It has been 10 years now. The Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has been offering works of William Shakespeare to Boston’s diverse community for free every summer since 1996. I didn’t know this until last year (so much about being an “informative” Bostonian). I was really excited when I saw “Much Ado About Nothing” under the stars on the lawn of Boston Common. It was just amazing. The stage set and the cast were both of high professional quality. I was also surprised that I understood the play fine, though being a foreigner, I tried to read some Shakespeare 12 years ago, only to find it too difficult to cope with. That was my first Shakespeare play ever, and I enjoyed it very much. I decided to go again this year.
This year the stage was moved to another location in the park, the Parade Ground, maybe to accommodate a larger audience. And it was really crowded: my friends arrived two and half hours before the performance and still we were sitting a bit too far even for my 300mm telephoto lens. This summer’s three-week run of the play was “Hamlet”. It is about a lot of things: murder, revenge, incest, love, madness, and suicide, to name a few. That certainly would make an utter tragedy. Jeffery Donovan played the title role. Hamlet’s famous soliloquy, “to be, or not to be”, showed his dilemma: to keep his moral integrity, or to avenge his father’s murder. He did succeed in the revenge, but not until almost everybody died, including himself.
Prince Hamlet with his father’s ghost
Ophelia and Hamlet
Hamlet with the traveling players
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