News From the Festival
Thanks to Donor, Child Care Prices Reduced
CEDAR CITY, UT — Thanks to a generous donation from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Foundation, child care at the Utah Shakespeare Festival will be even more affordable this year. The cost will now be only $10 per child per play, half the price of last year. In addition, the donation makes free child care available for Festival company members from season opening until the last performance in October.
“I am so grateful to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Foundation for this generous gift,” said Executive Producer Frank Mack. “It will enable even more families to enjoy all the Festival productions knowing their little ones are safe and having fun in our fabulous child care facility.”
The Festival has offered child care for playgoers from its inception. The goal was never to make a profit, but to make it more convenient for guests, especially young parents, to attend the plays. However, with rising costs and regulations, it was getting more difficult every year to keep the price low. Thus, the gift from the Foundation is very much appreciated, not just because it benefits Festival guests with reduced prices but provides free child care for company members.
“This generous gift to the Festival from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Foundation will assist company members and patrons alike,” said Donn Jersey, director of development. “It’s the first time in our history that our childcare has been sponsored, and we couldn’t be more grateful for this partnership.”
“With this donation, more families will have the opportunity to make the Festival a whole-family experience,” added long-time Child Care Manager Kristine Cooley. “We have loved getting to know the youngest members of each family, and we feel grateful and privileged to take care of each child. Our goal is to make sure each child is safe and happy.”
The Festival’s child care is for children up to ten years old and is provided during all plays, but not during other activities. The professionally staffed, safe, and state-licensed facility is located at 123 S. 300 West Street, south of the Randall Theatre and a short walking distance from the three-theatre complex. All child care must be reserved in advance by calling the Ticket Office at 800-PLAYTIX.
The Festival at Red Butte Garden!
The Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre in Salt Lake City
Zions Bank, Red Butte Garden, and the Utah Shakespeare Festival are joining together to present a concert version of Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on June 6 at the Red Butte Garden Amphitheatre in Salt Lake City.
The performance is part of the Red Butte Garden Outdoor Concert Series, and doors will open at 6:30 p.m. with the concert beginning at 7:30. Tickets are $35 for adults and $20 for children three to twelve years old. They may be purchased on the Red Butte Garden website at redbuttegarden.org/concerts. Tickets are now on sale.
“This is the first time, the Festival has presented a concert version of a play, and we are very excited to be working with Red Butte Garden,” said Tyler Morgan, Festival marketing and communications director. “Tickets have just recently gone on sale, and we are hoping our loyal playgoers will order early so they can see this fabulous concert at this beautiful outdoor amphitheatre.”
The concert will feature all the magical songs of the popular musical, including vaudevillian tunes, country and western swings, calypso, and good old rock and roll. It will be performed by the actors who will be appearing in the play this summer at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.
“We are so excited to get to perform a concert version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at the beautiful Red Butte Garden Theatre,” said Executive Producer Frank Mack. “This is all made possible through the generous sponsorship of Zions Bank, and everyone who loves ‘Joseph’ will have a magnificent evening of classical musical theatre in an exquisite environment.”
The Men Who Rescued Shakespeare
Henry Condell
John Heminges
By Kathryn Neves
Imagine a world without William Shakespeare. Obviously, we would have none of his plays; no Hamlet, no Romeo and Juliet, and no A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Those plays are beautiful, complex, and arguably integral to the structure of Western culture. But it gets even worse. Without Shakespeare, we would be missing out on many popular musicals and movies—no Shakespeare in Love, no West Side Story, etc. Tons of phrases we use in everyday language— “in a pickle,” “it’s all Greek to me,” even the word “eyeball”— would have never existed. No references to his plays and poems, no “Shall I Compare Thee To a Summer’s Day,” and we wouldn’t even have the Lion King. No, a world without Shakespeare is not a world I would want to live in.
Well, that’s exactly the world we would have if it weren’t for two men who most people haven’t even heard of. John Heminges and Henry Condell, two real men who have been adapted into characters in this season’s The Book of Will, were the force behind preserving Shakespeare’s work in the form we see it today. Countless literary treasures would have been lost or destroyed forever if it wasn’t for them.
Heminges and Condell were both members of Shakespeare’s acting company, The Queen’s— and then the King’s— Men. They not only acted for Shakespeare, but also acted with him in many of his plays. They knew the man himself, not just his words. In fact, when Shakespeare died he left money for both of them to buy mourning rings— something that some scholars see as a sign that Shakespeare intended for them to collect and preserve his plays. Heminges owned stock in the Globe theatre, and Condell was probably a very important and influential player in the acting company. So who better for Shakespeare to trust to take care of his life’s work?
But why did they have to preserve Shakespeare’s work? Why did they have to spend so much time and effort into collecting the plays and poetry? The answer to that is simple— there were almost no full copies of Shakespeare’s works when he died. There were Shakespeare’s foul papers, which were basically rough drafts. There were actor cue scripts, which were only fractions of the plays from the point of view of only one character. And there were forged and illegally printed copies, usually stolen and inaccurately copied by audience members or lower-ranking members of Shakespeare’s company. There may have been a couple of copies of some of the plays, but without Heminges and Condell, dozens of the plays would have been lost.
Unfortunately, we don’t know much about the men themselves. Information about actors during this period is very scarce; basically, if you weren’t nobility or royalty, your life wasn’t worth recording. We do know some things; we have a few financial records, we have wills and marriage and death certificates, and we have a few accounts mentioning their names. Heminges was a grocer who married the widow of another actor; he owned shares in the Globe theatre and acted alongside Shakespeare, Condell, and Richard Burbage—the man who most people say was the best tragedian of the time. As for Condell, we know even less. We know he married and had nine children, we know he in Shakespeare’s will, and we know that he partnered with Heminges to edit and produce the First Folio. It seems so unfair that we know so little about the men to whom we owe so much.
The Book of Will is quite accurate, as far as factual information goes; through the play, we get a good look at the men who saved the greatest literary treasures of the English language, and we get a really good glimpse at how important Shakespeare’s work is. We get to see historical figures and writers and actors who we’ve heard stories about for years—Richard Burbage, Ben Jonson, and other characters who made up Shakespeare’s workforce and colleagues. It’s comedy and it’s touching. Through this play we get to see what Shakespeare means to people—what it meant to them then, and what it means to us now. We get to see the stories of two men who have gone relatively unnoticed by history, but who have changed the course of history for the better. You won’t want to miss the chance to see this show this summer; in the Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre; you’ll feel like you’ve been transported back into the lives of Heminges, Condell, and even the Bard himself.
Behind the Scenes of the First Folio
By Kathryn Neves
There are a lot of familiar plays this upcoming season at the Utah Shakespeare Festival: classic Shakespeares like Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and Macbeth are on everyone’s top five list, a continuation of the Henry VI plays from last year, and of course, the ever-popular Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Even so, there are a few unfamiliar ones. One in particular, is unfamiliar because it’s still fairly new: Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will.
The Book of Will is— first and foremost— a comedy. Of course, it’s got some bittersweet moments, and it also has a lot of historical aspects to it; but it’s a comedy at its heart. The interactions between the characters, the theatrical inside jokes, and the hilarious language will have you leaving the theatre in stitches.
Well, that’s all very well, you say. But what is it? What is it about?
It’s about Shakespeare, at its simplest; it’s about his words and his works, his family and friends, and the magnificence of the characters he has created. The story follows two of his close friends, both actors and managers in his company The King’s Men: Henry Condell, and John Heminges. Both of these men were real historical figures, and though you may not have heard their names before, they are incredibly important in literary history. These are the men that saved the Bard’s work, collecting his plays together to form one complete folio. It’s thanks to them that we know about Hamlet and Macbeth and Romeo and Juliet at all.
Before the First Folio came about, none of Shakespeare’s scripts were very reliable. There were a few different options: a) you could look to the foul papers, which were basically Shakespeare’s rough drafts. Here, you’d have Shakespeare’s actual words— but probably not the right words. Have you ever compared a rough draft to a finished one? Sometimes you wouldn’t know they were the same thing unless the title was there. Then, you could try b) the quartos. None of them were quite right, and a lot of them were just simply transcribed by ear by people who went to see the plays. They might be a bit better perhaps, but still not great. You’re not getting the quality Shakespeare you’re looking for with those. Then, as a last-ditch effort, you could try tracking down the c) actors’ sides. These take a little more explaining. Shakespeare, in his life, rarely (if ever) gave his actors the full copy of the script; they were too expensive, and they encouraged thieves to come and steal the plays. Instead, actors received their lines and their cues only— in essence, they got half a conversation, or maybe a collection of disjointed monologues. This would not be an easy way to read the play; it would near impossible to collect and compile all the different actors’ sides into a cohesive play.
Well, Heminges and Condell did all three. Several years after the Bard died, they worked together to track down everything they could of his plays. They got the sides, they got the quartos, they got the foul papers. Using these and their memories from actors and watching the plays, they picked and prodded and pieced everything together until, finally, they got the closest they could to Shakespeare’s original words: the First Folio.
The play takes place only a few years after Shakespeare’s death. Condell, Heminges, and their friend Richard Burbage, Shakespeare’s lead actor, reminisce on Shakespeare’s life and work. They lament the bad copycat productions going on around London without proper scripts, and they most of all miss their friend. So when Burbage dies, the last link to Shakespeare’s work (he had, after all, memorized so much of Shakespeare’s best language) the remaining friends team up with their wives, a printer, and the Bard’s rival Ben Jonson, in order to resurrect the greatest work in the English language and preserve it for centuries to come.
It’s a fun, exciting play; the characters are funny, their interactions are honest and relatable, and the dialogue is a fun mixture of older English and today’s language. But what makes this play really enjoyable is the realness of it. This all really happened (well, maybe not all of it, but most of it). We get to learn about and appreciate two men that are barely more than names printed at the beginning of a book— and above all, we get to see what Shakespeare’s language really means to people. It was important then, and it’s important now.
Multi-Part Project to Enhance Guest Experience
Looking north across the new outdoor gathering area to Ellen’s Sweet Shoppe and the Gardner Family Clock Tower.
The Utah Shakespeare Festival and the Southern Utah Museum of Art (SUMA) recently broke ground on a multi-part project meant to enhance the guest experience at the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Center for the Arts on the campus of Southern Utah University.
The project includes a new gift store, a concessions stand, a clock tower, an outdoor gathering area, and landscaping and seating upgrades at SUMA.
“Festival guests are in for a wonderful surprise when they visit this summer,” said Frank Mack, executive producer. “We are adding a new gift shop in the Engelstad Theatre, a new concessions stand, and beautiful new lawns and gardens that include a colonnade of trees with new outdoor seating to form a new gathering place for guests to visit, relax, sip refreshments and enjoy the serenity of the Beverly Center for the Arts.”
“Generous donations from the Gardner and Adelman families have made these improvements possible, and I’m grateful for their support,” he concluded.
Construction is continuing apace with the projects scheduled to be complete by the first week of June.
In addition to private donors, Iron County has awarded the overall undertaking a grant from the Iron County restaurant tax. Southern Utah University also contributed significantly to enable the construction of the new gift shop.
The biggest four projects are meant to enhance the Festival experience by providing shopping, concessions, and gathering space to the area east of the Engelstad Shakespeare Theatre.
The new Festival Gift Shop will be built into the east lobby of the Engelstad Theatre. The 1,200 square foot shop will be filled with souvenirs, clothing, books, programs, and more and will be operated by the Southern Utah University Bookstore. It will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. the days of plays. The current Randall Gift Shop will still be open, but its footprint will be slightly smaller.
Ellen’s Sweet Shoppe will be open from 8:30 a.m. until intermission of the evening play.
The outdoor gathering space, or “outdoor living room,” is just to the east of the new gift shop and will provide an inviting and comfortable space for guests to meet and mingle, relax, have a snack or lunch, and enjoy their time at the Festival. For guests attending morning discussions in the seminar grove, Ellen’s Sweet Shoppe will be serving coffee and light breakfast items. Much of the concrete will be removed and replaced by lawn areas, Victorian gardens, a colonnade of shade trees, and seating and tables.
Between the Engelstad Theatre and the Ticket Office will be the new Ellen’s Sweet Shoppe and the Gardner Family Clock Tower. The sweet shop will be open from 8:30 a.m. until intermission of the evening play and will sell candy, ice cream, prepared food, snacks, and drinks. For guests attending morning discussions in the seminar grove, Ellen’s Sweet Shoppe will be serving coffee and light breakfast items. It is named for Ellen Adelman whose family and friends provided the funding. The new clock tower is named for Ella Gardner who generously provided the funding for it.
In addition, two projects will be completed around SUMA.
Pathways, landscaping, and seating will be added to the Stillman Sculpture Court on the east side of SUMA adjacent to the Ashton Family Greenshow Commons. This will enhance the ambiance and comfort of guests as they wander through this outdoor collection of sculpture. In addition, seating will be added to the Stewart Family Foundation Plaza which serves as SUMA’s front door.
Construction is scheduled to be finished by the first week of June, before the first Festival production on June 27. Concurrent with the Festival’s opening is a related exhibit in SUMA, Karl Momen, Homage to William Shakespeare, running through October 5.
The 2019 lineup of plays at the Festival include four by Shakespeare: Macbeth, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and the Festival’s four and one-half hour finale of the King Henry VI plays dubbed The Conclusion of Henry VI: Parts Two and Three. In addition, the season will include The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Price by Arthur Miller, and Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan MacMillan with Jonny Donahoe.
Tickets for the season are now on sale: visit the Festival website at bard.org, call 800-PLAYTIX, or visit the Ticket Office next to the Anes Studio Theatre.
Festival Announces First 2019 Casting
Quinn Mattfeld
Betsy Mugavero
Wayne T. Carr
Jacqueline Antaramian
Michael Doherty
Katie Cunningham
Russ Benton
Michael Elich
Dan Kremer
Stephanie Lambourn
Jim Poulos
Samae Allred
After sorting through the resumes, photos, and auditions of nearly 1,200 actors, Artistic Director Brian Vaughn has recently announced the first group of what will be about sixty actors that will be appearing at the Utah Shakespeare Festival this summer. Included in this number are twelve actors who have appeared at the Festival in the past.
“With a company of nearly sixty actors chosen from a pool of applicants from all major markets, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles, this season’s acting company is comprised of fresh new talent and returning Festival favorites,” said Vaughn. “I am proud of the company I’ve assembled and eager for them to share their work with our dedicated audience.”
The twelve actors below are a backbone of sorts for the season; however, to see all the company members (including bios and photos) as they are announced, visit the Festival website at www.bard.org.
Quinn Mattfeld will be returning this year to play the title role in Hamlet, as well as Lennox in Macbeth. A long-time actor at the Festival, he has played such roles as Will Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love, Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls, Black Stache in Peter and the Starcatcher, Sir Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night, and Gary in Noises Off!
“This year will mark a decade since my first summer at the Festival,” he said. “Getting to play Hamlet, directed by Brian Vaughn, in the Randall L. Jones Theatre, the same space where we’ve done Guys and Dolls, A Winter’s Tale, and Peter and the Starcatcher together, is the kind of magic you dream of as an actor. Utah Shakes has meant so much to my wife Betsy and me over the years, and I couldn’t be more thrilled and humbled to be asked back again to play the title role in what is arguably the greatest play ever written.”
Betsy Mugavero is returning for her eighth season at the Festival to play Olivia in Twelfth Night, Witch in Macbeth, and Alice Heminges and Susannah Shakespeare in The Book of Will. Last year she played Desdemona in Othello, Nerissa in The Merchant of Venice, and Clarice in The Liar. She has also played Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Viola in Shakespeare in Love, Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and many more.
“Studying, performing, and producing Shakespeare plays for our modern audience is my life’s work,” she said. “I attribute the utmost gratitude for making my passion for performing this ageless material and my growth as an actor to the Utah Shakespeare Festival. This will be my first time in a production of Twelfth Night and I cannot wait to surrender myself to this lovely play and live in Olivia’s affected world.”
Wayne T. Carr will be returning to the Festival this year after a stellar performance in 2018 in the title role of Othello, as well as Bassanio in The Merchant of Venice and Alcippe in The Liar. This season he will be playing the title role of Macbeth and several characters in The Conclusion of Henry VI: Parts Two and Three. He has also appeared off-Broadway and regionally, as well as in television and film.
“In my second year at the Festival, I’m eager to tell some amazing stories with a stellar group of artists,” he said.
Jacqueline Antaramian will be playing Gertrude in Hamlet and Esther Franz in The Price this season at the Festival. In the past, she has played Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, Tamora in Titus Andronicus, and the title role in Mary Stuart. She has also appeared on Broadway (including with Denzel Washington in Julius Caesar), at the Metropolitan Opera, and at theatres across the country.
“I am thrilled to be back to the Festival this year to do Hamlet and The Price,” she said. “Playing Gertrude in my favorite Shakespeare play, with the most talented Brian Vaughn directing, is an artistic collaborative dream come true.”
Anyone who saw last year’s The Foreigner will remember Michael Doherty as the shy but hilarious Charlie in The Foreigner and as Tom Sawyer in Big River. Audiences may also remember him in the comic roles of Fanny Babbs in Charley’s Aunt, Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew, and Speed in The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 2015. This season he will be portraying a softer, realistic humor as the Narrator in the one-man show Every Brilliant Thing.
“I have the profound privilege of performing Duncan Macmillan and Jonny Donahoe’s funny, moving, and uniquely theatrical Every Brilliant Thing,” he said. “I’ve seen this piece a few times, and, in addition to being sixty minutes of immersive and intimate theatre magic, it also feels like a public service. This is a story that really needs to be told, and I’m incredibly honored that I get to tell it.”
Katie Cunningham will be portraying a variety of strong women this year: Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Maria in Twelfth Night, and Rebecca Heminges and Anne Hathaway Shakespeare in The Book of Will. Last season she played Emilia in Othello and the delightful “twins” Isabelle and Sabine in The Liar.
“I never dreamed I’d get to tackle Lady Macbeth at all, much less at such a prestigious and storied institution,” she said. “It’s an honor to play four interesting and exciting characters with such wide-ranging experiences, and I look forward to interacting and engaging with the wonderful Festival audiences this summer.”
Russ Benton played Owen Musser in the Festival production of The Foreigner last year, but will also be remembered by long-time Festival fans as Pharoah in the 1998 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, a role he will be reprising this season. He will also be playing several roles in The Book of Will.
“I am very excited to come back to the Festival this summer and work with so many dear friends and returning colleagues,” he said. “Playing the Pharaoh once again, after playing it here twenty-one years ago, will be fun and intriguing to see what new things we can find and play with.”
Michael Elich is returning for his third season at the Festival, playing Macduff in Macbeth and Richard Plantagenet and Lord Hastings in The Conclusion of Henry VI: Parts Two and Three. Last season he also played Plantagenet, in Henry VI Part One, and will be seeing his character through the War of the Roses this year. Other roles at the Festival include Dr. Caius in The Merry Wives of Windsor, Balthazar in The Merchant of Venice, Long John Silver in Treasure Island, Jaques in As You Like It, and Burbage in Shakespeare in Love.
“I am very much looking forward to a third season at the Festival,” he said. “In particular, I look forward to continuing in the role of Richard Plantagenet while teaming up once again with director Henry Woronicz and the gifted Festival design team as we conclude this very rarely produced history cycle.”
Dan Kremer is returning to continue his role as Duke of Gloucester, as well as Jack Cade, in the Conclusion of Henry VI: Parts Two and Three. Last season he began the role of Gloucester in the first part of the Henry VI trilogy, as well as playing Robert Shallow in The Merry Wives of Windsor. Other roles at the Festival include Titus in Titus Andronicus, Lear in King Lear, Vandergelder in The Matchmaker, and several others.
“I look forward to exploring the political intrigues in the conclusion of the Henry VI trilogy, continuing in the role of the royal advisor, Gloucester,” he said. “As ever, it is an honor to contribute to the tradition of illuminating our common humanity in poetry and prose.”
Stephanie Lambourn will be continuing her role as Queen Margaret in The Conclusion of Henry VI: Parts Two and Three, after starting the role in Henry VI Part One last season. She will also be playing Lady Macduff in Macbeth. Last season she played Mistress Page in The Merry Wives of Windsor and Miss Watson and Sally Phelps in Big River.
“I am thrilled to return to the Festival and continue the character of Margaret in the Henry VI series,” she said. “Originally from Australia, I am looking forward to another summer in Utah.”
Jim Poulos is also returning to the Festival this year to continue his role of King Henry VI in The Conclusion of Henry VI: Parts Two and Three. He will also be playing Ross in Macbeth. In past years he has played such roles as The Duke in Big River, Chico in The Cocoanuts, and Robertson Aye in Mary Poppins.
“Playing King Henry VI in any production is rare,” he said. “And now, to return to the Festival and complete King Henry’s journey, I’m feeling ready to dig in. To top it off, I’ll be playing Ross in Macbeth, helmed by Melissa Rain Anderson. It’s going to be a fantastic season with an extraordinary group of people.”
Samae Allred is a Southern Utah University graduate and a familiar face to the Festival and SUU theatre audiences. At the Festival last year she played Mary Janes Wilkes in Big River. This season she will be highlighted as the Narrator in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
“Playing the Narrator is a dream I’ve had since I was a child,” she said. “I remember sitting my parents down in our living room and performing every single character from the play for two hours straight. So from my childhood living room to the Festival stage, it is truly an honor to bring to fruition my dream!”
The 2019 lineup of plays at the Festival include four by Shakespeare: Macbeth, Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and the Festival’s four and one-half hour finale of the King Henry VI plays dubbed The Conclusion of Henry VI: Parts Two and Three. In addition, the season will include The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber, The Price by Arthur Miller, and Every Brilliant Thing by Duncan MacMillan with Jonny Donahoe.
Tickets for the season are now on sale: visit the Festival website at bard.org, call 800-PLAYTIX, or visit the Ticket Office next to the Anes Studio Theatre.
Speaking the Speech: The Greatest Hamlets
Richard Burbage
Edwin Booth
Sarah Bernhardt
John Barrymore
Lawrence Olivier
Kenneth Branagh
Mel Gibson
By Kathryn Neves
Of all the great characters out there, there’s no role so highly coveted as Hamlet, Shakespeare’s Prince of Denmark. His complex psyche and his beautiful language make him the Holy Grail of acting careers. And from the time Shakespeare set down his pen all the way to today, some of the world’s finest men and women have stepped into Hamlet’s shoes.
Richard Burbage was the first man to play Hamlet. In fact, most people speculate that the role was written for him. He was described as one of the best actors of the era, appearing in Shakespeare’s plays, as well as Ben Jonson’s, John Webster’s, and others. We don’t know a lot about his portrayal of Hamlet, but we do know that it was enough to spur him on to huge popularity—so much so that when he died, the outpouring of grief threatened to overshadow the official mourning for Anne, queen consort to King James I, who died ten days earlier! Burbage is a character in this season’s Utah Shakespeare Festival production of The Book of Will.
Hamlet was very popular when it finally came to America. The first recorded American Hamlet was played by Lewis Hallam, Jr., in 1759 in Philadelphia. In later years, Hamlet would be performed by countless American actors, but perhaps the most famous of all of them was Edwin Booth. Some historians called Edwin Booth the greatest Hamlet in the nineteenth century. Beginning in 1864, he starred in a production of Hamlet that came to be known as the “Hundred Nights Hamlet”; it was the world record for a Hamlet run until 1922. In fact, Hamlet became his signature role. However, most of his achievements have been overshadowed over the years; just after the Civil War ended, his brother, John Wilkes Booth, assassinated Abraham Lincoln. Still, even today, many people consider Edwin Booth to be the Great American Hamlet.
Hamlet was not only popular in England and America. The play was fairly popular in France in the late 1800s; one of the most prominent actors on the Continent performed an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet to great acclaim in 1899: her name was Sarah Bernhardt. Surprisingly enough, Bernhardt was not the first woman to play Hamlet. That honor belongs to Sarah Siddons in 1778. Still, Bernhardt’s Hamlet was very influential. She became incredibly famous for it, to the point that when films were invented, she became the first Hamlet to ever appear on film; it was a five-minute silent film of the fencing scene between Hamlet and Laertes.
John Barrymore was another famous Hamlet. He was the man who broke Edwin Booth’s record of the longest running Hamlet; Barrymore’s ran for 101 performances. His role as Hamlet cemented him as “the greatest living American tragedian,” as expressed by a reviewer in Brooklyn Life. The performance was a huge success; of his role, Barrymore said that Hamlet was “a normal, healthy, lusty young fellow who simply got into a mess that was too thick for him.” He played Hamlet as an ordinary man, which appealed to audiences everywhere, while at the same time bringing psychological complexity to the character. The New York Herald even said that it was a performance “that will be memorable in the history of the American theater.” He played Hamlet again later on, and even performed the role in a radio version.
And of course, you can’t speak of Hamlet without mentioning Laurence Olivier. He played Hamlet both onstage and on film. One of his stage productions onstage was actually at a castle in Elsinore, reminiscent of the play’s setting. This became a tradition in later years, even as recently as 2009 with Jude Law in the lead role. In 1948, Olivier decided to do a film version of Hamlet, which he both directed and starred in. It was a huge success, and even won the Oscar for Best Picture—and Olivier himself took home the Best Actor Award for the role.
There have been modern actors, too, who have taken up the mantle of the Prince of Denmark. Kenneth Branagh directed and starred in a film version of the play in 1996. He didn’t cut a single word from the play, which meant that the film runs over four hours. Don’t let that scare you away, though; the film is considered one of the greatest Hamlets ever recorded on camera. Before that, of course, was Mel Gibson’s Hamlet, which is one of the more popular screen adaptations of the play. And even more recently we saw David Tennant, Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott perform the role.
We’ve had some great Hamlets here at the Utah Shakespeare Festival, too: Howard Jensen, Peter Webster, Scott Glasser, Sam Tsoutsouvas, T. Scott Cunningham, Martin Kildare, Brian Vaughn, and Danforth Collins all brought unique and brilliant things to their incarnation of the Dane.
Shakespeare’s amazingly complex characterization of Hamlet has enthralled audiences for centuries, and will for many years so come. So make sure to see Hamlet in our 2019 season. It’s a play—and it’s a character—and you won’t want to miss it.
Is This Noble Mind O’erthrown?
Danforth Comins as Hamlet at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2012.
By Kathryn Neves
There’s a reason Hamlet has been so popular throughout the last four centuries. There’s a reason it has been performed countless times, a reason it’s been studied and analyzed so much, and a reason we peruse its pages again and again. Because no matter how many times we hear those words, there’s always more. Hamlet is fascinating and complex enough that we’ll probably never get to the bottom of it. Sometimes we find something new in these pages— and sometimes we return to old questions and try to find new answers.
One of the questions that audiences have been asking themselves since the play premiered in 1609 is about the Prince of Denmark himself. Thousands of scholars have answered the question, and thousands of others have disagreed. There’s a lot of evidence for both sides of the debate, and in my opinion it’s one of the most intriguing questions in all of Shakespeare’s canon. It’s a simple question, really, without a simple answer: Is Hamlet playacting, or is he actually insane?
It would be easy to say that Hamlet is acting mad on purpose throughout the play. After all, he says so in Act 1 Scene 5 after seeing his father’s ghost for the first time: “I perchance hereafter shall think meet to put an antic disposition on” (lines 191–92). And it’s hard to call him insane for seeing the ghost in the first place, since he is not the only one to see the apparition. Barnardo, Marcellus, and Horatio all see the ghost in the very first scene of the play. It seems, then, that if Hamlet is mad, he must be in some sort of shared delusion with Horatio and the others.
Some people argue that Hamlet may have started out sane, but through the very act of pretending to be insane, became insane himself. It does seem possible; after all, Hamlet’s behavior is increasingly erratic as the play goes on, as though something definitely is wrong with him. At the beginning, he ponders and worries, but as the play moves forward he does some very irrational things; he kills Polonius without thought or remorse and he recklessly sends his own childhood friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, to their deaths. It would be hard to argue that those are the actions of a sane man.
Even so, there’s still a lot of evidence to say that it’s all playacting—or at least, most of it is. Hamlet acts strange, even absurd; for instance, in Act 2 Scene 2 he speaks to Polonius as though unaware of who he is, and what he says is practically all nonsense, even while he spends all his time hurling insults and slander. He speaks of graves, satirical rogues, and fishmongers until Polonius is positive that Hamlet is far gone. But if you read elsewhere in the play, you can see that when Hamlet is alone, he is completely lucid. His soliloquies are full of keen and intelligent observations that would be improbable coming from the mouth of an insane person. While Ophelia believes that his “noble mind is here o’erthrown,” (3.1.163) Hamlet’s mind is clearly just as sharp as anyone else’s.
Now, that’s not to say that Hamlet is always entirely sane. There are moments in the play— powerful moments— that show Hamlet enraged and possibly insane. One example is his killing of Polonius: just before this, Hamlet is in the middle of an emotional and angry confrontation with his mother, and he doesn’t seem to be in his right mind when he kills the hidden man. He does it without pausing to think, something that is very different from previous moments with him. Usually Hamlet takes (arguably) too long to make decisions because he thinks about them too much; here, though, he stabs the old man without any hesitation. Not only that, but he doesn’t seem to feel any remorse about it. This could easily be an indication that Hamlet’s insanity might not be entirely faked.
Then, of course, there’s the moment where Hamlet, upon learning of Ophelia’s death, picks a fight with her brother Laertes and says “Be buried quick with her, and so will I. And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw millions of acres on us” (5.1.296–98). Some people might consider it a stretch to call this moment “insanity,” but it’s definitely not the words of a healthy, balanced man.
So is Hamlet mad, or is he only acting? We may never know. Each actor portrays it differently— so sometimes he is, and sometimes he isn’t. Whatever Shakespeare intended, it’s definitely kept us all talking about it for centuries. Whether or not Hamlet is mad, we can safely say one thing: he definitely makes for a great show.
Stop the Presses! Playmakers to Perform Newsies
CEDAR CITY, Utah — Stop the presses! The Utah Shakespeare Festival Playmakers performing company is making headlines by presenting the high-energy musical Newsies! Public performances are on March 15 and 18 at 7:30 p.m. and March 16 at 2 p.m. in the Randall L. Jones Theatre.
Inspired by the true story of the 1899 New York City newsboy strike, Newsies! The Musical is a rousing tale of a courageous group of newsboys who become unlikely heroes when they team up to fight an unscrupulous newspaper tycoon. Tickets are available for $5 at bard.org/playmakers or by calling 800-PLAYTIX.
“This is a fun, exciting, high-energy (and inspiring) musical,” said Michael Bahr, Festival education director. “It is a perfect vehicle for our Playmakers program, which trains young actors and then gives them a chance to perform on the Festival stages.”
The Playmakers program provides young actors a chance to rehearse, learn, and then perform. The program trains youth in theatre fundamentals, including how to sing and dance with a live piano, rehearsal and performance etiquette, and how to work, share, give, and play with others.
Britannia Howe is directing and teaching this program. She created a similar program for young performers in Ashland, Oregon, and is thrilled to provide this training for young artists here in Cedar City.
“It’s thrilling to know that the youth of Cedar City will be telling a story about adolescents their very age who lived one hundred years ago,” she said. “Newsies has many themes, but my favorite is that children do, indeed, have power. It’s for that reason I’m excited that Playmakers is producing this delightful play.”
For more information, call the Ticket Office at 800-PLAYTIX or visit the webpage at www.bard.org/playmakers.
In Memoriam: Ace G. Pilkington
Ace G. Pilkington
Ace G. Pilkington, teacher, playwright, prolific writer, and literary seminar director at the Utah Shakespeare Festival for over thirty years, passed away on February 20, 2019.
Ace was a fixture in the Seminar Grove as he led interesting and lively discussions of the Festival’s plays. He was admired and loved by many who made it a priority to be at the seminars early in the morning. “The conversational moments that Ace shared with patrons in the Seminar Grove were an important part for the Festival patrons’ experience,” said Michael Bahr, education director. “He cultivated stimulating conversation and was the catalyst for epiphanies and discovery and the impetus for the seminars we have today.”
“How exciting the Festival Literary Seminars became when Ace joined forces with Jerry Crawford, Nancy Melich, and other seminar directors,” said Fred C. Adams, Festival founder. “Ace brought his vast knowledge of the Bard to thousands of Festival playgoers, and we will all miss him.”
Ace was born on December 20, 1951, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Acel Amos and RoseMae Jensen Pilkington, but he spent his childhood in Hyrum, Utah. He earned his MA in modern drama from Utah State University, his MLitt in English Renaissance drama from Middlebury College, and his DPhil in Shakespeare, history, and film at Oxford University. At his passing he was a professor of English and history at Dixie State University.
He has published over 100 poems, articles, and short stories in over sixty publications in five countries, including Science and Futurism: Their Terms and Ideas (2017); Our Lady Guenevere: A Play (2017); The Fantastic Made Visible (co-editor, 2015); Screening Shakespeare from Richard II to Henry V (1991). He was also a regular contributor to Midsummer Magazine and the Festival’s Insights study guides.
Ace and his wife, Olga, were married on September 11, 2003, and together they wrote the filmography for Michael Flachmann’s 2007 Shakespeare from Page to Stage, edited and translated the stories in Fairy Tales of the Russians and Other Slavs, and lectured together on International Shakespeare and The End of the Soviet Union and the Rise of the New Russia.
He was an active member of the Science Fiction Writers of America and received numerous awards for his essays and poetry, including the Readers’ Choice Award for best poem of the year (“The Robots’ Farewell to the Master”) in Asimov’s Science Fiction, 1992.
“I am very saddened by the passing of Ace. He was such a devoted advocate of the Festival, and his passion for Shakespeare was infectious,” concluded Brian Vaughn, artistic director. “He was a stalwart in the grove, and the impact he made on our audiences over the years is immeasurable.”
So, with heavy hearts we bid farewell and many thanks to our old friend. We will miss him in the Grove.
Updated February 25, 2019
Graveside services will be at 2 p.m., February 28 at the Tonaquint Cemetery, 1777 South Dixie Drive, St. George, Utah. It will be followed by a memorial service at 3 p.m. in Conference Room D of the Gardner Center at Dixie State University. Services are under the direction of McMillan Mortuary.