University of Notre Dame - Dome Yearbook (Notre Dame, IN)

Page 23 text:

SMC THEATRE 1 979-80 Sosoh

Page 22 text:

Hamlet In Washington Hall A four-story-tall banner proclaiming its message in Gothic lettering unfurled down the front of Washington Hall. As I walked by, students were stopping to take another look. Something was new in the state of Notre Dame. The enormous poster announced a ND-SMC production to be performed in Washington Hall. Only graduate students and architects can remember the last time this happened. Washington Hall, one of the oldest existing academic theatres in the country, had been closed to ND-SMC Theatre performances since 1974 for repairs. Although the work was not fully completed, HAMLET opened there on October 5 and became the first play to be produced on the Notre Dame campus in five years by the ND-SMC Theatre. A professor with the Drama Department for thirteen years, Reginald Bain, the last to direct a major production in Washington Hall, was given the honor of directing HAMLET. The production marks the reopening of the building as a viable theatre. Dr. Bain remembers Lance Davis, the special guest artist who played Hamlet, as a student. This man, who drew all those less- than-Shakespeare-lovers to see Hamlet, graduated from Notre Dame ten years ago. Dr. Bain says of the actor -alumnus, He was an actor you could not take your eyes off on stage. I personally remember this intense hard work at rehearsals and his immense determination in the face of youthful insecurity. Since his undergraduate days, Davis has appeared on stage and in television. His special perspective based on experience and his training at Notre Dame was invaluable to the department and his fellow actors. Complementing Davis as Hamlet, characters such as the doting, practical Polonius (John Davenport) and the emotional Gertrude (Susan Gosdick) were well-developed, credible, humorous and genuinely human. The scenic design dorf Dorothy Hanrahan and joe Martin, reflected and emphasized the basic bleakness and hopeless of Shakespeare ' s complicated plot. In contrast, the authenticity and brightness of the costumes designed by Diana Hawfield allowed the characters to stand out as individuals and humans against the dark circumstances and fate which surround them. The efforst of all involved in the ND-SMC production of HAMLE aided us, the audience, in realizing the truth that the three-hundred-year old plays of Shakespeare hold for today ' s world. This sensitive, funny, dynamic and realistic interpreta- tion of HAMLET reaffirmed the belief the Shakespeare ' s plays were truly written for the stage and not the p:

Page 24 text:

20 Foottull Weekend;