Blood, Sweat and Hamlet

Until January, Brad Raimondo had little desire to direct a William Shakespeare play. But his father’s death sparked a change in outlook. He decided to turn the adaptation into his thesis. He selected a cast, wardrobes and stage directions. And now, he has made “Hamlet” his own for New Visions, The New School for Drama’s theater festival.

“For most of my life I didn’t have much of a desire to direct it,” said Raimondo, an MFA student at The New School for Drama. “[After my father died] I felt that ‘Hamlet’ had something to say to me. And I had something to say through ‘Hamlet.’”

Cast members met each other long before the play’s October 18 stage premiere. Actors were selected in the spring. And together, they each attended a Labor Day theater retreat.

“We did this exercise in which we had to stay in character for 18 hours,” said Jim Anderson, who played the King in ‘Hamlet.’ The entire cast and crew worked for a long time on making his director’s adaption workable.

“[Raimondo] spent a lot of time last year to see if it would even work,” Anderson added. “He did a very smart job.”

Raimondo’s wardrobe selections played a heavy role in the adaptation. The character of Ophelia wore a drop-waist loose pleated skirt and a matching loose collared blouse. The men stuck to suits and heavy army coats. The only exceptions were Gertrude and the King who wore markedly royal clothing including sashes and pearls.

“I think adaptation is a very important aspect of the work of a storyteller,” said Raimondo. “While stories like ‘Hamlet’ are timeless, the modes of telling those stories change with the moment.”

He sought to make his play contemporary. But he also knew the responsibilities of the actors and actresses to imprint their inflictions and presentation on the audience.

“That’s how you make a 400-year-old masterpiece feel contemporary,” he said. “You discover it again every night so that hopefully the audience can too.”