Staging Shakespeare's Hamlet: A Director's Interpreting Text Through Performance

by Lars Kaaber

Danish writer, playwright, and theatrical director Kaaber begins by distinguishing the problems associated with the acting tradition of Hamlet from the problems having to do with the various versions of the play, then promptly relegates the latter to the Introduction and Appendix B in order to get on with his project. That project is to take the play almost line by line, exploring how thinking about how to stage and act it can elucidate features of the play that remain otherwise obscure. The five acts he characterizes as A change of guard, A day in Elsinore, A dramatic evening, Royal knavery, and The cease of majesty. The volume is very nicely bound. Annotation ©2005 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

513 pages, Hardcover

First published July 21, 2005