Note Bene: Please note before reading this that it is NOT the same musical Hamlet
which is currently playing at the Seoul Arts Centre in Seocho District.
Hello, hello!
I will slowly be moving on to Shakespeare's musicalised Hamlet. If I remember correctly, it seems to have its origins in Scandinavia where it may have debuted as a musical.
I must confess, though, that this will not be quite as detailed as Ben Hur. As I mentioned before, my Korean is not that great, plus Shakespeare isn't necessarily easy for English speakers. Thus, I'm not sure if they used a mix of modern and archaic Korean words. Furthermore, I only saw this one twice back in late June and early July.
First, I want to talk about the characters. Following a quick search, I found an offshoot site from the University of Southern Florida with this list from the original play:
CLAUDIUS king of Denmark
HAMLET son to the late, and nephew to the present king
POLONIUS lord chamberlain
HORATIO friend to Hamlet
LAERTES son to Polonius
LUCIANUS nephew to the king
VOLTIMAND a courtier
CORNELIUS a courtier
ROSENCRANTZ a courtier
GUILDENSTERN a courtier
OSRIC a courtier
A Gentleman
A Priest
MARCELLUS an officer
BERNARDO an officer
FRANCISCO a soldier
REYNALDO servant to Polonius
Players
Two Clowns, grave-diggers
FORTINBRAS prince of Norway
A Captain
English Ambassadors
GERTRUDE queen of Denmark, and mother to Hamlet
OPHELIA daughter to Polonius
Lords, Ladies, Officers, Soldiers, Sailors, Messengers, and other Attendants, etc.
Ghost of Hamlet’s Father
It's quite the list as I look at it now.
Here's the musical's character list according to the ticketing website:
Hamlet
Ophelia
Claudius
Gerturde (sic)
Laertes
Polonius/Gravedigger
Horatio
Helena
The Ghost of Hamlet's Father/The Player King
*Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were not listed separately in the casting, but they are definitely recognizable on stage.
As you can see, the lists are rather different. To be honest, I didn't study Hamlet in school, so my memory of the play is rather vaguely remembered as the modernised 2000 Hamlet with Ethan Hawke. Thus, I'm not sure if Shakespeare's original cast list is in order of appearance or, as I suspect, order of importance. If it's the latter, you can see that importance of the characters differ between the two mediums. For example, while Ophelia is on both lists, she was much more important in the musical than in the play itself.
As you can also see, the man who played Polonius also plays the Gravedigger. The actor is relatively well-known, so I'm not sure if this comes from wanting to use this actor as much as possible or if the original musical book always had double-cast him. Hamlet's Father and The Player King is also the same actor, so it must have been much easier for Uncle Claudius to imagine him as his late brother.
Also, Helena is a new role. She was Ophelia's closest attendant.
This cut in characters can be no surprise though as the once five-act play (20 scenes between all five acts) is now a two-hour and fifteen-minute, two-act musical.
Moving away from the characters, there was an interesting shift in where the story begins. Instead of being some time after the death of Hamlet's father and having his ghost seen by two officers, it begins with Hamlet brooding before the funeral procession enters. Hamlet watches as his mother mourns his father and his uncle is crowned king in a matter of minutes. But I should stop on that point as I don't want to give too much of the plot away.
I have one more thing to say before I leave you with the trailers. Please notice that Fortinbras of Norway is not on this list. From what *I* understood, his plot never came into the musical. Definitely there was no man who enters at the end of the musical to be recognised as a prince from any country, be it Norway or Mozambique. But again, is it really a surprise for a five-act play to be cut down into a two-act musical?
Short Trailer
Long Trailer