Woodward Shakespeare Festival

2008 Season

presents

HAMLET

ACT II

Scene 1 - Ophelia reports Hamlet's mad actions

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Directing Resume

He took me by the wrist and held me hard.

Then goes he to the length of all his arm,

And with his other hand thus o'er his brow

He falls to such perusal of my face

As a would draw it.

Scene 2 - Plots, Set-ups, Players and a Plan

Photos by John Sanchez

Additional photos by

Arlene and Dick Schulman

Hamlet - Act I

Hamlet - Act III

Hamlet - Act IV

Hamlet - Act V

Thanks,  Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.

And I beseech you instantly to visit

My too much changed son.

Th' ambassadors from Norway, my good lord

Are joyfully returned

Thou ever hast been the father of good news.

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,

I will be brief.  Your noble son is mad.

'To the celestial and my soul's idol, the most beautified Ophelia...'

Came this from Hamlet to her???

This, in obedience, hath my daughter shown me...

But look, where  sadly the poor wretch comes reading.

You know, sometimes he walks four hours together

Here in the lobby.

Have you a daughter?

Ophelia watches...

For yourself, sir, shall be as old as I am,

if like a crab you could go backward.

Slanders, sir: for the satirical rogue says here that old men have grey beards...

My excellent good friends!  How dost thou, Guildenstern?

Ah, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

This most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire...

A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o' the worst.

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral ...

Buzz, buzz!

Head to foot

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons

And thus o'ersized with coagulate gore...

... With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus

Old grandsire Priam seeks.

Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;

But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword

the unnerved father falls.

'Anon he finds him

Striking too short at Greeks...

... I'll have grounds

More relative than this.  The play's the thing

Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Who calls me villain?

The devil hath power

To assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps

Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,

Abuses me to damn me..,