Hamlets from left to right, top to bottom: Edwin Booth, Laurence Olivier, Sam Waterston, Adrian Lesters, Sienna Miller
Update:
The contest has closed. But here is a discount for anybody:
HAMLET – SPECIAL OFFER
SPECIAL OFFER:$15 tickets
TO REDEEM:
ONLINE: Visit brownpapertickets.com and enter code RED
RESTRICTIONS: Regularly $18. Offer may be revoked at any time and is subject to availability. Not valid on prior purchase. Offer cannot be combined with other discounts or promotions; blackout dates and restrictions may apply. Maximum of 10 tickets total with offer.
What is the best Hamlet you ever saw?
What is the worst Hamlet you ever saw?
Answer either of these questions, or both, to enter into a ticket giveaway for a new Off-Broadway production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Hamlet is playing through July 28th at the Hudson Guild Theater (441 W. 26th Street), with Kyle Knauf in the title role (he’s third from the right in the bottom row of the head shots of the cast):
Alternative question for those who have never seen Hamlet: Why do you want to see it?
Number 1 rule for this contest: Please make sure you label whether you’re talking about the best or the worst Hamlet. To mix up best with worst would be a …tragedy.
Here are the other rules:
1. Please put your answer in the comments at the bottom of this blog post, because the winner will be chosen through Random.org based on the order of your reply, not its content.
But please, please answer the question, explaining why or how it was the best (or worst) Hamlet. (You can talk about the performer playing Hamlet or the entire production or both.) (Or, if you answer the alternative question: Give a reason why you want to see “Hamlet.”)
2. Please include in your answer your Twitter name and follow my Twitter feed at @NewYorkTheater so that I can send you a direct message. (If you don’t have a Twitter name, create one. It’s free.)
3. This contest ends Monday, July 15, 2013 at midnight Eastern Time, and I will make the drawing no later than noon on Tuesday. Please answer within 12 hours, or I’ll have to choose another winner.
The best “Hamlet” I ever saw was Mark Rylance at the Old Globe in London. You know how Hamlet may be crazy, or maybe he’s just pretending to be, or maybe he starts out pretending and then descends into madness? With some Hamlets you’re never really sure which it is. Mark Rylance’s Hamlet was definitely crazy!
Can I also include the Hamlet I’d most like to have seen but didn’t get the chance? Paul Gross at the Stratford Theater Festival in 2000. What a treat it would have been to see the actor who would later give us Geoffrey Tennant playing the title role in the play that drove Geoffrey mad!
Dee Korich
Tucson, Arizona
@deeber66
I would want to see hamlet because I’ve never seen a Shakespeare production before. William Shakespeare is an amazing playwriter and his work has lived on to this day. It would be a shame if I was never able to see a Shakespeare show!
The best production of Hamlet was starring Jude Law
i never saw Hamlet but I love shakespeare plays so this would be a real treat for me to see this play live!
Unfortunately, I have never had a chance to see Hamlet yet, but I am DYING to see it. I read my first Shakespeare play at 9 years old, and have never actually seen any of his works onstage.
Twitter Handle: @wackeal
The best Hamlet I saw was the only Hamlet I saw which was a small company from Texas that came to my high school to do a condensed version. Their stage combat was crazy.
The best Hamlet I’ve ever seen was Kevin Kline’s. It was the only time I got how noble a soul Hamlet was – how sensitive and brilliant, what a great leader he would have been. So the tragedy of his demise was for me the most terrible and poignant. @sfierri
I’ve never seen it and would like to because, well…it’s one of the greatest plays ever written and I feel I should be able to intelligently join a discussion about all of the Bard’s work.
–@heytravistravis
I’ve recently seen a production of As You Like It put on by a local theatre company and it was amazing to see the language of Shakespeare interpreted into a modernized production. I would love to see how Hamlet would be interpreted and brought to life onstage.
@bridg4491
I have never seen Hamlet, but would love to. From studying American theater history, Richard III was the most popular Shakespeare play in the nineteenth century, Hamlet in the twentieth, and it seems increasingly Macbeth in the twenty-first. Having seen Macbeth, I would like to also see Hamlet and attain a greater understanding why the popularity of each play changes over time. @ArtWineWhimsy
I am embarrassed to say I have never seen Hamlet, so I cannot reply with best or worst. Hope I can still enter so I may possibly get the chance to see it.