Monday, March 18, 2013

The Marowitz Hamlet (1969)

John Wyver at the Screen Plays project on how one of the more avant-garde interpretations of Hamlet made its way to television:
"At 10.55pm on 30 December 1969, BBC2 broadcast an edition of its regular magazine strand Late-Night Line-Up which was devoted to The Marowitz Hamlet. According to the BFI’s authoritative ScreenOnline, ‘Late-Night Line-Up discussed Charles Marowitz’s collage reinvention of the play, with filmed examples performed by the Open Space Theatre Company describes the programme.’ But what is preserved in the BBC film archive is a 59-minute fully-edited film of much of the production, including its opening and closing."
As is noted in the comments beneath, this is precisely the sort of experiment which no longer exists on television under current regimes.

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