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love shakespeare. did a hamlet run tonight, looked someone dead in the eye to say โam i a coward?โ during a speech and the fucker shrugged and nodded
we literally ruined society when we invented the fourth wall. letโs bring back call and response. heckling, even. fuck you hamlet you dumb piece of shit kill your uncle or shut up
"When we took Shakespeareโs โMeasure for Measureโ into a maximum security womanโs prison on the West Sideโฆ thereโs a scene there where a young woman is told by a very powerful official that โIf you sleep with me, I will pardon your brother. And if you donโt sleep with me, Iโll execute him.โ And he leaves the stage. And this character, Isabel, turned out to the audience and said: โTo whom should I complain?โ And a woman in the audience shouted: โThe Police!โ And then she looked right at that woman and said: โIf I did relate this, who would believe me?โ And the woman answered back, โNo one, girl.โ
And it was astonishing because not only was it an amazing sense of connection between the audience and the actress, but you also realized that this was a kind of an historical lesson in theater reception. Thatโs what must have happened at The Globe. These soliloquies were not simply monologues that people spoke, they were call and response to the audience. And you realized that vibrancy, that that sense of connectedness is not only what makes theater great in prisons, itโs what makes theater great, period."
Oskar Eustis on ArtBeat Nation
I was in the front row of a Hamlet performance where the "Am I a coward?" was directed at me and I, being a no-impulse-control gremlin, hollered back "Yes!!" (they'd primed us ahead of time that audience interaction was encouraged). Hamlet got right up in my face as he kept talking and just kept going until I gently pushed him back; I forget what line it was on when it happened but he took the direction of the push and reeled away across the stage.
This meant that I had marked myself as someone willing to be fucked with, and so during the graveyard scene later he approached me again. "Here hung those lips that I have kissed--" he booped my mouth with the skull's "-- I know not how oft."
I have stories related to me from those at Blackfriars, the American Shakespeare Center (they play in a replica of the original Blackfriars, with modern safety conventions like lightbulbs in the chandeliers, but a great dedication to the way structure shaped the original work in the original Blackfriars. Their house is only about 45 ft deep (roughly 15 m I think), which is about the max distance two sighted people can be from each other and still make eye contact. They play with the stage and house equally lit, they talk to the audience, they enter from the audience, they whip up crowds from within the audience. Itโs fantastic. But anyway, on to the stories.)
- Hamlet. Thereโs a scene where Hamlet sees Claudius praying and debates whether to kill him now or wait (because if Claudius dies praying he will automatically go to heaven). The actor playing Hamlet was genuinely asking the audience the questions in the speech, and when he got to โand should I kill him now?โ someone in the audience shouted โYES KILL HIM HE NEEDS TO DIE!โ Hamlet took the entire rest of the monologue to that person, enumerating his reservations so persuasively that they started to nod in agreement.
- Romeo and Juliet. In this production, the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt happens in several rounds, of which Mercutio won the first. Mercutioโs actor made the choice, upon his victory, to run down the audience with his hand out for high-fives. He decided this in rehearsal, so he had time to plan for the three responses people would probably give him: a) a high-five back; b) being stunned and not reacting; and c) the old โoops too slow.โ What this Mercutio did not prepare for was the audience member who panicked and deposited their handful of M&Ms into his open palm. The way I heard it, Mercutio was still processing this when Benvolio came up beside him and stole the M&Ms out of his hand to eat them.
- King Lear. Edmund has a speech in which he asks whether he should marry โGoneril? Regan? Both? Neither?โ Again, the actor was legitimately asking the audience, and again heโd prepared for the audience to respond in favor of any of those choices. What makes it even cooler was that the next line is โNeither can be enjoyed while both remain alive,โ which works as a response to any of those options. One night, though, Edmund got his answer as โKILL THEM BOTH AND TAKE THEIR MONEY!โ To which he gleefully agreed, โNeither can be enjoyed while both remain alive!!โ
#Oh I have SO many stories from peak audience moments at the American shakespeare center#I have been to plays there that legit felt more like rock concerts#And I don't even mean the parts of the show where the cast is also a live band and they play#Covers of songs relating to the show#Fair maid of the west with Ginna Hoben#We were all SO on her side we absolutely lost our whole shit any time she even entered or exited#Knight of the burning pestle where Rick would pick a random audience member to be his lady love he was fighting for every night#And one time (I saw it thrice) he picked an older lady#And there's a part of the show where iirc he like gets almost defeated?#And he calls out to his lady love to like inspire him to keep fighting smth like that#And she Got Up Out Of Her Seat and went over to him and kissed him on the cheek#And no one was expecting that least of all Rick#And we all lost our shit whooping and hollering#They did a hamlet where...I forget who was polonius that year but there's a line where he's like 'what was I gonna say again'#And he paused SO long on that line you were legit unsure if he the actor had actually forgotten it#And once someone in the audience called out the next line and he was like 'oh that's right' and carried on#It was scripted though there were other nights no one said anything and we all sat there#In wonderful horrid awkward silence#Until he resumed#Please go if you get a chance#And sit stateside (via @rootingformephistopheles)
I was in a production of Hamlet in a small black box theatre, when a drunk guy came in from from outside, wandered onstage and started singing "We built this city on rock and roll." The guy playing Hamlet just went with it until the stage manager and crew could usher the drunk guy back outside. Then Hamlet continued with his next line, which was (no joke) "Now I am alone." Brought the house down.
This is LEGITIMATELY how Shakespeare was intended to be done, because 'the fourth wall' hadn't been invented yet. Plays were done during the day because of the better lighting, so the actors could easily see the audience and interact with them. Actors are MEANT to interact with the audience because they were written in to be just as apart of the show as actors were.
The first time I experienced this, I was watching a performance of 12th Night and Malvolio, as the servant, was in charge of moving a collapsible bench on an offstage. The first time he tried, however, it wouldn't collapse all the way. He got two of the legs to stay down, but when he went to fix the other ones all the legs shot out again. This went on for so long that the audience started cheering him on, chanting "BENCH! BENCH! BENCH!" He finally got it to work and went offstage, but every time he came back on we cheered wildly, especially when he brought the bench with him. At the end of the show, Malvolio is wrongfully imprisoned, and when he's released he has a big moment when he yells about those who've wronged him and he turned on the audience and incorporated the line about being made a fool of as he roared at us. It was incredible.
