I have some experience with theatre, being the technical director for New Play Project and a producer for Zion Theatre Company. When I think about staging hypothetical productions I generally think of one of two theatres where I have worked: my high school auditorium, a really nice space that was built for us while I was in high school, a large space with really nice lights and sound system; and the Provo Theatre space, this is a tiny theatre, fitting only 125 people, with a stage I can cross in three large steps, and an even smaller backstage.
Thinking about these two very different spaces gives a very different production, for I am very much of the opinion that productions need to be altered to fit the space. You cannot do the same thing in two different theatres.
As I read Hamlet, I thought about how I would stage it at the Provo Theatre. I am a fan of very simplistic sets, letting the audience help you build the scenery, getting them involved with the production. If your actors and your script are god enough to get your audience involved, you don't need distracting elaborate sets and costumes, especially when this causes scene changes to be extremely long.
If I were to stage Hamlet at Provo Theatre, I would have to do some script edits. I would probably edit out a few of the extraneous characters, since there is not a whole lot of space on stage for some of those court scenes where everybody's on stage. I would probably either cut Rosencrantz and Guildenstern completely, or combine them into just one character (Rosenstern? Guildencrantz?). I don't really see these characters as very necessary to the overall plot of the play.
I might also combine the two clowns into one, and have their dialog spoken between the one clown and Hamlet or Horatio. That might change some of the meaning of the lines, that would be interesting to see.
Provo Theatre also has a raised platform on the stageleft side, this could be very useful for the opening ghost scene. This platform could also used for the play-within-the-play scene. I would like to see the players set up on the platform, with Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, Ophelia, Horatio sitting on the main stage sideways watching the players on the platform, with the audience watching all of this from the side.
Wow, thinking about this, I kinda really want to do an adaptation of Hamlet at Provo Theatre. No set, except for maybe a couple of chairs to represent throne for Claudius/Gertrude to sit on. Costumes would be whatever actors have available. To steal a quote from Slings and Arrows, "Shakespeare didn't care about anachronism, neither will we!" I think this helps the audience to focus on the acting and the words being spoken, which is especially important as we use the original Shakespearean language.
This could be a lot of fun -- who's with me? Who wants to give me a bunch of money so that I can rent the space and perform this?
