Terry O'Brien's Blog

Kielbasa and Eggs

Several years ago, I sliced a few of Baczynsky’s home-made kielbasas, fried them, and scrambled them into eggs as part of Christmas morning breakfast. This was something I’d never tried before and which, by most reports, was fairly successful.

Early the following October, my son, who was 7 at the time, came running up to me excitedly and asked “Dad! Dad! Dad! Are we going to have kielbasa and eggs for Christmas breakfast?”

“I don’t know, Leo,” I said. “that’s almost three months away.”

“But Dad! Dad! Dad! We have to. It’s a tradition!”

The importance of repeated, ritualized experiences, no matter how profound or (apparently) simple they are, has never been made so clear to me. And even though we (m’Fam) don’t have much in the way of externally-defined traditions, we’ve managed, without consciously trying, to create our own set of rituals which we perform annually, and, in an unspoken way, look forward to the rest of the year.

We prepare, gather, do our few simple gestures, comment on the traditions, recollect, laugh at ourselves, and get to know each other just a little more deeply, having noticed that we’re all a year older than the last time we did it.

Afterward, I find the resulting sense of well-being, fleeting though it be, is remarkable.

The very best in health and happiness to you and your loved ones this holiday season and in the New Year.

Hamlet: Opening Night

In less than two hours, my production of Hamlet will open at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.  This project has been an exquisite joy and a great, if confounding satisfaction.  It’s been a privilege to work with this group of people, many of whom I’ve worked with for several years, and a few of whom I met within the last few months.  

Opening nights can be melancholic experiences for directors, and this one is particularly so for me.    For the last 6 weeks I’ve been saying ‘I wish I had two more weeks.’  But I didn’t really want that two weeks as extra rehearsal time.  I wanted more time so I could stay in the middle of the play, and try to understand and uncork its mad brilliance which has continued to confound people for nearly 400 years.

Now, I’m putting the custodianship of the project in the able hands of the actors, stage managers and technical team, a very capable group.  I’m stepping out of the inventive sphere and into the sphere of observation, removed a little from the heady exhilaration.  This is a necessary step, but a painful one because of how attached I feel to this production, and because of how proud I am of it.  

I have heard it said that Hamlet changes you.  I can say very affirmatively that that is true for me.  However, I don’t think I will be able to assess or understand exactly how it has changed me for a long time, if ever.  I can only say that, having worked on Hamlet for the last six or so months, it is a play unlike any other.  And its demands are easily matched by its rewards.

Hamlet: Final Studio Rehearsal

We did the Hamlet designer run in the studio today, our last studio rehearsal. Where did the time go?  No, really.  Where?  The last seven weeks have absolutely flown by. Now we’re moving the project upstate to our tent theatre in Garrison, NY.  

It’s difficult to encapsulate all that has happened while getting Hamlet off the page and into our bodies.  More difficult to predict what the next month is going to bring (we open on July 2).  HVSF is opening Comedy of Errors and Around the World in 80 Days at the same time as Hamlet and with the same company of actors.  So Hamlet work will be sandwiched between rehearsals and performances of those projects.  However, even with the intermittent schedule, the play will continue to steep, and (hopefully) burrow itself more deeply into our consciousnesses.  

I’ve never directed Hamlet before, but the actors and myself are amazed daily by the power of the play (‘no human being could have written this play’, ‘someone sold their soul to the devil’) and the way it continually changes before our eyes as we work on it.

Yesterday, we were working on an ostensibly simple scene, the ‘interrogation’ scene where Hamlet is brought before Claudius and the whereabouts of Polonius’ body are demanded.  First time through we tried it one way (act the crazy), then another (play it straight, speaking the crazy script), and then another (Claudius very patient), and another (Claudius very impatient), and another (Hamlet really out of control) and yet another (Hamlet wanting Claudius to be his Dad).  All worked like gangbusters, the actors simply being as truthful with each other as they could, but this last worked like gangbusters, and took us completely by surprise.  And of course; Hamlet has just become a murderer, he probably needs a little parental support, and who better to get it from than the man who killed his father.  

At the end of rehearsal, the scene felt really cracked open, and available to everyone, like an ever-broadening canvas (though I hate using painting metaphors for theatre).

We chose to leave the scene open, not picking which of these approaches was the best idea, and today, during the run-through, the scene went still another way, even further (Hamlet needs a Dad in Claudius, but then remembers that Claudius killed his father).

This is one short scene in a 4,000 line play filled with scenes each of which bears many interpretations, most of which are much more complex than the interrogation scene.  The play is incredibly elastic, open to vast possibility.  But I think what we’re finding most significantly is that the real horsepower in the play becomes apparent when we let go, and let the play do the work.  Then it’s like being at the top of the first hill on a roller coaster and sticking both arms way up in the air. You just let go.  

Or perhaps you just let be.

Hamlet Begins!

The first read of HVSF’s production of Hamlet was today. What a breathtaking script! It’s incredible that Shakespeare sustained such a high level of excitement through such a long script. Never boring. Never slows. The HVSF Acting Company dove in head-first and gave a first-rate first reading so we have a really good sense of the road ahead. May it be wild and bumpy.