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Exploring Shakespeare
Hamlet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Home | Hamlet: Staging choices | Ghosts

Staging choices

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Doubling Roles
Staging the Ghost

Bhuto movement: a dance of darkness

Who's this? Greg Hicks plays the Ghost of Old Hamlet.

Context: Where some productions have tried to slip the ghost unnoticed amongst the living to create surprise, Greg Hicks felt strongly that the ghost should be from another world, that his appearance should create a shock.

Greg did a lot of research into pain and punishment for this production and was keen to make purgatory a shocking reality by using the Bhuto exercises he describes. The unearthliness is emphasised by the ghost wearing very little costume; as a result some lines referring to armour had to be cut from the script. The little costume remaining is exactly that: a remnant, a symbol of something that once was.

Staging the Ghost

Butoh movement: a dance of darkness
See the ghost under Revenge
More about Butoh - this link will open in a new window
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