THIS IS HAMLET
"But wait, RRRRETURN!"
Last weekend, the drama class performed This is Hamlet, the highly-anticipated comedy version of the classic Shakespearean play. From the Denmark Dudes to Ophelia being hit by the ddu-ddu-ddu of heartbreak to Hamlet's casual "whoops" when he realized he killed the wrong man, This is Hamlet managed to turn the tragedy into a comedy that kept the audience constantly laughing.
Despite the challenges they encountered -- having too few rehearsals, quick scene transitions, people not knowing what Hamlet was before reading the script, summoning crying scenes in a tragedy-comedy -- it's evident that this year's drama class killed it.
Highlights from backstage include cast members spending time with people they normally wouldn't spend time with and goofing off backstage (a favorite pastime of all generations of theatre kids). "People would fart or burp into the music storage room and lock people inside," said one of the cast members.
Of course, the space backstage also has its own secrets. A few things that the audience may have not known about the play that cast members do are the easter eggs in the script (they name-dropped Romeo and Juliet, announced Hamlet as "made up of pure iambic pentameter"), how slick some people were with their cover-ups, the improv on opening night (we won't say where), Moses changing the color of his wigs for the two nights, and the dancing backstage during the dance scenes on stage.
I went to watch the show twice and I laughed hard on both nights. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what made Logos' rendition of This is Hamlet so funny. Was it the fact that the comedy was campier than we were accustomed to? Or was it the delivery of ludicrous lines with such earnest gusto? The shedding of pre-baked notions of the cast members as they dove into their roles?
Either way, the play came at the perfect time. With the upcoming tsunami of deadlines and finals to study for, the lightheartedness that the play brought serves as a reminder that there are still reasons to laugh and that perhaps in time, we'll all find our Truffle-poo's (be it the grade we want or the will to live we thought we had lost -- just kidding).