With C.P.C. Theatrical's production of Hamlet now safely in the past, along with the danger of stepping on anybody's toes in releasing my own versions of speeches and soliloquies other actors may have done somewhat differently, my spoken word album, Hamlet: Speeches and Soliloquies, was released for sale on Friday, July 24. At the moments it's available from Amazon.com, iTunes, and Spotify as a digital download. It may be available from other sources as well, but those are the only three I have links for.
When we did Hamlet on stage, I played the King and the Ghost, a fairly common bit of doubling, given the two characters are brothers and it wouldn't be at all unusual if they happened to look alike. On the album I play more or less everyone: the King, the Ghost, Hamlet, Laertes, and Polonius. The album's Hamlet gets to do a soliloquy that was cut from the play ("How all occasions do inform against me,"), and the King gets to complain about Fortinbras and give orders to Cornelius and Voltimand.
The included speeches and soliloquies, listed by first line, who says it, and act and scene, are:
- "Though yet of Hamlet," (King) (I:ii)
- "'Tis sweet and commendable," (King) (I:ii)
- "O, that this too, too solid flesh," (Hamlet) (I:ii)
- "For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour," (Laertes) (I:iii)
- "Yet here, Laertes!" (Polonius) (I:iii)
- "I am thy father's spirit," (Ghost) (I:v)
- "The rugged Pyrrhus," (First Player)(II:ii)
- "Now I am alone." (Hamlet) (II:ii)
- "To be, or not to be," (Hamlet) (III:i)
- "O, my offence is rank!" (King) (III:iii)
- "How all occasions do inform against me" (Hamlet) (IV:iv)
- "Alas, poor Yorick," (Hamlet) (V:i)
- "Give me your pardon," (Hamlet) (V:ii)
- "I am dead, Horatio," (Hamlet) (V:ii)
And, no, they don't all sound alike, ranging from (more or less) youthful and supercilious (Laertes), to elderly and supercilious (Polonius), to slightly ponderous and affected (First Player), to restrainedly emotional (Hamlet).
What's next? Honestly, the market for spoken word albums doesn't seem huge, and considering the first sale moved the album into the top 100 (spoken word albums) on iTunes I'd have to suspect there just aren't that many albums in the category. Still, for this type of album you don't need musicians, and production facilities can be pretty basic. The next thing out will most likely be an album of Edgar Allan Poe's better known poetry. I'm also thinking about an album of William McGonagle's poetry, though his work was so awful I'm not sure I could make it through the recording session.
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