Introduction The Play Text Plot Synopsis Was Hamlet a Real Person? Who's Who in Hamlet Vocabulary Hamlet's Language Why Verse and Why Prose Hamlet in Modern Times The Play Production Costumes Everybody Wants to Play Hamlet Actor Investigation Activities Shakespeare the Man Life of Shakespeare List of Shakespeare Plays Audiences Then and Now Additional Resources Additional Activities Recommended Reading

Introduction

In late January of 1997, eleven people left eleven families and eleven lives for Cedar City, Utah to begin rehearsing for the Utah Shakespearean Festival’s educational tour of Hamlet. After only ten days of rehearsal, the actors began their 78 performance, four state, 11 week road tour. Their wages were low, they shared hotel rooms, traveled in a crowded van, and their food—though it was fast—usually left much to be desired. The most challenging part of the tour, however, was the audience—the actors performed in front of high school kids, most of whom did not "get" Shakespeare and, in fact, did not even want to be there.

Why then would any rational adult undertake such a challenging and seemingly unrewarding task? "To make a difference," says Doug Scholz-Carlson, who portrayed Hamlet. "To show kids that everything doesn’t have to be simple and easy to understand. To show them that there are things that are more complicated that are worth going after."

Actor Michael Antonik, who portrayed Guildenstern, further explains, "I didn’t even finish reading Hamlet in high school. It was too hard to understand..too inaccessible. I hope that these kids get what I didn’t understand until I got to college."

Gary Armagnac, director of education for the Utah Shakespearean Festival and director of the Hamlet tour, seems to put it best. He maintains that there may be times when it seems to the actors that no one in the audience understands or connects with anything that is happening on stage, but there will always be a "scrawny little girl in the eighteenth row whose life will be changed in that one night."

Indeed it is a rare and amazing accomplishment when an audience connects with a play in such a way that their feelings and conflicts become one with those of the characters on stage; such that "For by the image of their cause they see the portraiture of another." (Hamlet, Act 5 Sc. 2) That connection becomes even more rare and amazing when the audience is a group of high school students and the play is one written over four hundred years ago.

Ben Jonson, a fellow dramatist of William Shakespeare wrote that Shakespeare "was not of an age, but for all time." That was what the actors in Hamlet were out to prove as they traveled from school to school. They wanted to challenge the assumptions students had about Shakespeare in performance and allow them to achieve a greater experience and understanding of Hamlet, life, themselves and even humanity in general—something a mere reading of the play could never produce.

Perhaps not every student who saw the play was deeply touched by the performance. Some may remember the play for a lifetime while others will let the experience slip away. But there is sure to be one student who laughed at Polonius and cried with Ophelia and realized that people have not changed that much since Shakespeare’s time. For the actors of the Hamlet tour, the possibility of making a difference in the life of one student is enough.

This year KBYU presents Shakes: Rattle and Role, a one of a kind documentary that follows these actors in their Hamlet tour as they traveled throughout the Southwest performing Hamlet and teaching workshops to high school students. Captured on film are the efforts of these actors who for eleven weeks put their lives on hold to change the lives of others. The effects of this astounding tour are apparent in the animated faces and comments of the students who voice their opinions about the play and about Shakespeare with new insight and understanding.

KBYU is proud to have been a part of this educational collaboration. Executive producer Sterling Van Wagenen said, "KBYU was thrilled to have this opportunity to work in association with the Utah Shakespearean Festival. This exciting and unique project shows the positive impact that the timeless writing of Shakespeare can have on young lives."

Article by Deb Stant

Shakes:Rattle and Role
Hamlet: on the Road
A Video Documentary directed by Gary Armagnac

A KBYU-TV production in association with the Utah Shakespearean Festival. Made possible by generous grants from the BYU Film Committee, Marriner S. Eccles Foundation, Utah Humanities Council and Zion’s First National Bank.