Three Days (of Hamlet)
Three Days (of Hamlet) is an American documentary film from independent production company TMG, The Martindale Group, based in Los Angeles, California. TMG previously produced "Pursuit of Happiness" in 2000 starring Frank Whaley and Annabeth Gish.
Three Days (of Hamlet) covers a troupe of actors, and others, who gather to rehearse and perform a staged-reading of William Shakespeare's Tragedy of Hamlet at the Matrix Theatre in West Hollywood, California during three days in July 2010. Reality intrudes.
Alex Rotaru, Director of the documentary film Shakespeare High, in a personal message to the film's creator, actor/director Alex Hyde-White, says about Three Days (of Hamlet)'...jaw-droppingly ambitious and often brilliant... It was such an exquisite pleasure to learn something new about the play of all plays through your eyes. The pressure cooker in which you put yourself and your fellow actors was truly an ultimate test - I felt butterflies in my stomach just watching it. If Hamlet urges his actors to "hold a mirror up to nature", you hold a mirror up to the mirror itself, doing what the French call 'mise en abime', or loosely: 'looking into the abyss of infinite reflections'
The film builds on its main structure of on-stage happenings by juxtaposing stories from the players, including actors Richard Chamberlain (Polonius), Stefanie Powers (Gertrude), Tom Badal (Claudius), Peter Woodward (Laertes/Player King) and Joseph Culp (Himself). The lead actor/manager Alex Hyde-White weaves his own personal dramatic narrative about "Fathers and Sons" as he recalls stories from his childhood as the son of the well-known British actor Wilfrid Hyde-White. At times, particularly when the character of Hamlet experiences the visitations from his father's ghost, King Hamlet, the line of what is theatre and what is real life is purposely "deconstructed" and what happens onstage is commented on offstage resulting in a self-reflective dynamic of sometimes very powerful and moving proportions. Later, as the Son becomes the Father, a clear line of succession emerges in a profound, archetypal, way.