August 21 - Thoughts on Leaving

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so."

Again with the Hamlet quotes. I wonder if they swirl around in my head so much because I've done the show twice or because they really are so apt for so many situations.

I think it is safe to say for a lot of people, that even the really bad things that have happened to them in their lives (divorce, loss of a job, etc.), that at the very least in retrospect, the event was not one hundred percent bad. Yes, it likely felt one hundred percent bad at the time, but often times, there is some good that comes from terrible things. Divorcing the wrong life partner frees one up to find the right life partner. Leaving one miserable job (by choice or not) allows one to find something more fulfilling to do with one's time. Even those who are the victim or theft or accidents or whatever can gain valuable knowledge later on, or a sense that they can survive their worst fears if they are able to look at the situation in a different light. I know when I was hit by a car while out walking, I felt almost invincible for a little while afterward. I was hit by a car while on foot and walked three miles home after the event. That's kind of a cool thing to be able to say. And now I know, if I see another car speeding at me about to hit me, I can once again use my stage combat training to take the impact in a way that will hopefully minimize any damage. Granted, I am not invincible. But traumatic events can give us tremendous personal strength in the long run.

This is also not to try to minimize some really horrible things that happen in the world, like the mess that is Ferguson right now, or the journalist who was beheaded a few days ago after being held hostage for a couple of years. These things are terrible, and for those people directly involved, I'm sure they would be just as happy going through the rest of their lives never having experienced them. I wish that for them, too.

What brought me to this today is that I am in the process of cleaning a lot of negative out of my life. I do not think it is a secret that there are certain elements of my life that have not been bringing me joy for some time. But as I find myself beginning the process of saying goodbye to the negativity, I find myself remembering the few bright spots that were also associated with those things and those places. There were some nice people. There were some great opportunities. I have some wonderful stories to tell because of these things. Recognizing these positive moments, buried under all of the negative, is making me sad today. Or if not sad, then very emotionally confused.

I have been getting more and more excited about my new adventure in New York in the past couple of days. As I think about myself leaving those ills I have in favor of flying to those I know not of, I am reminded that the ills will not seem quite so ill once I am removed from them by time and space. I may come to think of them as good. Because there is "nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so." It's all about changing your perspective.

August 15 - Hamlet

I'm thinking about Hamlet a lot today. Not exactly sure why, but she's in my brain.

Disclaimer: I know a lot of people are used to thinking about Hamlet in the masculine (i.e. his uncle killed his dad and married his mom), but since I played her, I tend to think of her in the feminine (i.e. her uncle killed her dad and married her mom). So please pardon me when I refer to Hamlet as a she.

Today, I am specifically thinking about the infamous "To be or not to be" speech, probably because there has been so much talk of suicide and depression this week and in the past, when I have been depressed, I have read this speech out loud and it is perfect. It captures my depression and my weakness and my powerlessness perfectly. If you don't know the speech, let's take a look at it (borrowed from here):

To be, or not to be, that is the Question:
Whether 'tis Nobler in the minde to suffer
The Slings and Arrowes of outragious Fortune,
Or to take Armes against a Sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them: to dye, to sleepe
No more; and by a sleepe, to say we end
The Heart-ake, and the thousand Naturall shockes
That Flesh is heyre too? 'Tis a consummation
Deuoutly to be wish'd. To dye to sleepe,
To sleepe, perchance to Dreame; I, there's the rub,
For in that sleepe of death, what dreames may come,
When we haue shuffel'd off this mortall coile,
Must giue vs pawse. There's the respect
That makes Calamity of so long life:
For who would beare the Whips and Scornes of time,
The Oppressors wrong, the poore mans Contumely,
The pangs of dispriz'd Loue, the Lawes delay,
The insolence of Office, and the Spurnes
That patient merit of the vnworthy takes,
When he himselfe might his Quietus make
With a bare Bodkin? Who would these Fardles beare
To grunt and sweat vnder a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The vndiscouered Countrey, from whose Borne
No Traueller returnes, Puzels the will,
And makes vs rather beare those illes we haue,
Then flye to others that we know not of.
Thus Conscience does make Cowards of vs all,
And thus the Natiue hew of Resolution
Is sicklied o're, with the pale cast of Thought,
And enterprizes of great pith and moment,
With this regard their Currants turne away,
And loose the name of Action. Soft you now,
The faire Ophelia? Nimph, in thy Orizons
Be all my sinnes remembred.

Some of that looks a little odd, yes? This is the First Folio text, the First Folio being sort of the first official publication of Shakespeare's works, after someone bothered to sit and write them all down. There are other Folios, too, like different editions, that might have different spellings or different punctuation, or that may have this soliloquy happen in a different place in the play. But most Shakespeare scholars tend to turn to the First Folio to try to get as close to Shakespeare's original meanings as possible. If you're not used to reading First Folio text, here are a few hints to help navigate:

• The letter U often looks like the letter V, so "vndiscovered" is actually "undiscovered." 
• Similarly, the letter F often looks like the letter S, and J and I can look similar, because they wrote in very pretty script back then. 
• This soliloquy is written in iambic pentameter (as is most of Shakespeare's verse work), which means each of those lines has ten syllables that happen in a sort of duh-DUN-duh-DUN-duh-DUN-duh-DUN-duh-DUN pattern. 
• A break from this pattern, either in the rhythm of it or in the number of syllables, is intended as an insight into the mental state of the character. For example, some lines have eleven syllables and end on a down-note instead of an up-note. This could indicate sadness or madness or just general off-ness, flusteredness, or confusion. 
• Just because you have come to the end of a line does not mean you have come to the end of a thought. 
• Thoughts end with sentence ending punctuation, like periods, exclamation points, and questions marks. 
• Commas indicate a slight pause, a breath. 
• Colons and semi colons can indicate a shift in thought pattern, and often, a breath. 
• Parentheses are sort of asides, or tangents. 
• If a sentence ends in the middle of a verse line, the next sentence is a rather quick continuation on to the next thought, almost like the speaker is trying to avoid being interrupted. He or she still has more to say and needs to indicate that with the ending of one sentence and the beginning of the next. 
• Verse line endings can indicate that a character needs to "search" for the next word by answering the questions "who," "what," "where," "when," "why," or "how," though this does not mean that every verse line needs to have a big dramatic pause before continuing on to the next. 
• I learned most of this from taking classes with Susan Hart and Jeffrey Carlson and by reading Thinking Shakespeare by Barry Edelstein. I would highly recommend both these classes and this book. Seriously.

The bit that a lot of people look at when looking at this soliloquy is the first bit, "To be, or not to be, that is the question," because that is the first bit and the easiest to remember. And it can mean a million and one different things. I had a sort of awakening when one my high school teachers told us to put the iambic pentameter rhythm to the line and you realize that the emphasis falls on the "is" instead of on the "that." Also, it is an eleven syllable line, so an irregular one, indicating an irregular state of mind. So it's like Hamlet has been searching for answers and not knowing what to do, and she is finally able to identify the problem in it's basest context. The question really is, "To be or not to be." That's it. That is the question that needs to be answered. Now, a lot of people, including myself, attribute this to the contemplation of suicide. I've certainly used it in that context, as mentioned above. And it makes sense. Hamlet has been dealing with a lot of shit recently - her dad was murdered by her uncle, who then married her mom, and the ghost of her dad came back to tell her that not only is his afterlife hellish, but that she needs to avenge his death. She thinks she's going crazy, she feels betrayed by her friends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and she hasn't really gotten to talk to her mom about any of this, which, from my point of view, would have helped a lot. I always feel better after I talk to my mom. So Hamlet gets a solitary moment (sort of, she's being spied on, as has become the norm in her life lately), and she wonders aloud whether or not she should end it. It makes sense.

But I think it makes sense in a broader context, too. Apparently, it wasn't until the German Romantics got their hands on Hamlet that she became the moody, ineffectual, emo drip we all expect her to be these days. I haven't seen the articles myself, but the man who played Claudius to my Hamlet did a bunch of research and found that the idea of Hamlet being a man of inaction wasn't so played up until the German Romantics. He had previously been depressed and angry, yes, but not quite the removed, whiny twit we associate the character with, as portrayed by, say, Ethan Hawke. If you listen to the DVD commentary of Hamlet: The Series, I believe he talks about it more intelligently than I am here, because he is the one who actually looked into it. But anyway, when I was looking at Hamlet trying to figure out how to play her, I realized that the language and her actions and whatnot don't necessarily support the idea that she is inactive or ineffectual. She coordinates with the guards to see the ghost. She follows and talks to the ghost. She tasks her friends with keeping her secrets. She concocts this whole "crazy person" personae to throw other people off of her real plan to kill Claudius. She ferrets out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's plans to spy on her. She tries to protect Ophelia. She organizes a play, and writes a new speech to be performed in the play. She finally confronts her mother. She kills Polonius in Act III, thinking it is Claudius. She is completely prepared to fulfill her mission in Act III and does, except it is the wrong guy. She cleans that up. She escapes her own murder by having Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed instead. And she finally returns to Denmark and gets her revenge. How can one say she does nothing in the course of the play?

So with that in mind, "to be or not to be" could also contain elements of "should Claudius be allowed to live or not" and "should I become a killer or should I not?" Which is a huge question that then speaks volumes about the motivations behind Hamlet's hesitation about killing Claudius on a whim. Many of the things she does throughout the play are to try to get proof that the ghost is telling the truth, that Claudius really did kill her dad. I think it is safe to assume that Hamlet had not previously killed anyone - her dad was the war hero, she was a scholar away at school. And the decision to take another's life is not one that should be made lightly. I think Hamlet wants to know that if she does this, if she becomes a murderer, she will be able to live with herself and the consequences afterward. 

I don't think that in the performance of the line "to be or not to be," the actor has to choose only one of these options. I think that all of these thoughts exist in Hamlet at the time, so there should be elements of all of these interpretations behind this speech. It is a momentous speech designed to talk through a momentous decision, that is obviously causing her distress since she starts with four irregular verse lines in a row.

She spends the next few lines romanticizing the sleep of death, and how nice it would be to not have to deal with the shit life throws at a person, speaking very regularly and logically, before getting to the root of the problem: fear. We don't know what death is like, so it is hard to make an informed decision about whether death is a better option than life or not. She talks about how people screw each other over, about unrequited love, about the annoyances of governmental involvement, about how life just in general beats a person down, and wonders why people put up with that shit when it would be to just end it with a knife. Something as tiny and simple as a knife could make it all go away. If it wasn't for that fear that we don't know what is next. We don't know what happens after the heart stops. And that fear keeps us plugging away at what we do instead of taking action to end things and find out what's next. In more recognizable spellings:

"Thus Conscience does make Cowards of us all,

And thus the Native hue of Resolution

Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of Thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment,

With this regard their Currents turn away,

And lose the name of action."

We're all afraid. And as much as we might want to do something, thinking about it, thinking about the consequences and what is involved in actually doing this thing, scares us away from doing it. Because we can think about it and analyze it, we think about it twice, and out of fear, we choose inaction.

I think Hamlet is pissed off about this. Pissed off at herself, pissed off at being human, annoyed with being burdened with thought. And yes, she could be talking about why she hasn't killed herself and why she hasn't killed Claudius all at the same time. She most likely is. But if anyone (Freud) thinks that the motivations for her "inaction" are missing from the play, this is it. Right here. She is an intellectual, and killing someone (be it herself or someone else) is something she is scared of because she has no way of knowing what comes next. She is scared and frustrated and pissed off about it.

A couple of scenes after this, after she has been very publicly inappropriate with Ophelia in front of both of their parents, and after Claudius has given himself away at the sight of the play, she does stop thinking about it and shoves her knife through the curtains to kill the man who has been spying on her. Unfortunately, it is Polonius instead of Claudius on the other side of the curtain, but still. She takes action. She hits that tipping point where fear doesn't matter anymore and she does what she set out to do.

There has been a lot of talk online about Robin Williams' suicide, and whether suicide in general is selfish or cowardly or desperate or the result of depression or drug use or whatever. I already talked about my depression, and I can't begin to imagine Robin Williams'. But part of the reason "To be or not to be" is such a perfect depression soliloquy in my mind is because it shows how crappy both choices are for those considering suicide. And I think when someone finally makes that decision, as horrific as the rest of us find it, it is because they reach that tipping point where the fear of what comes next is no longer greater than the fear of plodding along with things the way they are. It is not about selfishness or cowardice or any of that. It is about needing something else. I think it takes a great deal of courage and strength to go through with it, a kind of courage and strength I hope nobody I know is ever able to find. And I think it takes a lot of courage and strength to not go through with it, and if anyone needs help finding that kind of courage and strength, please just let me know.

Again, I don't condone suicide. And the desperation that comes with needing that specific something else so badly that one has to take one's own life is tragic in the truest sense of the word. If you find yourself in that place, please find help. Talk to someone. Read this soliloquy out loud and really mean every word. Find your one little branch to hold onto. Talk to me. Suicide is not the best option. Ever. Even Hamlet gets that, even if she is not happy about it.

So that's what I'm thinking about today. How Conscious does make cowards of us all. And how sometimes that is a good thing.

I'm also wondering if I did a video blog series about various Shakespearean scenes or monologues if people would be interested in that. Maybe something to do while I'm in New York looking for other things to do. Who knows?

July 13 - Announcement

Hamlet: The Series is going to be broadcast on Chicago's CAN-TV, channel 21, on Sunday nights at 7:00pm (and again on Monday mornings at 2:30am) starting August 3. Pretty sweet, huh?

I want to say thank you to the lovely people at CAN-TV for giving us this opportunity, and for being so helpful and encouraging along the way. And, of course, thank you to the director for allowing me to be part of the project in the first place. And all of you who helped support it through Kickstarter. 

But yeah, I'm going to be on television. For twelve weeks. In a prime Sunday night time slot. Who would have thought that would happen? 

May 29 - Hamlet

Hamlet: The Series is available in its entirety on YouTube. I put all of the videos into this playlist so you don't have to go searching for them.



I want to say, really quickly, that what probably gets me the most about these videos is that when it gets to the end credits, the special thanks and list of supporters are full of people I know. It melts me every time.

Thank you, guys, for supporting this project. Without you, it would not have happened. I enjoyed it quite a bit, and for the rest of my life, I get to say I was Hamlet once. I could not think of a nicer gift. So thank you!

May 13 - Four and Five

I make a very interesting Hamlet. 

February 18 - Update

I have many thoughts on many things but not much time, so I really just want to say please watch this. It has been a long time in the making and I'm so excited that the first piece is up. Please watch, share, and discuss!

February 2 - And Therefore...

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome."

Many people have heard the bit from Hamlet that goes, "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Some say "our philosophy," some say "your," but the basic thought behind it is the same - there are things out there that we cannot understand or explain. People like to pull out this passage when talking about the occult or the paranormal, and often times (at least these days) it has a tinge of facetiousness about it. It's the end of an argument that someone doesn't want to be in anymore, a sort of Q.E.D. "Well, there's stuff out there we can't explain, so let's just move on to the next topic, shall we?"

But not nearly as many people know the bit that immediately proceeds this line, the line "And therefore as a stranger give it welcome." In the context of the play, Hamlet has just been told by his father's ghost that his father was murdered by his uncle. Hamlet is obviously devastated by this news and suddenly wondering who he can trust when Horatio and Marcellus show up, wanting to know what happened and what is wrong. Hamlet does his best to not say too much, and in his first show of "antic disposition," swears Horatio and Marcellus to secrecy, as they also saw the ghost that night. Horatio, thrown by the strange happenings of the evening and Hamlet's odd behavior remarks, "O day and night, but this is wonderous strange," the Elizabethan equivalent of, "What the hell is going on, Hamlet? You're being weird." Hamlet replies, "And therefore as a stranger give it welcome." He's pleading for Horatio to make a leap of faith, to show Hamlet that he can trust Horatio, to be on Hamlet's side. He's asking, "Yes, it's weird, but can you just accept it anyway?"

I like that sentiment. I like encouraging others to accept things that may be strange to them. Because think of all of the things that were once strange to you that you have now come to love, trust, and rely on - things as impersonal as your smartphone to things as beloved as your spouse or children. These things were once strange to you, but by giving them welcome, your life is now so much richer. So the next time something strange presents itself, perhaps adopting a welcoming attitude as opposed to one of fear and mistrust will bring something into your life you never knew you needed. 

"And therefore as a stranger give it welcome." A good thing to be reminded of from time to time, and words I am proud to have owned once. 

January 8 - Perception

One of the things that always gets me when I travel, or when I go somewhere where I am surrounded by thousands of strangers (like Wrigley Field) is just how small and insignificant my life is to the vast majority of the other people on this planet. Not to say that my life is unimportant in general, just that everyone has their own things going on - their own circles of friends, their own stresses, their own joys - and as they see my face walk by in a crowd, it doesn't even really register that I have this entire life of my own of which they are completely unaware. I'm just a face. Just as they are to me.

And then there are the few with whom your life intersects for just a short while. Long enough that you may remember the encounter years later, but still brief enough that you don't get to know them as a well-rounded person. I've known a few of those. When I worked in the bagel shop in high school, there was a man who came in every weekend for one of the herb-cheese twists and a cup of coffee. He almost always had exact change and a smile for me, but I never knew his name. There was another man when I worked in the video store who took full advantage of the $0.99 rentals on Monday-Wednesdays and would rent two movies a day for each of those days, every week. He always had his rental card and $2.11 ready as he approached the register. I knew his name at the time from scanning his card, but have no idea what it was now. I probably couldn't pick him out of a crowd these days, but I was always happy to see him come in back then.

It's funny to me, too, that I am that person to others. In high school, the cute guy at the gas station knew me as Clover Girl, because I wore a four-leaf clover necklace all of the time. I'm sure the people at the sandwich shop around the corner from where I work now know me as Falafel Girl because I only ever get the falafel sandwich - it's their only real vegan option. They are always polite and greet me with a smile, and half of the time, they've started making my sandwich before I walk through the door. But that is all we know of each other - I eat falafel, they make sandwiches.

I wonder, sometimes, how I will be remembered by some of these people, if I am remembered at all. My tattoo artist in Dublin said I looked familiar and Facebook stalked me a bit before working on me, and asked a couple of times what my most famous movie was. I told him I do more theatre than film, to look out for Hamlet: the Series, and that he should remember my face because in ten years, it is going to be everywhere. He took a picture with us when we were done and I wonder how long it will be before he forgets what marks he left on us, or why he even took the picture in the first place. I wonder how much the flight attendant on my fourth screwed-up flight in ten days complained to her life partner about the bitchy woman who was pissed they couldn't find her special meal because someone had spelled the name wrong. I wonder if the woman walking her dog on a bright Dundalk morning will remember the two Americans who couldn't find their hotel and if she will think of us fondly. Will my repeated thanks to the cabbie be remembered as polite or insincere? Will the last man I kissed remember my name ten years from now?

I know all of these are rather insignificant moments in the grand scheme of things, and in all truth, the other parties involved have probably already forgotten their interactions with me. But I wonder, because I remember all sorts of things. Not everything, and not everyone, but loads of things and loads of people who have floated in and out of my life in a matter of moments. Am I also so thought of?

I kind of hope so. And I hope most of those memories are positive.

October 7 - Hamlet Update

I saw a rough cut of the first episode over the weekend.

I don't know that I'm really qualified to comment on it yet, as I spent most of the viewing noticing things like how awesome my hair looked or how visible the scars on my face are, or remembering on which day we shot which scenes and thinking about all of the stuff that happened off-camera on those days during those shoots. I saw things I wish I had done differently. I saw things that I did the way I hoped I had. And I don't know if I got teary-eyed because my performance was compelling or because I remembered the emotional state I was in saying those particular words on that particular day. I giggled a couple of times when I didn't think I was going to, or wasn't sure I was supposed to. I didn't cringe as much as I thought I might, and the cringing comes entirely from hoping my own performance is not crap, and is not intended to be a reflection on anyone else involved in the project. It was...

I want to see more. I want to watch this episode a dozen or so more times so I can watch it as a whole piece, and not a collection of parts. I want to see the other episodes so I can view the project as a whole.

I'm excited to see Hamlet: The Series finished.

September 19 - Acting Career

There are those who would argue that I don't have enough experience as a working actor to speak with any sort of authority on this subject, and there are those who might argue that I do (me). Meaning you can take the rest of this post with a grain of salt if you so choose. Though I might recommend hot chocolate instead - my blogs go much better with hot chocolate than they do with salt.

So Hamlet is over. Just about. I have a few insets and some voiceover stuff to shoot on Sunday and then I'm done with it until it is all edited and released and whatnot. Don't worry, I'll spam all of you when it is available so you can watch it. But I find myself confronted with the question that lurks in the back of every artist's mind as they finish a project, "What now?"

The artistic life is far from a stable one. This is why most of us have day jobs of one sort or another; we don't make enough money from our art to be able to pay rent and buy food and art supplies. So when one project ends, you want to try to have the next one lined up. If you don't, the panic can start to set in. Now, I know I've hinted at projects in the works and those projects are still in the works. But a funny thing about being an actor is that if you're not out acting, people forget you exist. Seriously. If you're not out going to auditions and seeing shows and constantly reminding the rest of the theater world that you are still alive and working (or trying to get work), they will forget about you. It's not a rudeness thing; it's just that these people are bombarded by actors and writers and wannabes all the time and they only have a limited number of roles to fill. If you can prove you're wanted (by being in stuff all the time), they will want you more because you are more likely to be talented, good to work with, and/or an easy way to put butts in seats. It's just how the industry works.

Or, it's how I think the industry works. Remember: I may not be an expert on this.

I have been blessed in that for about the past two and a half years (two and three-quarters years?), I haven't had to worry too much about my next project. They just kept lining up and I just kept knocking them down. Felt good. Felt great, actually, to be consistently working. And I was thinking that with Hamlet ending, I might want to take a little bit of a performance break and focus on other stuff - writing, perhaps building a YouTube show, being a normal person with friends, whatever. In the two weeks since Hamlet essentially ended, I have learned that I cannot do that. I still want to do the writing and the being a person and all of that, but I have to keep trying for acting jobs. I'm not getting any younger, you know, so I need to keep auditioning for these roles while I might have a fighting chance of getting one of them.

To that end, I have scheduled three auditions for myself within the last three days. Most of them involve having a monologue. I think you all know how I feel about monologue auditions, but if I chose to skip all monologue auditions, I'd have nothing to audition for. But it has started me on the path to finding a new monologue or two. I've been using the same couple over and over again for a while now and I'm kind of tired of them. I read a play and a half last night, and am hoping to read another play and a half tonight to try to find some new material to work with. My only hesitation is that the audition I have this Saturday is one at which I would really like to do well - I'd really like to work with this theater - but trying out new material on them may not be the best idea. Then again, using tired old material may not be the best idea, either. So we'll see. Maybe by the time my third audition rolls around in a couple of weeks, the new stuff will be the good stuff and I'll nail the audition.

So that's where that stands. I'm reading plays like a fiend looking for new material so I can get an acting job so I can do the writing and the YouTubing I want to do on the side. Such is the life of an actor, I guess.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

September 16 - Squeamish

I don't get squeamish very much anymore. Cockroaches still creep me out, and the waterbugs that like to charge at me from the drains in the laundry room in my building. Spiders don't bother me, nor does blood, really. As a pet owner, bodily functions are just kind of meh. I'm sure parents go through the same thing, where after a while, changing diapers isn't so much gross as it is just a fact of life. So yeah, I don't get squeamish very much anymore.

Despite this, I found myself having a very squeamish moment over the weekend when I was afforded the opportunity to watch a snippet of one of my Hamlet video messages. Which is also weird, because for the most part, I have gotten used to seeing myself on film. I've done several films, short and full-length, and I've edited myself in over 100 YouTube videos, so I know all of the little weird things my face does more intimately than I should. Claudius pulled out his phone, though, and offered to let my friends and I see one of my video messages that he had watched on his phone during the filming of the project and I fled. I crumpled into a whimpering ball of girl and hid my face while my friends watched it. They said it was great; I just couldn't. I just couldn't. Why is that?

I think this might be one of those occasions wherein the phrase "too soon" would be appropriately employed. I've not finished mourning Hamlet, so I don't think I have enough distance from the project to be able to watch it objectively. I know I am going to watch it and pick apart every little thing I wish I had done differently. It will take a few viewings before I am able to look at it as a complete piece of work and not a series of my own (failed? successful?) attempts at being Hamlet.

Which I think means I am absolutely terrified to see the final project at the moment. Absolutely terrified. And I find myself wondering how I will take people's reactions to it - will I take any compliments as people just being nice and any criticisms as gospel truth? Who will be able to tell me I did a good job in such a way that I will believe it? Whose validation am I seeking in regard to this project? And why do I need external validation - hasn't the journey been enough?

I want it to be done so I can rip off the Band-Aid of anticipation and just watch the darn thing already. Though I may have to watch it through my own fingers the first couple of times, as I hide in a fetal position. I'll get over it eventually. Just not quite yet.

September 7 - Pampering

Principal photography wrapped on Hamlet: The Series today. I think part of why I am so sad about it is that I want to do it again. I want to do it better. Not that it won't be a good production; but I want a chance to do my parts better. To feel more. To affect more. To raise the stakes, so to speak. I want to do it again. But I can't. The performance I gave is the performance we'll have on tape and it is the performance people will see. I hope it is okay. 

So now I get to mourn the passing of this project and my Hamlet. Which makes me feel like I should pamper myself for the rest of the afternoon. Eat decadent foods. Watch brilliant television. Read a book. Just be nice to me so I can deal with this loss. 

And now I get to focus on wanting desperately to see the finished product. 

September 6 - Sad

I'm sad today.

Before I go into why I am sad, let me just say that it is perfectly normal to be sad from time to time, and I have found it best to embrace the sadness as opposed to trying to avoid it. If I figure out why I am sad, I can deal with that thing and the sadness will go away as a result, as opposed to trying to just not be sad. That doesn't deal with the issue.

So anyway, today is a day to be sad for me. It has nothing to do with all of the sadness and suffering in the world, or the really difficult decisions that are being made right now concerning Syria, or anything that really impacts anyone but me. It is my own little personal bubble of sadness. The kind of bubble that goes nicely on a couch with hot chocolate, a super soft sweater, and a sad movie.

I am sad today because tomorrow is the last day of principal photography for Hamlet: The Series. In many ways, this is just the beginning of the project - it can then be edited and shared and discussed and it will be around forever. For the rest of my life, I can say I played Hamlet and I can show it to people all around the world. But for the actors in it, principal photography is the fun part. That is when we get to do what we do. All of the preparation, all of the rehearsal, all of the time spent analyzing dialogue and building characters all comes down to the actual performance, which in film, happens during principal photography. Once that part is done, we just sit back and wait for the thing to be done. We can move on to other characters and other projects, and for the last two and a half years, that is exactly what I have done to help with the mourning process as I say goodbye to all of the characters I have played, all of the amazing people I have worked with. If I keep myself busy and preoccupied with the next project, the next show, I don't have time to get too sad about this show ending.

I don't really have the next project in line yet. I have projects in the pipeline; don't get me wrong. But I don't have another character to inhabit yet. Another person to bring to life through my actions and someone else's words. And this makes me very aware of how empty I will feel when I'm no longer sharing body space with Hamlet. She first came to live with me a little over two years ago. It has been an extraordinarily long process, with ups and downs and stops and starts and frustrations and joys. We have laughed so hard on set. I have cried so many tears. I have spent so many hours with the script and my Shakespeare Lexicon books, trying to figure out who this person is and why she does the things she does and now that I finally sort of feel like maybe I have it, she's moving out. Unlikely to come live with me again. I've gotten used to her. I've grown to love her and empathize with her. And in the absence of another character coming to live with me, I just get to feel her slip away as I mourn her leaving.

I am looking forward to shooting these last bits tomorrow, because it means the project is that much closer to being done and I will be able to see the fruits of all of our efforts. But for all of the heartache and the thousand natural shocks that her flesh is heir to, I have loved this project and I am sad to see it coming to an end.

So I am sad today. I will be less sad later.

August 24 - Update

So as of today, I believe principal photography for episodes 1, 4, 5, and 6 of Hamlet are finished. There are just tidbits of episodes 2 and 3 left, with some various and sundry inserts and possible reshoots. Honestly, it feels weird. I've been working on this for so long. There have been amazing days and unsure days and frustrating days and those days where it was reinforced that acting is what I need to be doing with my life. It has been a roller coaster, and while it isn't quite finished for me yet, today felt sort of like the end of something. 

I'm not ready to be done with it yet. 

I am very much looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I hope it is everything we want it to be. I hope people watch and enjoy it. But however it turns out and however it is received, I will get to say for the rest of my life that one summer, I was Hamlet. 

Totally worth it. 

July 27 - Happy Happy

My youngest niece turns one today. Happy birthday, punkin'!

I also survived the filming that involved all of the words, and I think I got most of them right and in the right order and even managed to have some feeling behind them. Yay!

And I think my cat understands the phrase "move your face," which is what I say when I'm about to close the refrigerator door and he is trying to investigate the contents thereof. He does, in fact, move his face out of the way of the door. 

I hope to have words and original thoughts back tomorrow. 

July 26 - Words

Hey!

Just a quick blurb. Tomorrow I am shooting two extremely dialogue-intense scenes in Hamlet, so I've spent the week cramming as many Shakespearean words into my brain as possible, which has left very little space for words of my own. I'm not complaining, mind you. I love the puzzle of figuring out what all of these words mean when said in this particular order, and what sort of mindset I would have to be in to say them in this order at this particular time. It's fascinating and fun and brilliant and I friggin' love Shakespeare.

Doing Shakespeare as a film is interesting and challenging - much different than doing Shakespeare as a theatrical production. See, in theater, you have at least a couple of weeks, sometimes a month or two to rehearse, which means you're saying the words and performing the motions every day for weeks until they are so ingrained in you that you can't screw them up. Film does not usually have the luxury of extended rehearsal periods. Often times, you show up to set with your lines memorized and figure out the blocking and props and whatnot on the day. It feels a bit more like "winging it." With Shakespeare, "winging it" is a challenge, because there are very specific words that have to happen in a very specific order and I know professional Equity actors who are thrown for a loop if they have to switch in which hand they hold a prop. So it has required a lot of patience on the part of our entire cast and crew to make these scenes happen the way they are supposed to happen. And since I haven't had weeks and months to say these lines to my scene partners, I find myself cramming for each shoot the week before. I figure at the very least if I know my lines inside and out, hopefully whatever other wrenches are thrown into the system on the day of the shoot, I can handle them. I'm not sure if this is the best way to go about things, but it's working so far. I think.

Anyway. I have a lot of lines tomorrow that I need to make sure are in my head in the right order, so I don't have very many original thoughts floating around in my brain at the moment. It's my own "brainish apprehension." Which hopefully will not inspire me to stab someone through a curtain. Anyway.

Enjoy your evening!

July 21 - To Be

I filmed quite possibly the most famous monologue in history today, which may also be the most perfect monologue in history. "To be or not to be." You may know the rest, or think you do, or you may not know any more than those six words. But you know them. You've heard them. Today, I got to say them as if they were mine own.

It is frightening to play Hamlet, because everyone has played Hamlet and everyone thinks their take on Hamlet is the best. Tackling this role invites criticism, practically begs for it. But when you're saying these words that have been said a million times before, you can't dwell on the fact that they have been said a million times before. You can't say them knowing they are cliche. You have to say them for real. With honesty and consideration. As if they have never been said before. As if each word is a brand new thought that just occurred to you in the moment. 

I hope I was able to do that today. I don't know if I brought anything new to the words (other than my gender), but I did my best to say them as if they were mine. And I loved saying them. There is a reason that speech has endured as long as it has. 

To be or not to be. I hope I was. 

July 13 - Hamlet Update

So we shot the fencing and the dying today and I have to say, I so love this project. I love being Hamlet, I love the cast, I love the energy that surrounds it. And I hope, with every fiber of my being, that it turns out an end product that other people can love as much as I do.

The rest is silence.

July 12 - Nerves

I'm nervous about tomorrow's shoot. Tomorrow, we fence and we die. There is a lot that is going to have to go into these scenes and I hope we are able to get all of it given the time constraints surrounding the production. So I'm nervous.

That's all. And Pacific Rim is ridiculous - I can't wait for the movie physics guys to get their hands on it. This coming from a non-physicist. It is ridiculous. I highly recommend you see it so we can laugh about it together.

Have a good night!

June 23 - ...And We're Off!

Principle photography for Hamlet: The Series starts today.

Holy fuck.

I have other things that I need to get done today before I show up to the set this afternoon, but all I want to do today is creative stuff. I want to play my guitar and take my time getting ready and practice my lines and just have a freaking day of Hamlet.

I'm nervous and scared and excited and humbled and I think a good cry would do me some good. Which is fortunate, because one of the things we are filming today is a soliloquy that always makes me cry when I say it, so the more I practice, the more I get to cry. Which sounds weird. But I'm freaking nervous, you guys! I'm nervous. I was originally cast in the summer of 2011, and here we are in the summer of 2013, finally getting some of this work down on film. It's been a long road already, and in many ways, it still feels like it's just starting. And before we know it, it will be over and we'll have a finished product to share with the world.

I hope I remember to stay true to me and to stay true to Hamlet and to stay in the moment and to use my words and my actions to effect my scene partner.

I get to be Hamlet today, guys.

I get to be Hamlet.