Becky first told me about plans for a community production of Hamlet in May, explaining that the show would be performed at the Nottingham Concert Hall for one night only in 2025, partly funded by the RSC as part of their “Shakespeare Nation”. When I first heard about the project, it was unclear how the community actors would be chosen (whether existing groups would be invited to join the production, or whether it would be via audition), and I was hoping to be involved as a cast member. However, the decision was then made to hold open auditions, and Becky invited me to sit in on auditions to help with casting, as I had been part of the Shakespeare Nation for a few years, and understood the type of people that the RSC would like to get involved.
The auditions were done in July via several workshops, with Becky running different games, working on some text, and then giving the auditionees an opportunity to perform a scene from Hamlet. The Shakespeare Nation has never been about the “best” or “most competent” actors, so the ability of the auditionees was never under particular scrutiny. Instead, we were looking for people who got involved, pushed themselves out of their comfort zone, and worked well with other members of the group. Shakespeare Nation is about giving acting opportunities to members of the community that might not have opportunities elsewhere, and it was good to see people who had never studied or acted in Shakespeare before getting to grips with the text and having the confidence to act out scenes from the play.
From these workshops (which saw over 100 people audition), we picked just over 40 to be invited to become part of the cast. It was at this stage that the production date was pushed back to June 2025, and extended to two shows, which meant we could double-cast the principal roles, with other cast members forming a large ensemble that would help to create interesting scenes for the Night’s Watch and bring the army of Fortinbras to life, as well as lots of other things.
As rehearsals kicked off in September, Becky asked if I would like to be involved – and I suggested being part of the production team, rather than in the cast, as it would give me chance to learn some new skills. Becky immediately jumped on this idea, offering me the role of “associate director”, and inviting me to a workshop on stage management with Cath Booth, who had previously worked at the RSC, but was now freelance. The session was very interesting, offering an insight to the backstage process for professional productions.
The rehearsal period for “Hamlet” would be split into four sections, with the first two months focused on “research and development”, a chance to get the cast up to speed on the plot, as well as for us to learn more about them, before we decided on the principal cast in October. These workshops were lots of fun, focusing on movement, voice and text, and proving that we had made the right choices in selecting the 40+ people to be in the cast, as everyone was more than happy to get stuck in and show us what they could do.
Becky and I were both worried that casting the principal roles would be difficult – particularly if we didn’t agree – but we went away and made separate lists, and upon comparison it turned out we were mostly on the same page. We did move some people around (changing our minds about a character then led to a chain reaction, as we needed to make sure we had an appropriate Ophelia to work with Hamlet, an appropriate Claudius to work with Gertrude etc.) but settled on our final cast fairly quickly.
The next two months of rehearsals were focused on “devising”, something that Ian Wainwright from the RSC was particularly keen on, as he wanted us to develop our own scenes and stories based around the text from Hamlet. Becky decided to give the show the subtitle “The Rest is Silence”, to make it clear to audience members that this would not be the usual Hamlet production. As well as cutting the script down to between 90 minutes and two hours, we have used text from other Shakespeare plays to add in scenes to explore characters such as Ophelia and Fortinbras, who are not afforded a great deal of stage time in the original script. Hamlet’s speeches are split between other characters and the ensemble, whilst a huge debate over whether or not to include Yorick has spiralled into full-blown arguments at times!
As associate director, I am able to offer suggestions and challenge some of Becky’s ideas, whilst understanding that Becky, as THE director, gets the final decision. I am hoping that, as we move into the next section of the rehearsal period (script work, and then blocking), I will be given more opportunity to work with cast on creating characters, whilst Becky focuses more on the logistics and making sure everything on the stage looks good. At times during the process, I have felt a little out of my depth – having never studied Shakespeare or acting since school, I feel that my knowledge is far inferior to Becky’s, but I hope that I can offer a different perspective on the performance from someone who is a member of the community and not involved in the “theatre world”. I also hope that I can champion the ensemble and make sure they are given important parts to do, and not end up as simply “background characters”, each person in the cast getting their moment in the spotlight.
It has been a long time since I directed anything (after “The Three Musketeers” in 2017, I swore I’d never direct anything again) but I am incredibly thankful to Becky for giving me the opportunity to be involved in something like this. It might seem a lot of work for only two performances at the end, but with a project like this, I think the journey and the rehearsals are just as rewarding as the finished product.
Tom Morley, December 2024
Tickets for “Hamlet: The Rest is Silence” are available here
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