The METG (Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild) drama festival is coming up on Saturday, March 1st. This is an annual competition where eight schools put together plays and then perform all in one day at Marshfield High School. After a panel of judges meets, only one school advances to the next round where they will face even more schools.
The Hingham High School Drama Club is preparing Horatio’s NOT Dead? a play which sums up Hamlet quickly and comically from the perspective of Horatio, Hamlet’s friend, and the only character to survive the catastrophe at Elsinore Castle. In the play Fortinbras, a Norwegian prince and enemy of Hamlet, arrives at the castle to confront him, only to find everyone dead, which leads to Horatio trying to explain everything that happened to Fortinbras as the other characters come back to life to act out the tragedy.
The play uses a mix of original dialogue and dialogue taken from Hamlet to make the show seem authentic but still easy to follow. The usage of flashbacks also allows Horatio and Fortinbras to comment on the events of the play and how quickly things went downhill for all the characters. Along with this, modern elements have been thrown in, such as Hamlet getting a text from his mother.
The show has a spectacular cast, including Tommy Parker as Horatio, Ruby Blake as Fortinbras, Allie Banks as Hamlet, and many more talented students taking on even more roles. Their acting abilities help accentuate the sundry traits of the intriguing characters.
Along with being witty and unique, the play is also completely original. The writer and director, Tyrus Lemerande, decided that instead of going through the lengthy process of purchasing the rights to a play he would rewrite Hamlet to be more accessible for modern audiences.
Thursday was the Anna Quinlivan preview (and world premier). The club put on the show with free entry at seven o’clock and went swimmingly. Will Monti, an audience member for the preview commented, “I thought it was great. The kids were very dedicated, they did great in the play, and it was very entertaining.”
Just before going onstage on Thursday, the cast and crew did bonding exercises and carried on the tradition of awarding someone the legacy robe. The legacy robe is a large coat that two exceptionally talented members of the cast and/or crew are awarded with adding a prop or item that relates to the show. On Thursday, Piper Perette, who played the player murderer and Orsic, and Alec Whitmore, the sound and light designer, were given the duty of finding something to add to the legacy robe.
Allie Banks, the actor who plays Hamlet, shared, “…there are so many great parts. I think my favorite has to be the pipe scene. Not necessarily for the movement, but for the words, because it’s a very powerful speech. I think that throughout the show everyone thinks that Hamlet cannot do anything. They think that he is just useless and cannot get up the courage to do anything, but really, he’s exploding inside because he’s not wimpy and he’s not afraid, and I think it marks at that point in the show that he knows that he’s going to die no matter what he does. If he kills his uncle, if his uncle tries to kill him, either way he’s going to die and I think even before he says, ‘…there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow,’ and that’s when everyone knows that I’m going to die…I would just like to say that I wouldn’t be able to play this part if it wasn’t for everyone else in the show… That is including Alec, Izzy [who played Queen Gertrude], Ruby, Tommy, Harry [King Claudius], Piper, Miles [Laertes], Ty, literally everyone on the stage. And I think that when people watch the show they’re like, ‘oh they did such a good job,’ and they focus on the actors, but what everyone should really focus on are the people who made this possible… everyone in lights and sound, everyone in costumes, makeup, props, set designing. Tag, who is our amazing, amazing manager [set designer] and student director. I really could not do it without them, and I am so fortunate that I am able to play this role, so I just want to say thank you to everyone.”
The show will be performed again at Marshfield High School on Saturday with a $10 entry fee, which covers the entire day. Be sure to tell any actors to ‘break a leg.’
