I Hate Hamlet is a dramatic comedy written in 1991 by Paul Rudnick. Set in John Barrymore's old apartment in New York City - at the time, the author's real-life home - the play follows successful television actor Andrew Rally as he struggles with taking on the dream role of Hamlet, dealing with a girlfriend who is keeping a firm grip on her chastity, and playing host to the ghost of John Barrymore, who, clothed as Hamlet, has come back to earth for the sole purpose of convincing Rally to play the part. Real estate agent, Felicia Dantine convinces Rally to stay in the apartment and hold a seance.
Barrymore proves to be very convincing (challenging Andrew to a sword fight in the middle of the New York loft), and Andrew decides to play Hamlet. But when a Hollywood friend shows up offering Andrew a new role in a television pilot, with a potentially large salary and fame, Andrew is forced to choose between Shakespeare, whom his girlfriend loves, or television, where he is loved by millions.
Published by Dramatists Play Service, Inc., the play was originally produced on Broadway in the Walter Kerr Theatre, opening on April 8, 1991. The lead role of Andrew Rally was played by Evan Handler. The cast of the show includes three women and three men.
Read more about I Hate Hamlet: Controversy
Famous quotes containing the words hate and/or hamlet:
“The principal difference between love and hate is that love is a irradiation, and hate is a concentration. Love makes everything lovely; hate concentrates itself on the object of its hatred.”
—Sydney J. Harris (b. 1917)
“Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)