Tony's Week--Day Two, Part Two

From Leslie:
So we hopped in a cab to go to Central Park to pick up our free tickets to see Hamlet at Shakespeare in the Park. It was smooth sailing picking up our tickets (thanks to lucking out in the "virtual line"), grabbing a couple sandwiches and sitting in Central Park before the show. The people-watching was primo--almost as good as going to a show . . . While we were waiting to go in, Ann was chatting with a woman in line who told her that she had been trying to get tickets in the "virtual line" since the play started previews on May 27, and she had been completely unsuccessful, so she had finally carved out the time to stand on line, etc. We felt even luckier then!

It was a beautiful, clear night, and the Delacourt open-air theatre is a wonderful place to see a production. The large open stage was covered with subtle layers of granite backed by a large metal structure that allowed actors to move back and forth above the stage--it also opened and closed for dramatic entrances such as when the troupe of actors for the play within the play arrived with colorful flags and oversized "Bread & Circus" type puppets. The focal point on the stage was an eternal flame meant to represent the presence of King Hamlet's ghost. I took a picture of the set to post, but was quickly repremanded by a staff member who told me it was illegal to take pictures, and he stayed to watch to make sure I deleted it from my camera!

Hamlet is always a great play to see on stage, and, although this was not the best performance of it I have seen, it was completely enjoyable and a real thrill to see it in this kind of setting. Michael Stuhlbarg, a young actor with lots of experience doing Shakespeare, played Hamlet--his interpretation was to play him a little over the top from the start, with very high highs and low lows. He also seemed to be going for comedy whenever he could which worked at some points, but not so much at others. Sam Waterston (of Law & Order fame) was wonderful as the wind-bag Polonius, Andre Braugher (from The Wire) was really strong as Claudius, and Lauren Ambrose (of Six Feet Under) was a lovely and innocent Ophelia whose fall into madness was heart-breaking. The rest of the cast was solid, but not outstanding. All in all, an enjoyable evening for the CB's.

We grabbed a cab back toward our hotel, and went from agreeing to go right to bed to having a drink and a bite to eat in about one minute flat! We went to Thaylia's, a bar next to our hotel, had a few Cosmos, and had fun observing the Wed. night crowd. After we got back to our room, we were too keyed up to get to sleep until about 1:30am. We're pretty old to be staying up that late, but it's hard to call it a day when you're in NYC. More tomorrow!