Primrose Road

Some days, I forget I'm back in New York City.

The Wooster Group's Hamlet is currently on stage at the Public Theater this month, and Newsday's review has me excited about this production, which projects a film of a 1964 stage production on a screen behind the actors. And,

"The synchronization of stage to film is maniacally precise: The stage actors move themselves, and some free-wheeling set pieces, in tandem not only with the film actors' blocking but with camera movements, cuts and snags in the film.

Some of these visual blips have been added. The film of Burton's "Hamlet," already a low-quality live recording of a starkly casual production, has been sliced and diced to a jerky, idiosyncratic rhythm. Actors' bodies have been digitally erased, or half-erased, from many shots. And a few other "Hamlet" films - Kenneth Branagh's, Michael Almereyda's - make cameo appearances."

Employing film to produce "jerky, idiosyncratic rhythm" on stage -- characters from Hamlet shouting "fast forward!" -- Hamlet speaking "like an obsessive who's replayed the same scene over and over again on his VCR" ... I'm definitely going to have to go see this one by myself, because no one wants to sit with the woman taking notes in the theater.

I will blog a review of this and Lincoln Center's Cymbeline, which I will be seeing with people (thus, not taking notes) in late November or early December.