Hamlet Prince of Denmark Debrief January 29, 2015
For anyone interested, here is the actual transcript of the players debriefing about the disaster that happened to their Hamlet, Prince of Denmark play on January 24, 2014.
Fix Yeah, so, thanks for coming to the debrief. Uh, thoughts?
Penny Why am I here?
Fix I think he felt maybe you should just be a part of it. It was a unique experience.
Penny Okay.
Fix So, people have any thoughts? How do you think the play went? I mean, it wasn’t perfect.
Rudy I really think the extra week that we cut hindered us, a lot, a lot, a lot.
General Noise
Roy I’m sorry, but somebody had to go to Tia Juana and we had to cut that week.
Mike Seriously, it’s two weeks after the play and you’re still doing this whole freaking out thing. I don’t think we needed the extra week. All those problems were just coincidences. I mean, maybe the booth could have used some extra time, but we didn’t screw up our lines, did we?
A lot of General Noise
Fix Hey, we’re not coming to bash on each other.
Alan I have a few things to say to the costume department.
Fix We’ll get to that in a second. Sam?
Sam Maybe Anne could look where she’s falling next time. My rib still hurts from where her crown poked into my flesh.
Fix Well, if we ever do this again, which hopefully we won’t, or if we do I need more sandwiches—
Claire I think we needed to practice more with the swords, because then maybe someone wouldn’t have fallen.
Jackson We barely had enough room on stage!
A lot of Loud Noise
Lucy Do you think maybe if I acted quicker, I mean, I just don’t know how I didn’t catch that rat. It scared me and then to be deprived of vengeance.
?? Don’t worry, Lucy, it’s over now.
Fix How does this relate to Ophelia?
Claire Did anyone find out if she went to therapy or not?
Penny Hey guys, lay off Lucy a little bit. I understand her hatred toward rats. I empathize.
Roy I think that we could have done a great job, but hey, things happen, we had some accidents, we dropped some lines, there was an accident, no one planted that rat, but hey, guys, the show must go on. I’m sorry if I was a little mean to some of you.
Penny I don’t have very much experience with plays, but I actually think it went very well.
Willie That’s because you don’t have much experience.
Kieran I think we all acted very professional, especially that guy who had to come on stage and deliver all his lines to nobody.
Fix Oh shut up! No one cares about Polonius!
General mayhem and shouting breaks out.
Dan Geoff! Geoff! Geoff! Geoff!
No one is listening to anyone, let alone Dan
Lengthy shouting and mayhem until someone whistles for silence
Anne: Hey guys, I think we should keep this positive. I think we did pretty good. I mean I agree with you, we did make mistakes, but it’s not going to benefit us to dwell on those mistakes. I think, we need to— I mean, I think we did pretty good.
Penny Yeah. Positivity is really important. This is such a negative group! I mean—
Jackson Positive?! No one will hire me now!
Alan Save your positivity for the fools and the morons.
Lucy Who needs positivity? I live for the death of vermin.
Penny Lucy, I should probably get you a job at my business.
Lucy Oh yeah, that would be great. They’ve kicked me out here; I’ve been banned from the theater, but a job would be great.
Mike Jackson, it’ll all be fine. I mean, think about it, there were some mistakes, but they were actually not mistakes, they were accidents. There weren’t a lot of dropped lines. Somebody got food poisoning, is that any of our fault? No. Somebody got their head stuck in a helmet, it was an accident!
Willy That was your fault, Mike!
Mike Okay, someone tripped and they hit their head, they hit their head, that’s not their fault they couldn’t see through the sheet.
?? Whose fault was it then?
Alan The costume department! It’s their job!
Willy But when someone whacks their own head it’s kind of their own fault.
Rudy Listen, every great writer will agree with this: When you’re writing you have to be willing to write crap. When you write enough crap you’re eventually going to find one sentence in there that isn’t crap that you can base their book on.
?? He’s right you know.
Penny Don’t rain on other people’s positivity.
Roy One purpose of theater is to entertain the audience. The audience was very entertained.
Penny I did okay.
Roy She saved the show!
Lots of Noise and Arguing
Willy He was banging a wrench on my head. Inaudible But I was happy!
Lots more noise and bickering
Fix Time out, time out, time out. I have to stop this or my mentors will kill me. Alright, so, looking at all the mishaps, ignoring all the things that happened back stage, Jackson, how did you think your performance was? Mistakes happened, but you didn’t suck. Jackson nods. One shining moment, alright. Anybody else think they did well on stage?
May I did fabulous!
Lots of noise about all the audience laughter and whether an audience should be laughing at a performance of Hamlet.
Willy But the people laughed because it was so ridiculous.
Fix Hey, I say laughter is good.
Willy He said, “Ophelia died,” and everybody started laughing!
Alan Hamlet is a tragedy. They’re not supposed to be laughing.
Suzie Can we speak one at a time?
Penny Hamlet has so many jokes in it. It can be really happy, except for the ending. I read Hamlet in high school, and read the end, and then I had to read it again and not read the end, because—
Rudy You work at a pest control agency.
Penny Just because of that doesn’t mean I’m illiterate or stupid.
?? What are you doing here?
Penny I don’t know, they invited me.
Fix Okay, guys, what can we do to do better on this next performance? One at a time.
Claire I think we need to work on our bows. Like, a lot. A lot. And, in the dumb show—no one dies like that, May.
Fix Hey, the dumb show was improvised; keep it positive.
Sam I just want to say something positive. I want to give everyone appreciation for how everyone was so devoted to the show. Rudy, you were amazing, you stood your ground. And May doing the dumb show, you did two parts at once.
Lucy Honestly, I think Hamlet goes on for too long, some people should just cut their lines.
Willy Can I just make a point. When something freaks you out, it’s going to happen, but don’t go berserk please.
All It’s all Dan’s fault!
Too much noise to decipher
Anne My dad doesn’t understand Shakespeare plays and he understood what was going on. Like when you delivered your lines to no one, Geoff, he understood that!
Mike I think kudos has to go to Anne, because a new actor came on stage and she kept her cool.
Willy She fell on someone on the stage!
Fix Alan do you have anything to say?
Too much noise to decipher
Fix I’m going to wrap this up now because they’re telling me to finish up.
Actually, the mentors are completely ignoring the situation and having their own conversation. At times, the “too much noise to decipher” means they are talking too close to the speaker phone.
Fix This what I think we need to do to improve on next time. I will try to not get injured. You Freddie will try to find a seafood restaurant that doesn’t give you food poisoning.
Freddie: I will look at the ratings.
Fix Alan, you will work on your costume. Mike, be careful where your draw your sword. Rudy, if your scenes are cut, they’re cut; you don’t get to jump in, alright? Lucy, you need to not freak out. We’ll get the rat dealt with, that’s why Penny is here, maybe you can get a job there now and learn to take care of things more professionally. You, Geoff, good job, you covered for some speeches that maybe perhaps aren’t necessary but people still enjoy them. And you, Hamlet, you did well; you carried the show. Fix goes around the room and says “good job” to everyone else. And absolutely great job to our backstage manager.
General applause
Fix And… Scene!