DETAILS

Hamlet by William Shakespeare presented by U of C Dept of Drama
University Theatre
Tuesday, February 17 - Saturday, February 28

More in: Theatre

When theatre director Patrick Finn decided to launch an all-female production of Hamlet at the University of Calgary, he didn’t think the media focus would be on his gender-blind casting decision. The exciting draw of the project, after all, was supposed to be its online component — a groundbreaking digital archive of the performance that incorporates a variety of mediums to document the show.

“I am frustrated by that. Maybe I’m a bit naive. I didn’t realize that was going to be that big of a deal,” concedes Finn, a master of fine arts directorial candidate who insists his only aim in casting 14 women for the 32 roles was to ensure he selected the best actors available for each part.

“If it’s Romeo and Juliet and you’ve got me playing Juliet, well, you’ve made a bit of a statement there,” reflects the 42-year-old. “But if it’s a play where you’ve got somebody who’s just going to portray a character that’s a set of ideas and beliefs that are kind of universally human, it seems to me silly to get obsessed with whether a person’s got a Y chromosome or not.”

What Finn is obsessed with, is the digital extension of the performance, a fascinating online archive that tracks the project from every conceivable angle: video blogs by the director explaining blocking and choreography choices, stills from dress rehearsals, costume sketches, lighting notes and, eventually, multiple live performances shot from multiple angles, in high-definition. The script will ultimately contain hypermedia links to video, so that users can click on a passage from the text and be transported directly to a live scene from the play (where they can also choose the vantage point). Additionally, the site contains a series of the 30 script revisions, done over two or three years, that document the director’s decisions to cut various passages from the original text.

While Finn and his main collaborator, University of Victoria English professor Arnold Keller, have been working on the digital archive for a year, Finn says only five to 10 per cent of all the material that will eventually be included is currently online. When the live performances wrap up on February 28 at the University Theatre, the most substantial aspect of the project will begin post-production and will have a dynamic, interactive shelf life for years to come. “It’s not just about text and graphics or even video,” emphasizes Keller, the site’s web designer. “It’s about letting visitors control how they use the material. And interact with it — that’s the next big phase.”

When the archive is complete, its user-friendly components will provide ample instruction on how to stage the play from the ground up. It will include interviews with Shakespeare experts and a mediated, public forum where academics and laymen can offer feedback and suggestions — advice that is already flooding in via e-mail. To supplement this input, usability testing is underway by three select groups of students, non-specialists and academics. Adjustments to the site based on these critiques have already been incorporated, ensuring an optimal level of ease for the average user.

While theatre plays have traditionally been documented with photographic stills and essays, according to Finn, digital archiving will be the way of the future. “Just writing it out is not the same as being able to see it, particularly for folks that work in those areas,” he says. “They want to see the colours, they want to see the layout, they want to see how things move.” This digital archive was designed to fill a need in the theatre community for a modern and relevant method of preserving performances, both as a research tool for academics and as an instructional resource for educators.

Although the Hamlet digital archive is a prototype, there have been earlier attempts at online documentation by other groups. The difference between those pioneer efforts and this, says Finn, is that earlier models were text-based whereas Hamlet is fully multimedia. “We’re not doing a website, we’re doing a digital archive,” he explains. “It’s a very, very different type of thing. As a result of using stuff that is inherently more database and data-driven rather than word-driven, we’re taking full advantage of the computer.” Since the Hamlet version is upscalable, says Finn, it won’t suffer from legacy problems — issues surrounding the ability of editions to function as newer software becomes available and others become obsolete.

Check out Hamlet’s digital archive at www.hamlet.ucalgary.ca.