About Q1

As we work on this version again, it just keeps making me smile inside... Let's just say it's forever cutting to the chase. No lengthy character development, no tedious plot intricacies, no chance for actorly self-indulgence in this baby, no sir. Here's the scene, slam bam thank you ma'am... you figure out how to make it work. And figuring out how to do that is indeed half the fun. I'm constantly reminded of all the new plays I've worked on where the tension is between taking the time to develop the playwright's vision and just wanting to take a scissors to it, do some major surgery, getting it down to its bare bones, maybe rearranging it a bit and, voila! Which makes you wonder if it wasn't, in fact, a reconstruction by some pragmatic, sensible soul who couldn't wait for the overwrought, overly analytical playwright to be out of the way.

As Kathleen Irace puts it, "this alteration speeds the plot at the expense of complexity and depth... Q1's more linear plot design is certainly easier for an unsophisticated playgoer to follow [definitely our experience]... But the simplicity of the Q1 plot arrangement eliminates the alternating plot elements that correspond to Hamlet's shifts in mood, a nuance that other productions might emphasize, catering to a more sophisticated audience."