Week 5: The Ghost
Week five. First session of 2026.
There’s something grounding about hearing the hubbub of conversation back in the building.
Rachael came along for the first time this evening and, as with all the previous actors, stepped into the unknown with bravery and an openness to play.
Revisiting Act One
I’d been pondering the work we did on Act One just before Christmas. Having previously experimented with removing Act One Scene One and jumping straight into Scene Two, I’d gone back to explore reinstating Scene One—but boiled down to its core active forward momentum.
This way, we start the story with something fantastical, something magical, something dramatic, rather than the far more dry political machinations of Scene Two.
I’ve condensed the main thrust of the action into a single monologue spoken by Horatio. We spent the best part of the session exploring how we establish the current information:
Horatio has come into contact with the ghost of dead King Hamlet.
The ghost will not speak to him.
This is the third time the ghost has appeared.
Failing to get any further sense of why the ghost keeps returning, Horatio decides he will go to Young Hamlet and inform him of his father’s apparition.
Andrew and Jack
Andrew first played the ghost, with Jack as Horatio.
I encouraged the actors to forgo the conventional expectations of acting scared. Instead: play as directly and concretely as possible in achieving the objective of getting an answer from the ghost.
The text contains lines directed to the ghost, but also exposition about who the ghost is, how often he has appeared, and what Horatio thinks this may mean. For lines not directly addressed to the ghost, we found it important to ensure we are still speaking to someone—whether an individual audience member or the collective audience in the space.
Object Work: The Screwdriver
We explored the use of objects and experimented with establishing, from the very start, a signifying object as a through-line of reference for the rest of the play.
This object also becomes a signifier to the audience that what they are witnessing is an unplanned, spontaneous act of invention—live, in the moment, in front of them. The selected object dictates how the scene unfolds.
Andrew’s ghost selected a screwdriver.
We found an impactful way of playing the scene. Rather than walking around the space ghost-like, or watching minutes of Horatio chasing him with no success, the more engaging thing to witness is the ghost—just as any other character—truly focused on achieving something. Trying to solve something. Trying to make something better.
It became obvious very quickly that using a screwdriver embodies this. A screwdriver, by its nature, is there to fix, to secure, to mend, to solidify a structure, to keep things together and in order.
Maybe that is what the old King came to represent: a king who keeps everything fixed in its place—tight, operational, secure. Where things become loose or unravelled, the King was always there to fix.
We don’t explicitly hammer this concept home. Audience members will make sense of what they’re seeing in their own way—drawing their own metaphors, or none at all. The important thing is that we commit to using the objects so as to infer a sense of purpose through the physical act of object use.
In practice, I suggested we go from a lit room to the show beginning with the lights suddenly switched off—maybe someone dashing through a doorway into a lit corridor, giving authentic impetus for Horatio to ask “Who’s there?”
The lights come back on. The ghost is there with his screwdriver, screwing or unscrewing the light switches on the wall. Then seeking out additional fittings around the space—power points and plugs—as Horatio tries to make sense of his appearance.
Rachael: The Playing Cards
We restarted the scene with different actors. Rachael jumped in as the ghost, this time with a pack of playing cards.
Again, the impetus to move slowly and ghost-like felt natural. But I pushed the ghost to be as alive and committed to their intention as possible—even within the cosmic boundaries in which they seemed to be grappling. An inability to speak. An inability to communicate through conventional means.
By fully committing to engaging with the object, we discovered something more enthralling: maybe the ghost is trying to find the right royal flush within the pack. A driven, energised, slightly impatient, potentially panicked need to get the cards in order. To find the king. The queen.
But every attempt, none of it making sense. Never the right hand to make their move or “show their hand.” Yet.
Act One Scene Two: Get Off the Bus
We moved onto Act One Scene Two, focusing on noticing the micro-inclinations of adhering to expected, inherited versions of King and Queen-like displays of the happy couple.
Despite the ultra-heightened language and poetry, we tried to balance maintaining an authentic sense of how you would say this and mean it—without the inherited “Shakespeare voice” overshadowing the direct necessity to achieve something at every moment.
“Get off the bus” was a rule I thought would be helpful.
A long speech shouldn’t be the same bus journey where you head in one direction throughout. Your duty is to jump off the bus and find a new direction, because that way surprise and undiscovered moments are more likely—for you and your audience.
You might start by compassionately imploring someone, realise that’s not working, and in an instant get off that bus to see what it’s like to obliterate them with your attack.
Closing Discussion
We had a short discussion at the end. Jack described the unpredictability of the real world outside at the moment—an anxiety-inducing, chaotic cacophony.
It linked back, as Jack suggested, to Hamlet’s sense of the normal world suddenly being something that no longer exists. The predictable and secure world he can’t rely upon. Death and distrust prevalent.
Coming and separating ourselves from that world, having this pure space to play in on a Tuesday evening, feels important.
Notes for Next Week
Everyone is now encouraged to bring random items of clothing and/or objects to Tuesday sessions, giving us a greater selection of opportunities for our object work.
Actors are also encouraged to now learn lines as accurately as possible off-book, so we can start to play without getting lost on the page.