Ghost Sonata Performance Review

Richard Gremel’s original comedic play, The Mysterious Murder at Manchester Manor (TMMMM) premiered at the Vail Theater of the Arts. This show was directed by Richard Gremel himself, and the cast was Empire High School's Advanced Drama class. This play report will emphasize the performance of an individual actor, Emily Gates (portraying Nancy Waters), under a rubric of six traits: movement, believability, beats & intentions, subtext & inner monologue, physical score of action (PSA), and overall performance.

Hamlet questions the true intentions of the ghost and whether it be “a spirit of health or goblin damn’d,” (1.4.669). The Ghost enlightens the Prince of the treason committed by his uncle Claudius, which Hamlet doubts the legitimacy for an instance. According to “Hamlet’s Precarious Emotional Balance,” “Hamlet conceives a way out of his uncertainty, a way to make certain that he has not, because of his melancholy, simply hallucinated the ghost's revelations or been tricked by an evil spirit,” (Lidz). Hamlet develops a scheme to “catch the conscience of the king” by staging a play that depicts the murder of King Hamlet precisely (2.2.581).

The apparitions in this play are The Ghosts of the Yellow Dogs and Sutter. Both these ghosts have the motivation of revenge. Having two separate motives for the piano; Berenice values the piano's history while her brother, Boy Willie, wants to sell the piano and use the money to buy the land his family was enslaved on. The Charles family is being haunted by the ghost of Sutter, whose family once owned theirs. Sutter's ghost appears after he falls down his well and the cause could be the Ghosts of the Yellow Dogs, the spirits of the Charles family's ancestors. The ghost's appearance causes conflict within brother and sister to rise. Sutter comes back after his death as a ghost to avenge his murder and reclaim his piano. In act 1 scene 1, Berniece states, “Just go on and leave. Let Sutter go somewhere else looking for you”. Berniece thinks that Sutter's ghost appeared because her brother, Boy Willie, killed him. In reality, the ghost of Sutter just reminds Berniece about her family's history and the piano. The piano represents her family’s past, struggles, and history. Berniece cannot accept her family’s past and move on. “Mama ola polished this piano with her tears for seventeen years. For seventeen years she rubbed on it till her hands bled. Then she rubbed the blood in… mixed it up with the rest of the blood on it.” This shows

In the early 1600’s, William Shakespeare created the masterpiece play Hamlet. Since that day, numerous theaters have performed the play and many publishers have made they’re version of the original playwright (the original copy is at an unknown location.) For these years, there has been numerous debatable aspects of Hamlet - one of which being whether or not the ghost encounter with the deceased King Hamlet was real. Of course, Horatio is the credible witness to tell us of the ghost’s existence - but the ghost never actually talks to him like he does Hamlet. In fact, no one besides Hamlet has actually heard the ghost of King Hamlet speak. Furthermore, Hamlet is already grief-stricken over his father’s death and completely expects this ghost

The ghost reveals that King Hamlet was murdered by Claudius; Hamlet swears to avenge this deed. With the ghost’s exhortation, Hamlet ironically “is not to be allowed simply to endure a rotten world, he must also act in it” (Mack 258); the one who least wants to be part of the world must engross himself fully with the things of the world in order to validate the ghost’s accusation and then carry out his wish. In his essay, “Reforming the Role,” Mark Rose discusses the irony involved with the ghost’s appearance:

At the beginning of the play a group of people see the ghost but when the ghost

At around ten o’clock at night, a young girl was laying in bed when all of a sudden someone started rubbing her cheek. She looked around and no one was there. Was this her imagination, or was someone there? Ghosts always make their presence known, just like the Ghost in the tragedy Hamlet written by William Shakespeare. Throughout the character of the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, Shakespeare portrays many Elizabethan beliefs on ghosts. Shakespeare creates the question: is the ghost good or bad? Many people have their own opinion on this question, but in this writer’s opinion, the Ghost of Hamlet’s father is a good ghost because throughout the tragedy the Ghost of Hamlet’s father never physically hurts anyone, instead he persuades Hamlet

(II.2 ln 547-585) He mistakenly awards the pretense the same degree of authenticity as his own reality receives. However, because of the disparity between the actor's performance and Hamlet's own actions, Hamlet gains needed motivation. He remains uncertain of the ghost's reliability, confused by the seemingly genuine grief of the actor. Nonetheless, it is this uncertainty that provides Hamlet with the less disturbing purpose of proving the ghost's story in contrast to the more daunting intention of murder.

However, in the play the ghost was in armor with a helmet and raised visor. While in Branagh's version Hamlet is constantly catching glimpses in the mirrors in the castle. The initial portrayal of the ghost was coming out of the clouds and as in the play he was seen in armor with a raised visor and eerie look on his face. Branagh's version allowed the actor's to express their fear and determination. This is translated to the audience who are able to feel the characters position which increases the fear and suspense. Branagh also uses a form of flashbacks without dialogue. He shows scenes of Elsinore years ago, with the characters as young children playing games and laughing at the jokes of Yorick. We're also shown Hamlet and Ophelia is bed which indicates the true nature of their relationship. Then, we see Claudius murder his brother while the ghost served as a narrator.

    Does the ghost in Shakespeare’s Hamlet conform to the standards for ghosts in the days of the dramatist? This essay will answer this and other questions about the ghost in the drama.

The story opens in the cold and dark of a winter night in Denmark, while the guard is being changed on the battlements of the royal castle of Elsinore. For two nights in succession, just as the bell strikes the hour of one, a ghost has appeared on the battlements, a figure dressed in complete armor and with a face like that of the dead king of Denmark, Hamlet’s

W.H. Clemen in “Imagery in Hamlet Reveals Character and Theme” describes the pervasive influence which the Ghost’s words have on the entire play:

The critics from psychanalytic perspective claim that the existence of ghosts is the governess’s hysterical delusion. The ghost is the projection of governess's own sexual hysteria, which resulted from the conflict between native romantic impulses and idealistic innocence required by Victorian society (Renner). The inexperienced governess encounters the "handsome," "bold," young gentleman with "charming ways with women" (James, 4) and she

Considered one of the most respected African plays, The Dilemma of a Ghost revolves around a newly married couple, Ato and Eulalie. Ato’s Ghanaian family has saved tremendously to send him to University in the United States. After he completes his studies, however, Ato surprises his family by returning home with an African-American bride, Eulalie. Spread out over a year, the play mainly focuses on the cultural differences that both Ato’s family and Eulalie struggle to accept in each other. Aidoo captures a number of upsetting problems confronting the post-colonial Africa, as she highlights the

With the appearance of the ghost the reader is, whether they realize it or not, being challenged to take a position on Hamlet's state of mind. At first the reader may take it at face value assuming that a ghost is a ghost and should be accepted as such. But after a deeper look using the psychoanalytic perspective of critical evaluation, it becomes believable that the ghost is just a trick of Hamlet's mind used to justify his urges to avenge his father's death, a sort of madness. It is hard to decide what to think about Shakespeare's introduction of the ghost because of the two different ways he portrays it.