Theatresports - Tumblr Posts

been thinking about a less serious totally campy 2000-2010s teen movie adaptation of Hamlet in my spare time (female lead Hamlet and not word-for-word... bite me) after listening to Nirvana's Nevermind on repeat and it was all coming together up until Act 3 Scene 2: The Mousetrap.

Now this one's an interesting one, as seeing as there aren't many travelling actor troupes around these days, often modern takes tend to modernise this performance, with Ethan Hawke's Hamlet utilising the art of indie film and perhaps my all-time favourite take on it, Ryan North's To Be Or Not To Be A Choosable Adventure Book that has Claudius play a Choose Your Own Adventure book within the Choose Your Own Adventure book (spoiler alert- he chooses the kill-your-brother path). In this way I am a fan of when the play-within-a-play is changed to suit the medium of adaptation, but I wasn't really feeling a movie for the characterisation vibes I was going for.

Until I had possibly the greatest idea ever. While travelling theatre troupes that perform edited renditions of well known plays just out and about are less common, there's another and often more mobile theatre form, close to my heart, that could be utilised to fit this scene well: comedy improv.

Hamlet, hearing word her old theatre group is back in town, inviting her mother and uncle along to an improv night, with a secret plan to reveal her uncle's guilt through the art of theatresports.

It'll probably go either one of two ways: she pulls aside her old teammate, asks for a favour- she knows that it's improv, and the whole point is that it's Not planned ahead, but if just this once she could get a certain scene to play out in front of her parents. and while reluctant, they agree, and on the night, announce a game of New Choice, asking Hamlet to be their caller.

It goes a little something like this:

'I shall now pour the deadly poison down his throat-'

'New Choice!'

'Into his eyes-'

'New Choice!'

'Into his ears!'

'Wow, that's crazy. Poisoned by his own brother. Would be a real shame if he were to go and marry his wife now, wouldn't it be, Claudius?'

Alternatively, instead of asking to rig a game (which is a cardinal sin anyway), Hamlet asks if she can join them for a special round, like old times. She offers to write for a game of Typewriter. Her teammate agrees, then jokingly implies that she's grown rusty, asking if she remembers the most important rule of improv. Rolling her eyes, of course she remembers to yes-and, she says.

She does not yes-and.

She flat out refuses the first two offers from the audience on the ask of 'interesting relationship between two people' until her plant Horatio eventually pipes up with 'wife and brother-in-law', she prefaces her scene with a lengthy disclaimer that it may cover some morbid topics but they shouldn't bother anyone (unless they have something to hide), and proceeds to run the scene with an iron fist, shutting down any offers that don't suit her purpose. Her teammate is making plans to chew her out afterwards when she shuts down their fifth offer to do ANYTHING but keep talking about how great a wife they are and how much they're not going to cheat etc etc. Eventually they get somewhere, and someone's getting poisoned, but then a bell rings and they get the '30 seconds, wrap it up' (about time, the pacing's gone to shit). but instead of wrapping it up in any manner that might salvage the scene, Hamlet takes it as an invitation to suddenly start typing quicker than normal, like she HAS to get all these words out before her time is up, and is ignoring everyone to go on this tangent about the king's death and how the brother takes the throne and she's just started to talk about how he marries the late king's wife (bit weird innit) when her uncle stands up and storms out of the room.

Anyway it would just be fun, methinks.

okay so Zuko would be so into (if he isn’t already) competitive improv/theatresports.

like this is the guy that for two seasons straight threw himself at the Avatar with no plan. no nothing. entirely just the hope that he would think of SOMETHING, at some point.

this is Zuko ‘… yes. I juggle.’ and not only that, but this is Zuko proceeds-to-attempt-to-juggle-with-the-skill-of-a-travelling-actor-with-no-prior-experience-because-he-cannot-help-but-yes-and-a-prompt. and he justifies his immediate failure as well.

this is also established Theatre Kid ‘They butchered Love Amongst Dragons every year!’ Zuko. he’s no stranger to the stage.

I reckon he’d be really good at the bonus-point high-pressure games (Story Story Die, What Are You Doing, etc) and his strengths would lie in having all the game techniques perfectly memorised (and being able to give effective feedback at the end of each round), being willing to throw himself across the stage for a bit, and NEVER backing down from an offer. he’s also unintentionally hilarious because he’s an intimidating looking guy and he can’t always commit realistically to all character types but Oh Boy can he get himself into Situations. and he just says the darnedest rich kid things onstage when he’s not trying. he would also have Opinions on the judging and make small comments about the other team’s scores (‘that story was NOT a seven. they didn’t even get establish that the rocket got back to the gummy worm queen!’)

he’d make for a really good Director (three years captaining a ship does that to you), and i reckon he’d probably be adept with the book in Actor’s Nightmare. the ideal position to put him in Space Jump is first and you’ll get the best offers from him when you’re playing New Choice and you New Choice him juuuust enough so that he runs out of sensible things to say and panics and says perhaps the craziest thing that both of you are just now hearing for the first time.

anyway theatresports Zuko when