

    I have discovered some wonderful things from reading your blog (Judy Garland in The Clock, Eleanor Lipman) but this is my FAVORITE. I am now buying all 3 seasons for my mom for Christmas. Am in love with Paul Gross. Thank you!

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