Results of Ruminations

Like Harry Baker  (start at 1:29), I like people. This is easy to say in general, because there are some specific humans that I have little respect or appreciation for beyond the simple truth that we're all connected--the beautiful and the despicable. And considering the unflagging pessimism that louers over my heart and the tumultuous sea of depression that too often capsizes me in its troughs, this is no small thing. Indeed, it's the love of people--more than love of self--that keeps me around. That isn't to say that I am in a perpetual state of desiring suicide--quite the opposite; I don't want this ride on Earth to end, and thinking of "the undiscovered country" propels me through more of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy than is probably healthy and a more-than-white-knuckle-grip on however many numbered breaths I will yet claim. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about leaving the world on my own terms. I was ...

A friend tapped me for a project that he knew I couldn't refuse: make a cut of Hamlet  for a BYU student production to produce. Actual video footage of my friend, right before talking to me. ( Source ) The catch? This production was going to be James Bond themed. But not as a gimmick; every instance, word, intonation, and gesture that pointed toward spying had to be included in the cut. The focus, then, was that the world of Hamlet was one in which deception and subterfuge reigned, and it was my job to draw that out as much as possible. Thus I gained the unpronounceable title of dramaturge . My job was to not only edit the play (the longest in Shakespeare's canon, at over 4,000 lines, always requires a hefty cut) but to omit the specific parts of the play that didn't remain focused on the spying. After some back and forth--with me trying to make the piece as lean as possible, yet still putting in all that the director wanted--we finally landed on a cut that is curre...