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labricoleuseHmm, I've always stuck to the vague restriction in this blog to keep each post concise and topical within its given subject, for the most part. There might be a digression or two, but the posts follow a given structure--a project post, a show overview, a tutorial, a discussion of meta-issues relating to costuming. I try not to make it a journally sort of thing, and definitely not a diary sort of thing. The trouble is, i've got way more to write about than there is time to write, and i'm tempted to "catch up" with a giant meandery catch-all post about a bunch of unrelated stuff. Maybe a series of clickable cut-tags will solve the problem?
First off, i went to see Hamlet last night, and lord-lord, was it something to think about. Honestly, i've seen a lot of Hamlets--most people who work in the theatre have, as have most people who are avid theatregoers. This one, though, was like none i'd ever seen before. I am going to put my comments behind a cut, because seriously, if you plan to see this production, i would encourage you NOT to spoil it by reading my responses. Click the next cut tag on the list that interests you and don't read the spoilers, even if you don't think there can be spoilers for Hamlet because you know it's a tragedy and everybody dies and you've seen it a hundred times. If, however, you will not make it to NYC to see any Shakespeare in the Park, read on, Macduff! (Wrong play, i know.)
For reference, the play is set essentially in present-day Denmark, but with perhaps a more lurid color palette than reality dictates (some of the uniforms of the soldiers are very bright colors)--everyone has on modern attire for the most part. The set is like some huge ocean-liner, white metal walls with large rivets, which move to allow for entry only at the far rear center, and surmounted by a balcony and catwalk. So, very modern, and the only way i can describe the characterization of Hamlet is that he too felt very modern in his personality. He was very nervous, silly, spastic, confused, hyper, frantic, delivering some of his lines and soliloquies as if he needed his medication adjusted. That's perhaps how i can best describe it, is that he was behaviorally a Hamlet for the psychopharmacology age.
It was striking, since Hamlet is usually either very brooding or very angry, but always pretty overwrought and angsty. There's usually the whole question of whether he is pretending to be crazy or actually crazy or some blend of both, but i've never seen a Hamlet like this one. There was a man in the audience nearby who called him the "Robin Williams Hamlet," which is kind of close to what it was like, but only in the manic mouthfoamy way that Robin Williams used to be like when he was a coke fiend. This Hamlet isn't a coke fiend, but he's definitely acting like someone whose cocktail of meds is a tad too high on the speedy content.
The rest of the cast played their parts fairly straightforward, Andre Braugher was a commanding and hubris-filled but regret-laden Claudius whose relationship with his queen was perhaps less pants-afire than i've usually seen it played, and Gertrude was a stronger character than she is often played. Laertes irritated me--he was so bumbling and bombastic that it felt like Chris Farley rose from the dead and dropped a few pounds to play the role.
The end of the play though, that's what completely blindsided me. I mean, we all know how Hamlet ends, a stage full of dead bodies and Horatio's the last man standing, right? Laertes stabs Hamlet, Hamlet stabs Laertes, Gertrude drinks the poison wine, Hamlet stabs Claudius, Ophelia jumped in the river and drowned a while back, everybody's dead. Then, Fortinbras comes in and is all, "Here i am, i'm coming in to take over the country, this is a strange scene with all the dead royalty," etc., and everything is neatly tied up...or that's how it's usually played.
Incidentally, the sound effects in this production were somehow both realistic and horrific--every time Fortinbras' army was mentioned as moving through toward Poland and such, there were choppers and explosions and such blasting over the sound system--to the point that i thought, it might behoove them to put some kind of warning in the program or outside the theatre, because it might set off the PTSD of soldiers back from Iraq. I mean, if you are hitting the dirt in movie theatres when there's explosions and such (which, i know a couple folks who do), this play would definitely trip the same triggers. The point is i think to illustrate how huge and far-reaching and powerful Fortinbras' army is, and it certainly does that. But anyhow.
The last line of the play, which Fortinbras says is, "Soldiers, fire the shots," and there's a salute. Or, the way the play always ends is that there is a royal salute. In this one, he comes in, sees the whole royal family dead and Horatio standing there, says his piece about what a strange scene and how he's here to take control of Denmark, then said "Soldiers, fire the shots," and they SHOT HORATIO AND HIS BRAINS WENT ALL OVER THE BACK WALL, FIRING SQUAD STYLE. So, instead of it being this hopeful ending where Fortinbras comes in and benevolently takes over Denmark, all of his moving his armies through there becomes completely ominous, and essentially, you realize that had the events of the play NOT happened, Fortinbras and his army would have come in and killed everyone anyway, which adds a whole new level of tragedy. I am still thinking about all the layers of implications in this production and will be for some time.
So, yeah, quite a Hamlet going on over at the Public.
In my final days at the Public i was helping with restock of things that were pulled but not used in Hamlet. I took some pictures in their warehouse of some great storage methods because i want to implement them at PRC when i get back.
first up, hats--check out these easy-to-make hat storage racks
and here they are full-up with hats in the warehouse
belts hung by waist measurement
tie storage hangers, arranged by width and color
So, now that that's over, what's next for me? I've had a series of really excellent interviews with other shops (ongoing, since i've one more tomorrow), so i have high hopes of some cool work coming down the pipeline. A couple places have seemed like really good fits for me and my skill set, so i've got my fingers crossed. While i don't feel right about saying where i've been interviewing or what their working on in case there are non-disclosure agreements about their projects (don't want to shoot myself in the foot before i'm even on board), i'll say that there's a lot of cool craftwork going on, a possibility of dye work, and that tomorrow's interview is with a couture millinery studio, which could be a really excellent paradigm shift, in a sense.
Dunno where i'll end up next, but i do know wherever it is, it'll be cool.
You know, i've also got some dyeing technique DVDs to review and a bunch of exhibits i saw at the New York Historical Society i'd like to write up, as well. I'd thought about including them in this post as well, but i'm pooping out on writing and i need to burn a portfolio disk to take to my interview tomorrow, grab some lunch, and freak out about what to wear. (Just kidding, i know what i'm wearing, and it includes a hat.)
And now, more random photography of stuff in NYC:
enormous needle and button sculpture on 7th Ave
bronze garment worker sculpture in the Fashion district
cool church and ironwork
fire alarm in my neighborhood
Swedish Cottage in Central Park,
near the Delacorte where Hamlet is playing
roof of the Cottage from the Shakespeare Garden,
which lies between the theatre and the cottage
(note highrise through the trees)
mosaic horse in Roosevelt Park, by the Museum of Natural History
First off, i went to see Hamlet last night, and lord-lord, was it something to think about. Honestly, i've seen a lot of Hamlets--most people who work in the theatre have, as have most people who are avid theatregoers. This one, though, was like none i'd ever seen before. I am going to put my comments behind a cut, because seriously, if you plan to see this production, i would encourage you NOT to spoil it by reading my responses. Click the next cut tag on the list that interests you and don't read the spoilers, even if you don't think there can be spoilers for Hamlet because you know it's a tragedy and everybody dies and you've seen it a hundred times. If, however, you will not make it to NYC to see any Shakespeare in the Park, read on, Macduff! (Wrong play, i know.)
For reference, the play is set essentially in present-day Denmark, but with perhaps a more lurid color palette than reality dictates (some of the uniforms of the soldiers are very bright colors)--everyone has on modern attire for the most part. The set is like some huge ocean-liner, white metal walls with large rivets, which move to allow for entry only at the far rear center, and surmounted by a balcony and catwalk. So, very modern, and the only way i can describe the characterization of Hamlet is that he too felt very modern in his personality. He was very nervous, silly, spastic, confused, hyper, frantic, delivering some of his lines and soliloquies as if he needed his medication adjusted. That's perhaps how i can best describe it, is that he was behaviorally a Hamlet for the psychopharmacology age.
It was striking, since Hamlet is usually either very brooding or very angry, but always pretty overwrought and angsty. There's usually the whole question of whether he is pretending to be crazy or actually crazy or some blend of both, but i've never seen a Hamlet like this one. There was a man in the audience nearby who called him the "Robin Williams Hamlet," which is kind of close to what it was like, but only in the manic mouthfoamy way that Robin Williams used to be like when he was a coke fiend. This Hamlet isn't a coke fiend, but he's definitely acting like someone whose cocktail of meds is a tad too high on the speedy content.
The rest of the cast played their parts fairly straightforward, Andre Braugher was a commanding and hubris-filled but regret-laden Claudius whose relationship with his queen was perhaps less pants-afire than i've usually seen it played, and Gertrude was a stronger character than she is often played. Laertes irritated me--he was so bumbling and bombastic that it felt like Chris Farley rose from the dead and dropped a few pounds to play the role.
The end of the play though, that's what completely blindsided me. I mean, we all know how Hamlet ends, a stage full of dead bodies and Horatio's the last man standing, right? Laertes stabs Hamlet, Hamlet stabs Laertes, Gertrude drinks the poison wine, Hamlet stabs Claudius, Ophelia jumped in the river and drowned a while back, everybody's dead. Then, Fortinbras comes in and is all, "Here i am, i'm coming in to take over the country, this is a strange scene with all the dead royalty," etc., and everything is neatly tied up...or that's how it's usually played.
Incidentally, the sound effects in this production were somehow both realistic and horrific--every time Fortinbras' army was mentioned as moving through toward Poland and such, there were choppers and explosions and such blasting over the sound system--to the point that i thought, it might behoove them to put some kind of warning in the program or outside the theatre, because it might set off the PTSD of soldiers back from Iraq. I mean, if you are hitting the dirt in movie theatres when there's explosions and such (which, i know a couple folks who do), this play would definitely trip the same triggers. The point is i think to illustrate how huge and far-reaching and powerful Fortinbras' army is, and it certainly does that. But anyhow.
The last line of the play, which Fortinbras says is, "Soldiers, fire the shots," and there's a salute. Or, the way the play always ends is that there is a royal salute. In this one, he comes in, sees the whole royal family dead and Horatio standing there, says his piece about what a strange scene and how he's here to take control of Denmark, then said "Soldiers, fire the shots," and they SHOT HORATIO AND HIS BRAINS WENT ALL OVER THE BACK WALL, FIRING SQUAD STYLE. So, instead of it being this hopeful ending where Fortinbras comes in and benevolently takes over Denmark, all of his moving his armies through there becomes completely ominous, and essentially, you realize that had the events of the play NOT happened, Fortinbras and his army would have come in and killed everyone anyway, which adds a whole new level of tragedy. I am still thinking about all the layers of implications in this production and will be for some time.
So, yeah, quite a Hamlet going on over at the Public.
In my final days at the Public i was helping with restock of things that were pulled but not used in Hamlet. I took some pictures in their warehouse of some great storage methods because i want to implement them at PRC when i get back.
first up, hats--check out these easy-to-make hat storage racks
and here they are full-up with hats in the warehouse
belts hung by waist measurement
tie storage hangers, arranged by width and color
So, now that that's over, what's next for me? I've had a series of really excellent interviews with other shops (ongoing, since i've one more tomorrow), so i have high hopes of some cool work coming down the pipeline. A couple places have seemed like really good fits for me and my skill set, so i've got my fingers crossed. While i don't feel right about saying where i've been interviewing or what their working on in case there are non-disclosure agreements about their projects (don't want to shoot myself in the foot before i'm even on board), i'll say that there's a lot of cool craftwork going on, a possibility of dye work, and that tomorrow's interview is with a couture millinery studio, which could be a really excellent paradigm shift, in a sense.
Dunno where i'll end up next, but i do know wherever it is, it'll be cool.
You know, i've also got some dyeing technique DVDs to review and a bunch of exhibits i saw at the New York Historical Society i'd like to write up, as well. I'd thought about including them in this post as well, but i'm pooping out on writing and i need to burn a portfolio disk to take to my interview tomorrow, grab some lunch, and freak out about what to wear. (Just kidding, i know what i'm wearing, and it includes a hat.)
And now, more random photography of stuff in NYC:
enormous needle and button sculpture on 7th Ave
bronze garment worker sculpture in the Fashion district
cool church and ironwork
fire alarm in my neighborhood
Swedish Cottage in Central Park,
near the Delacorte where Hamlet is playing
roof of the Cottage from the Shakespeare Garden,
which lies between the theatre and the cottage
(note highrise through the trees)
mosaic horse in Roosevelt Park, by the Museum of Natural History
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-06 06:49 pm (UTC)*laughs* and i guess it's kind of funny as that is the topic i wanted to sort of talk to you about anyway. i just got laid off at the end of the season(no particularly worried about that) and we're thinking about relocating and stuff. after your post about portfolios i started putting together an online one. since i've never done one in 13 years i'm worried i'm now over thinking it. i'm not quite done with it yet but when i am would you mind taking a look at it and letting me know if i'm totally off track in how i've done it? i've still never seen another one from a wig/makeup person so i'm just guessing at what to do with it.
i'm sure you get this kind of request all the time and i totally understand if you tell me no. you don't even have to offer up a reason.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-06 07:01 pm (UTC)And i'd be glad to look at your portfolio when it is finished, sure!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-06 07:13 pm (UTC)kind of how cabaret can be.