Hello, My high school does a production of one of Shakespeare's plays every spring. No other school around our area does shakspearian productions because they say they are to difficult for high school students to understand. We love to prove them WRONG! This board is quite helpful in our understanding of Hamlet. Our questions to all of you is do you have any suggestions of costume and sets for Hamlet? I know that many productions like to change the time period. Do you think that it would be better for a high school to go traditional or change to another time? If we should change, what time period you suggest for my school to portray. Thank you for your opinions. Joey CLHS Performing Arts

-- Joey (jpier507@yahoo.com), January 25, 2003

Answers

i think that they should do it because they be some good play that he wrote.

-- (natricia@mom.com), May 02, 2003.

Why should they do it in the "time period it is set"? Shakespeare shouldn't be a museum piece to be unearthed and put on display for public appreciation every once in a while. It should be living breathing theatre. Anyway, I do not buy the idea that it was "written" in a time period, considering that Shakespeare's company performed all of his plays in modern dress themselves and performed them on a stage bereft of set and physical location. Shakespear's plays are about people and relationships and not about periods and places.

-- Patrick Walker (the_right_hand_of_doom@msn.com), June 05, 2004.

All very true. But why do people assume that as soon as there is a bit of historical accuracy it is automatically going to be dull and stuffy. That's prejudice. It can just as easily be fresh, lively and entertaining, and it is still going to be about people and relationships, and, I think, more believable.

-- catherine england (catherine.england@arts.usyd.edu.au), June 06, 2004.