p r e v i o u s | n e x t
Jessica Hudson
Lost Audition Tape: “Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”
Side A: Open Call
Remember: Hamlet is only the person
playing Hamlet. Everybody wants the role.
Those who blanch aren’t ready to play.
The real question, I suppose, is
“Who is?”……..
An emo college-aged kid? I’d call his
eyebrows ‘Shakespearean’ and he looks
great in period clothing, holding a skull,
looking melancholy…….
Have you seen his serious side in that one
Law and Order episode? He’s more than
ready to play Hamlet. The two have
a lot in common……
Claire Danes would be way
better Hamlet than any of the other
actors here……
[turn tape]
Side B: Casting Day
He has a look in his eyes that makes me think
he can speak complex Elizabethan blank
verse like it was written the night before,
make Shakespeare sound less seasoned…….
But does he have the right air of mis-
placed confusion? Is he too aggressive,
too forthright, too much of a born
Laertes to play Hamlet? Maybe……
I think he could kill it. We’d all be
waiting for him to enter the graveyard
and behold the ghosts, slim and pale,
to answer the question…….
[turn tape]
Source & Method
Jessica Hudson is working on her Creative Writing MFA at Northern Michigan University. She is an associate editor for Passages North. Her work has been published in The Pinch, Pithead Chapel, perhappened mag, and elsewhere.