English Troupe Brings Hamlet to Rice

Contact: Michael Berryhill
Phone: (713) 527-4943

English Troupe Brings Hamlet to Rice

Imagine only five actors performing a full-length
Shakespeare play. Imagine one actor as two characters talking to
himself. Imagine one actor as these same two characters fighting a
duel with himself.

Better yet, see all this when Actors from the London Stage
perform Shakespeare’s Hamlet for three nights, Oct. 28-30, in Hamman
Hall at 8 p.m.

A touring ensemble of five professional actors from the Royal
Shakespearean Company, the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain
and the BBC Shakespeare Series, Actors from the London Stage will
spend a week on the Rice campus conducting acting workshops,
teaching classes and performing Hamlet.

Their production of this Shakespearean tragedy stresses the
versatility of classically trained actors, each of whom plays
several starring and supporting roles in the work. It also offers
audiences acting in its purest form, since the actors make only
minimal use of costumes, lights, props and set. Instead, they define
the characters they play by changes in accent, voice, gesture and
body language.

Actors from the London Stage tour under the auspices of ACTER-the Alliance for Creative Theatre, Education and Research-an
organization based at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
The ACTER organization seeks to make Shakespeare’s genius as a
playwright, as the writer of the world’s most entertaining plays,
better understood in the United States.

"One way to do this," says Teresa Ragsdale, general manager of
ACTER, "is to send trained Shakespearean actors from England to
American college campuses where they can teach and work their acting
magic. Too many people in this country think Shakespeare’s plays are
boring. They have never seen an ACTER production."

Ticket prices are $10 for adults and $6 for students. For
reservations call 527-4040.

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