To go or not to go? Improbable Fictions will present a staged reading of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” tonight at 7:30 in Farrah Hall Room 214.
The event is free and open to the public. Pre-show music will begin at 7 p.m., and the reading will run about two hours and 20 minutes, including an intermission.
Nic Helms, a graduate student studying English literature, started Improbable Fictions in March 2010 with a reading of “Twelfth Night.” Since then, the group has also performed “Much Ado About Nothing,” “King Lear” and “Love’s Labour’s Lost.”
“Theatre offers something that neither books nor films can give you – characters that live and breathe on a stage only a few feet away,” Helms said. “Shakespeare’s characters are some of the best.”
For staged readings, the turnaround is quick. The cast held its first rehearsal last Sunday. They do wear costumes for the performance, but they do not have to memorize their lines.
“Staged readings exist halfway between the written page and the theatre stage,” Helms said. “When you watch a staged reading, you can’t just sit back and let the actors do all the work. You have to use your imagination as well. That sort of audience involvement makes staged readings a collaborative, engaging medium.”
Staged readings challenge the actors to entertain their audience with limited use of props and while reading lines off a page.
“We use a bit of stage combat, but only enough to suggest the sort of action you’d see in a full production,” Helms said. “Sometimes the suggestion of violence, the hint of horror, is more compelling than the real thing.”
Actors in the show include faculty members, students and others from the Tuscaloosa community.
“It’s tough to stage a ‘Hamlet’ without a Hamlet,” Helms said. “Fortunately, David Bolus [a senior majoring in theatre] was interested in performing for one of Improbable Fictions’ staged readings. His Hamlet is not to be missed.”
David Ainsworth, an English professor, will also play one of the main roles in the play, that of King Claudius, Hamlet’s uncle. He participated in Improbable Fictions’ readings of “King Lear” and “Love’s Labour’s Lost” after seeing the group’s first reading last March.
“I think the best thing about the entire process is that you really get to see the performance shape itself,” Ainsworth said. “It develops through the rehearsal process, and the rehearsals are pretty intensive.”
The main difference between a play and a staged reading is that the actors are reading off scripts, he said.
“It’s not rehearsed in the same way that those other productions are,” he said. “There’s more of a spontaneity.”
Ainsworth said students are usually the main audience for the readings.
“It’s more accessible and informal,” he said. “An intimate performance of Shakespeare is better than watching it on the big screen or on DVD, and the space we’re performing in puts us very close to the audience.”
The University’s Hudson Strode Program in Renaissance Studies sponsors Improbable Fictions.
For more a full cast list for “Hamlet,” information about Improbable Fictions and announcements about the group’s future productions, visit improbablefictions.wordpress.com or visit the Improbable Fictions Facebook page.
