A narcissistic actress clones herself to play every role in Hamlet- but her crusade to save theatre and her legacy spirals into a darkly comic war with mutinous clones and her own monstrous ego, ending in a killer final act.
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Would love to hear about the writerās intent and inspirations with this one. Intriguing read.
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Thank you. In short - driven by my deep love of theatre, Clone Hamlet explores ego, identity, ambition and our appetite for spectacle.
The inspiration was performing in a 3-person Hamlet at an off West End theatre in London. Bold, experimental - and at least partly fuelled by ego.
It left me asking - what drives us to keep reinventing Shakespeare? To stage one-person feats like Andrew Scottās Vanya or Sarah Snooksās The Picture of Dorian Gray? How much longer can theatre still feel vital in a world addicted to on-demand spectacle? How far will theatre-makers go to satisfy audience appetites, and what will they demand?
Clone Hamlet pushes those questions to a darkly comic extreme.
@onlyjoeklein what was your impression reading?
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Hi there, welcome to the forum and thank you so much for sharing this background! We love the script. I, personally, would love to ask a question: you mention some foundational questions that inspired you to write this script, but did you arrive at any conclusions yourself / what would you like audiences to draw as the thesis from your work?
Also, have you seen Grand Theft Hamlet? Itās a documentary of sorts thatās available on Mubi, made by some British actors during the pandemic. Terrifically entertaining, would love to hear your thoughts.
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so many great one liners in this. Theatre thou art slain. I could smell her blood. Even when Kayla is introduced as something like āborn to command the stageā. All felt very memorable and visceral.
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@sab thank you so much!! Iām so pleased to hear you enjoyed the one liners :) They certainly were fun to write.
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Hi @meara - I watched the trailer for Grand Theft Hamlet and remember hearing about it over Covid, but havenāt seen it - Iād like to. What stayed with you most when you watched it?
From Clone Hamlet, Iād like audiences to laugh early on, but then feel unsettled and disturbed by the ending. To question complicity, and what they applaud. How easily we normalise extremes and sacrifice in the name of āart.ā Iād like to raise questions for them to think about after - about artistic obsession, and how far weāll go to feel something real.
As for conclusions I came to - I do genuinely fear for the future of traditional live theatre. We have an exponentially growing reliance on high tech gimmicks to draw audiences, or VR immersion, or the rise of AI āactorsā. And I wonder, whether to truly āfeelā something, we may seek out and put a higher value on ārealā experiences for catharsis. The analog renaissance etc. Still, our humanity, ethics and laws and would have to dramatically devolve to allow for the real killing of clones on stage - consensual or not!
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Thanks for such great insight! I certainly found the idea zany but you build a surprisingly grounded world around the concept, in a manner that reminds me ā oddly ā of some Cronenberg horror like The Fly. Itās a silly concept but because the tragedy of it all and strong characterisations are at the heart of the writing, youāve grounded it in something real.
As for Grand Theft Hamlet, I believe itās an ode to why theatre will always survive in some shape or form, itās a story about endurance and adaptation. Super funny all the way through, but the resilience and indomitable human spirit really shine too!
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cheers for the answer. Iāve never liked Shakespeare too much because I had to study it in school and I hated school but yknow I see how much the works still mean to people and it makes me think maybe I should give it another chance. maybe Im taking the wrong message by feeling Kaylas passion instead of ego but this actually motivated me to want to read Hamlet or at least go see it.
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I can relate to this but I always thought Hamlet was my favorite of Shakespeare. Unrelated but I love how scifi (cloning) can be used to explore complicated moral problems and situations.
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What a great screenplay awesome