In Friday's 7 section I have an interview with Arlene Schulman, director of the new Woodward Shakespeare Festival production of "Hamlet." Here's a continuation of the interview:

How did you hook up with Woodward Shakespeare Festival?

I love Shakespeare and directing his plays is always a first priority for me. As a professional director living and working in the NJ/NYC area, I regularly check the casting calls online for potential job opportunities. I saw Woodward Shakespeare Festival's notice on Playbill Online looking for directors for their upcoming 2008 season. Since they were looking for a director for "Hamlet" and I was looking for a company that would be open to exploring the somewhat innovative directorial concept for "Hamlet" that is the basis of my MA dissertation I responded to their ad and sent in a precis for my concept. They were intrigued and enthusiastic, and thus it began ...

Did you have any ties in the Fresno area?
Not in the Fresno area directly, but my step-son and his family live in Bakersfield. I do have to say, though, that in the two months I have been here directing "Hamlet" I have fallen in love with Fresno. You have a beautiful city with some of the most gracious, generous, enthusiastic, friendly and just plain nice people that I have met in a long time - and a wonderful theatre community to top it off!

I understand that you're finishing up a master's degree. Can you tell us about your area of study?

I'm studying for an MA in "Shakespeare and Theatre" at The Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, UK. It is an innovative part-time program that enables students to focus on how Shakespeare's plays work in performance, allowing access to the unique resources of the Shakespeare Institute Library , the Library of the Shakespeare Centre that curates the archives of the RSC, and the actors, staff and performances of Royal Shakespeare Company. This is a fabulous program run and taught by some of the most renown scholars and theatre professionals in the world of Shakespeare and the whole experience has been a joy for me.

However, while I dearly love the study of Shakespeare, I am primarily not a literary scholar - I am a stage director, and have been for over twenty-five years. I began my studies in England to help give me a broader and deeper knowledge and understanding of Shakespeare, his language, his times, and his plays so that I can better bring them to the stage. And this course has been everything I hoped it would be.

My own MA dissertation is an exploration of an alternative approach to the roles of Gertrude and Ophelia in "Hamlet" based on Shakespeare's intense focus on pretense and meta-theatricality in the play. It proposes the reinterpretation of both characters as more active participants in the actions of the play than are traditionally presented - as active co-conspirators in the action of the play: Ophelia with Hamlet, and Gertrude with Claudius. This production is, in part, based on that thesis, and my experiences with its rehearsal process, as well as its performances, will become an important resource for my dissertation.

Is it hard to focus as an academic on "Hamlet" because it's such a well-studied play? Do you find that professors try to steer students toward lesser-known Shakespeare plays?

Of course, you are right - "Hamlet" has been studied to death. And certainly during our courses the professors did tend to focus on many of the other, often lesser known, plays to give us a broader view of Shakespeare's plays and a better understanding of his language and techniques, as well as the historical evolution of his plays, than could be gained by studying only his best known play. So under ordinary circumstances, in an ordinary Masters program, it probably would have been difficult to get permission to focus on "Hamlet" in my dissertation rather than a less studied play.

However, several things were in my favor for this project. First of all, I am approaching this dissertation not only as an academic, but also as a theatre professional, and while this particular MA program focuses on Shakespeare in the context of theatrical production, The Shakespeare Institute and the University of Birmingham, of which it is a division, does not have an MFA or other theatre performance program. Typically their MA dissertations are strictly research and not production oriented, so the idea of including an actual production - of any of Shakespeare's plays - as part of the dissertation was innovative in itself.

Secondly, and more important, despite the fact that "Hamlet" is so well-studied, the subject of my thesis - re-envisioning the dramatic interpretation of "Hamlet"'s women in production - is apparently something that hadn't been approached in this context before. Their characters themselves have, of course, been explored, and the role of Hamlet itself and various ways to play him has been examined extensively, but apparently the roles of Gertrude and Ophelia have been played in pretty much the same way for over 400 years. So the idea of exploring a new way to approach their dramatic interpretation, with a practical examination of the thesis in actual production, caught the imagination of the Institute director and my professors.

Talk a little about your concept for this production of "Hamlet."

Part of the answer to this question will be addressed in a later question about the women in "Hamlet", so let me just say here, that basically I wanted to approach the play from the point of view of the relationships between the characters and their motivations throughout the play. "Hamlet" is most often thought of as a revenge play, but it is really much more than that. Some people think of it as a purely psychological play. Olivier, in his film version, called it a play about a man who couldn't make up his mind. I've never believed that. If that's all it was, it would be incredibly boring, and it's not. It's a hugely exciting play - a psychological thriller and murder mystery! Its strength and dramatic tension comes from the fact that its action is constrained, confined, held in check, always on the edge of exploding into violence, like a caged leopard, pacing, searching, ready to leap given the slightest opportunity.

When you think of "Hamlet" as a revenge play, it feels like nothing happens. But Hamlet's goal is not just revenge. First and foremost, it is a search for the truth. He is surrounded on all sides by people wearing "masks", concealing the truth about themselves, lying, pretending to be what they are not. Hamlet describes Claudius as a "smiling, damned villain". He asks of everyone - Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guldenstern, even the Ghost - "are you honest?" He speaks of both Gertrude and Ophelia as painting their faces. It is no coincidence that Hamlet is obsessed with theatre or that Shakespeare has crowded this play with images of theatre - including a troupe of Players and a play-within-the-play. Revealed in this meta-theatricality are the huge contrasts between reality and appearance, truth and lies that lie at the heart of Hamlet's search. Even Hamlet himself puts on a mask of madness to disguise his search for the truth behind his father's death. Pretense, disguise, eavesdropping, spying, double meanings and deliberate misdirection all serve to blur the line between what is real and true and what is not. And it is that search for the truth behind the lies, the reality behind the masks, that is the true heart of this play and a large part of what I hope to explore in this production.

Woodward Shakespeare had to move this summer, and it's created some challenges for the company in terms of a new stage, lighting limitations, etc. How have you been dealing with those issues?

I've worked with dozens of companies, and each one has its own challenges. Certainly working in an outdoor space, in a theatre that is still in the process of being built, with limited technical facilities is one of them. But, to be honest, in this particular situation it is not as much of a challenge as it might be.

Think about it. Shakespeare staged his plays on an open air stage, in the middle of the afternoon, with no lights, few costumes other than "simple" clothing contemporary to his time, with a few props thrown in to suggest time and place, and little in the way of technical resources - certainly less than we have today. The power of Shakespeare's plays is in his language, in his skill in dramatic structure and plot developmenet, in his characters and in his intense understanding of human nature and psychology. His plays don't need alot of fancy technical effects. Shakespeare, through his characters, tells the audience where we are, the time of day, the weather, what is happening and how. His plays can be played anywhere - on a bare piece of earth or in someone's livingroom. Anything that we add to them - sets, lights, costumes, sound and effects - are just window dressing. They create a frame in which place the action of the play and give modern audiences a sense of "reality" and theatricality that they are used to. But the play itself needs none of that.

So the technical limitations of Woodward Shakespeare's wonderful new space in the Theatre in the Glen truly have simply challenged us to find the heart of "Hamlet" in the play itself and not in its trappings. And, frankly, despite its current limitations in physical and technical resources during its building process, Woodward Shakespeare has resources that are more valuable than all of those. They have a strong, committed, talented and enthusiastic membership who are willing to work their hearts out rehearsing, building, painting, sewing, planning and more for no other reward that the joy of bringing great Shakespeare to Fresno's audiences. As a director I can't ask for more than that.

As director, what is the most important thing you can do to elevate
the performance of community-theater actors in a Shakespeare production?

Not treat them like "community-theatre actors"! No, really, I hate that phrase. I work with professional Equity actors, professional non-Equity actors, university actors and amateur actors, and I have never found that an actor's talent, ability, enthusiasm or professionalism is defined or limited by the venue in which they are acting. "Community theatre" only means that the actors are working locally and are not getting paid for their work. Even the word "amateur" means someone who works for the love of it, not for pay. It says nothing about talent or ability. "Amateur" once implied a much more respected position than that of a professional! I hugely respect those actors and, as a director, give them all the help I can. Many, many actors who perform in community theatre have a surprising amount of experience and training. Even more have natural talent and enthusiasm The actors I am working with here at Woodward Shakespeare are amazingly talented, and they take to Shakespeare like ducks to water. All they need is someone to set high standards, to expect them to act professionally, to help them understand the full meaning of Shakespeare's words, and to guide them in finding their own unique approach to their characters and relationships - that's my job as director - and they elevate their own performances.

What's your take on Ophelia, Gertrude and other woman characters in the play?

During my studies, I've become more and more intrigued by the characters of Ophelia and Gertrude. Shakespeare is known for his portrayal strong, bold, independent and intelligent women - think of Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Katherine, Viola, Rosalind, even Cordelia and Juliet. How then is it possible, in what is arguably his greatest play, certainly his most emotionally complex, that the two central female characters are almost always portrayed as victims - emotional doormats who are manipulated, abused and bullied by the men in their lives? I simply have never been able to read the play that way or to reconcile myself that this is what Shakespeare had in mind when he wrote them. I wondered if there was another way to interpret their intentions and actions in the play than the way that has been handed down to us through over 400 years of tradition.

I see both Gertrude and Ophelia as strong, independent women. Gertrude is a Queen - one who has often been left in charge of her kingdom while her first husband, Hamlet's father, was away being a warrior king. Her developing love for the handsome, decadent Claudius in her husband's absence required that they take action. And I - and Jennifer Hurd-Peterson, who plays her beautifully in our production - believe that Gertrude was very much a co-conspirator in and perhaps even the instigator of her husband's murder. I also believe that she had an active role in Ophelia's death, although exactly what that role is, is left to the audience's imagination.

Ophelia (played by Taylor Harris) is always played as a total victim. But if that is true, then why have her kill herself? It accomplishes little in the play and creates a very weak and ineffectual character. It seems clear to me that Hamlet and Ophelia have a strong relationship of some kind before the play begins. Surely she believes he loves her, and I believe that too. I always wondered why everyone assumes that Hamlet never mentioned anything to Ophelia about the Ghost, his father's murder and his own need to confirm the Ghost's accusations. He tells Horatio; why not the woman he loves? So I decided to postulate that he DOES tell her and then read the play with that in mind. And everything changed without changing a word. Ophelia's description to Polonius of Hamlet's behavior toward her always seemed overly dramatic to me, as does Hamlet's letter to her that Polonius reads to the King and Queen. What if they really were just that? What if they were creations devised between Hamlet and Ophelia to divert attention from Hamlet's true reason for feigning madness? I decided to explore that and and it led me to a restaging of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" speech directly to Ophelia rather than as a soliloquy (which had been done in the late 1970's by Sir Derek Jacobi and later by Jonathan Price in their own productions). And that led to the conclusion that perhaps Ophelia's madness was at least partly feigned as well - an extension of Hamlet's own search in his absence. Hamlet and Ophelia's relationship is intensely sensual, and that carries over into the mad scene as well. Could that lead to her death, perhaps at the hands of a suspicious and perhaps jealous Gertrude? I decided to see what happened if we attempted to explore that stronger inter-relationship between these two women and the men in their lives. .

What advice/direction have you given to Adam Meredith, who's playing Hamlet?

Oh my... an answer to this would take an essay not a short answer and still probably wouldn't be complete.

The role of Hamlet is huge and incredibly complex, and finding the "right" actor to play this role in this production was vital. I believe that Adam Meredith is exactly the actor I was looking for. He is exceptionally talented, well-trained, thoughtful, intense, imaginative, and open to exploring the inner life of the character, his relationships with the other characters in the play and the world he lives in. I have found him to be totally open to direction while secure enough in his own knowledge and understanding of the play and the character to really "feel" the role and be able to justify his own choices. I greatly respect Adam's talent and his work, and I have truly enjoyed the process of creating our Hamlet together

I think the basis for the success of our working relationship is that I have never seen the director as someone who tells actors what to do. Theatre is a collaborative art, and it's my job to help the actors find the character within themselves. Hamlet, in particular, is far too big a role for a director to try to impose their own image on the actor. It has to come from within, to be a part of the actor, and that's why finding the right actor for the role is so important. Adam's Hamlet is uniquely his own. What we have worked on together is finding the Hamlet for this production, for this concept and this stage - the physicality, the emotional arc, the essence of his relationships and his motivations. The final result is a synergy of both our visions.

Anything else you'd like to say?

Oh, I really think that's enough, don't you? Then only thing left to say is to thank my wonderful cast and crew and the amazingly welcoming people of Fresno in general, and Woodward Shakespeare in particular, for all the care they've taken of me since I came here from New Jersey to direct for them. And that I hope our audiences enjoy experiencing our "Hamlet" as much as we did bringing it to them.