Last year Sam and I attended our first Independent Shakespeare Co. production in Griffith Park, Much Ado About Nothing. This year we decided to come back armed with food and a blanket. We were unfamiliar with the content of the play last year, which made things even tougher. This year, though, we decided to start with Hamlet. Everybody knows Hamlet, he’s the “thou dost protest too much” guy and the “to be or not to be” guy… etc. We got to the spot about 75 minutes prior to showtime as last time we learned our lesson on the merits of coming early. We were forced to sit way back behind the lighting posts last time. This time we were much closer. The photo below was taken from our blanket.
The following photos were taken once the place started to fill up, but not after the play had started, as they warned us there was to be no photography. I’m not sure how successful they would be in enforcing that since this was a public event on public property – but I wasn’t going to be the only one “breaking the rule,” so I stuffed my camera away. They have a gallery of shots on their facebook page here of what is essentially what we saw.
The play seemed tighter and quicker than last year (both good things). The lead was much stronger than last year as well, although some of the supporting cast not as memorable. I think they had less actors on hand this year as the ghost of Hamlet’s father would show up as other characters, which would have gotten quickly confusing if the other characters weren’t so different from the silent creeping ghost.
Gertrude kept reminding me of Lwaxana Troi with the Betazed outfit she wore the entire duration of the play.
The next day Sam decided to put on her chef’s hat and cook something up. See if you can guess the ingredients:
