Dan Hasse and Taylor Myers latest adaptation of the classic Shakespeare play Hamlet is now in release. We had the chance to catch up with the filmmakers and ask them about the production and their careers. Here’s what they had to say.
Hello, and thanks for taking the time to answer a few questions. Let’s start where it seems obvious and tell me about how you got into making movies.
Dan Hasse: My dad is a film fanatic and an early-adopter of Netflix. He started ordering DVD’s when I was seven and we worked our way through the canon of great films in chronological order, starting with Melies and Edison to Eisenstein and Griffith to Keaton and Lloyd, etc. Eventually we hit the American New Wave when I was in high school. It was a bizarre social experiment that ended in a degree from NYU film school.
Taylor Myers: I never really thought I’d make a movie. Roll The Bones specializes in large-scale immersive theater. However, when the opportunity to make a project in this castle came up, it made the most sense to follow the intuition of what felt like the right medium. A film seemed to be the clearest, best fit, and I quickly realized I needed some seriously capable filmmakers onboard. I asked Dan to do the screenplay adaptation and co-direct, and we got allstar Cory Fraiman-Lott to shoot it.
I want to ask something fun before getting to the deep stuff. If you were take me to any movie ever made, which would it be and why?
DH: I’ve forced many of my friends to sit through Elliot Silverstein’s Cat Ballou (1965). It’s a wonderful, strange, western-musical. This movie has everything: Lee Marvin’s career-best performance, Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye as a fourth-wall-breaking chorus of troubadours, an excellent Jane Fonda… and probably the funniest rendition of “Happy Birthday” every sung.
TM: I’ve sat through Cat Ballou before. It’s worth it. I don’t know what I’d take you to, though. I see a lot of films and have a pretty wide palette. I’d probably get a feel for what films you’re into, then check showtimes at a few theaters I like and we’d settle on either a classic or a limited release that’s currently playing. We would not watch a superhero movie.
With that in mind, if you could meet any director and watch one of their films with them, who would it be and which movie would you see?
DH: I guess while we’re talking about westerns, I’d love to get hammered with John Huston and watch The Treasure of Sierra Madre.
TM: I’d watch Police Story with Jackie Chan and make sure we had gym mats around for him to show me as many physical bits as possible.
Okay, let’s talk William Shakespeare. He’s certainly had plenty of attention on the big screen, including some famous productions of Hamlet. What made you want to give this one a try?
DH: Hamlet — the play — is a real mash-up of genres within the popular Elizabethan-style “revenge tragedy.” It has ghost scenes, slapstick, romance, sword-play, spycraft, etc. When you take it scene-by-scene, it’s almost schizophrenic. We wanted to make a film that played with all of these conventions instead of painting the whole story with a single brush, i.e. “moody drama Hamlet” or “spooky thriller Hamlet.” So our ghost scenes have some recognizable horror conceits, the duel is action-packed and thrilling, the comedy is loose and funny, and so on…
TM: The castle fell into our lap and it definitely pointed to Shakespeare. The particular shape and orientation of it was tragic, and for various reasons, Hamlet and Macbeth were at the top of the list. Honestly, seeing photos of the battlements and thinking about the opening scene of the play… it was a first instinct response. “We’re going to go to this castle, and we’re going to do a production of Hamlet.” That was the whole idea and it all came at once.
I’m a long time fan of Hamlet and several of its film iterations, as I wrote in my review of your movie. I came in with some major expectations and a few standards that I’m sure many bring to any production of the play. Was that something you considered while making Hamlet in the Golden Vale, knowing that your audience may already be judging your work before it’s even started?
DH: Obviously, it’s a concern that some folks might turn off at the very mention of Shakespeare. Then there are others that hold up the (Kenneth) Branagh production as the zenith of Shakespeare-on-film. I think we’ve created an adaptation that threads the needle of inventive choices and clear storytelling — it’ll entertain folks who are working their way through the canon as well as those who are experiencing Shakespeare for the first time.
TM: Hamlet’s a challenge. A handful of solid film adaptations, hundreds of years of stage productions ranging from the obscene to the epic…the story and the writing are just that rich. In a lot of ways, Shakespeare’s text itself makes it possible for the final product to end up either a nightmare or a beacon. Audience experience is at the very core of what live, immersive work is all about and we gave a lot of thought not to whether or not people would like it, but what each moment of watching the film would be like for them. We decided that simpler was better, to get out of Shakespeare’s way, and do what we could to make this movie and its performances honest conduits for his meaning.
One of the bigger challenges I’m sure in doing an adaptation of Hamlet is what to leave in and what to take out in telling the story. What was your approach in tackling such a monumental task?
DH: We tried to trim within scenes rather than hack out entire plot points… that said, Fortinbras had to go. Fortunately, I was cutting/adapting while we were rehearsing in New York, so we were able to pick and choose our favorite moments and edit for what we considered the emotional-arc of the film. Then we pared down moments or beats that we thought editing, framing, lighting, and sound-design and could convey as easily as language. But boy-oh-boy did we make a wordy film.
TM: Yeah, Dan did the adaptation. All I had to do was trust him.
Tell me about the cast. How did they come about for you?
DH: Taylor and I had already collaborated with many of them. Half the cast are company members of ‘Shakespeare in the Square,’ an Off-Broadway company that Yuriy Pavlish (Laertes) and I run in New York. This closeness and familiarity comes across beautifully in the film.
TM: Part of what makes the film work is how natural it was for our entire cast/crew team to get along. Every person on that team was either someone we’d worked with before, or a very strong recommendation from another fellow crew member. That kind of care and dedication is what made the shoot fundamentally possible.
How long was filming? Was this something you and the cast worked out elsewhere and then shot on location or were rehearsals and filming all on done on the final set?
DH: We rehearsed in New York for six months, so that by the time we arrived in Ireland everyone felt confident and ready to breeze through set-ups. Believe it or not, we shot 120-pages of screenplay in only eleven shooting days…
TM: In our New York rehearsals we made sure to change up the rehearsal locations, size of room, and setups as much as possible so that our performers were able to dial up or down once we actually made it on set. While in New York we were also rehearsing for the live immersive show and the VR piece we shot, so no one was “getting used” to anything. The name of the game was to remain flexible with your performance and focus on the core ideas of the text. As long as every performer understood and embodied every word they spoke, every relationship they were in, every beat of the story… I was happy to let them dial in “size” once we were in the castle.
You make clever use of a few actors portraying multiple characters. Any complications in getting that to look as seamless as you ended up doing?
DH: “Doubling” roles for an actor is pretty much common practice in classical productions, so our actors — all of whom have a theatre background — slid into multiple characters with ease. We also used different lense and types of coverage for certain characters, and our hair and makeup team did a ton of amazing work.
TM: Dan did a lot of sharp work in doubling the film. There are only two of us that don’t double (Hamlet and Horatio) and the rest are disguised in a variety of ways. Katy Lueck (our one-woman HMU team) and Liz McGlone (our wardrobe department) both put in a lot of extra hours making sure the performers looked different enough when swapping from character to character. Honestly, the tough part was waiting for Constantine Malahias to get his hair changed back from Rosencrantz to Guildenstern. One of them had hair gel and the other didn’t, so we did all we could to shoot all of Rosencrantz’ coverage for the day before we had him muck up his hair…because if we missed anything it took about an hour to get his hair washed, dried, and camera ready.
Gotta mention the modern setting. Were there debates on this or was it something agreed upon from the start?
DH: Taylor and I both shy away from conceits or settings that pull focus from the story. Hamlet “at the circus” or Hamlet “in an insane asylum” is pretty hacky, and we also didn’t want a period that screamed doublet-and-hose (like the Franco Zeffirelli) or something too modern (like the Michael Almereyda)… so we landed in a slightly-ambiguous turn-of-the-century setting. It’s ‘modern’ technically, but even Grantstown Castle (our shooting location) didn’t have electricity until the 1990’s, so the candelabras and period gowns still felt appropriate.
TM: One of RTB’s consistent…approximations…when making period work is to place people in what we call “universally ambiguous” apparel. Is it really universal? Absolutely not. Is it going to fool anyone who’s studied dress in different time periods? Not for a second. The point is to cast a spell of vague timelessness over the audience so that it’s not clearly “now” and it’s also not any clear “then”. We actually have two different sets of rules within the two worlds of HITGV. When we are watching the actors who show up in a van to the castle, that’s modern. We have a car made in the last ten years, electricity, running water, waterproof jackets, etc. Additionally, all of these scenes are shot on a tripod. When we are watching Shakespeare’s Hamlet, we are universally ambiguous. There is no electricity, no running water, no vehicles, no article of clothing that couldn’t have existed both today and a hundred years ago. Additionally, it’s all handheld camera work.
I really love the bookends of this movie, with the cast arriving and then departing as they do. Again, was this something intended from the start? It’s a really effective little narrative device that slips this into all kinds of cool interpretation.
DH: I love films about actors and acting, so we looked at the framing devices for films like Vanya on 42nd Street and even Jesus Christ Superstar. We knew early on that this would help sell some of the theatrical moments within the film and focus our audience’s attention on the quality and intimacy of the performances.
TM: This is something that we had to finesse a lot in the editing process as well. When creating any story wherein “two realities” exist, it’s vital to make the audience experience of the story-telling as clear or as muddy as you want it to be. It’s still interesting to get different viewers’ interpretation of what they think is going on here. Interestingly, before we settled on the movie, we humored the idea of just going to this castle and not making anything. No play, no audience, no movie – just a group of people who go to a castle and live inside Shakespeare’s text for a while…a kind of artistic experiment. I guess in the end we made a movie about that.
Are you thinking of doing other adaptations of Shakespeare?
DH: A friend of mine lives on the island of Fårö in Sweden, which is where Ingmar Bergman lived and shot many of his films, including Persona. It has these amazing rocky shores, medieval churches, a lighthouse… It’d be a great setting for The Tempest, Pericles, or maybe The Winter’s Tale.
TM: Another friend has some family that lives on a small Grecian island. When seeing photos of it, I immediately thought what a place it would be for Much Ado About Nothing. More than anything though, it depends on funding. If we happen upon some producers who want to turn this into an RTB Shakespeare series, I think we could have some real fun making that happen.
Our site dedicates some of its content to, as the name suggests, great moments in movies. Keeping on our theme, what is your favorite moments in Hamlet?
DH: I’m very proud of a small chase sequence between Hamlet and the Rosencrantz-Guildenstern twins (both played by Constantine Malahias). On stage, the chase usually sends the actors off-stage, so — in our film version — we decided to have fun with a little castle hide-and-seek in the style of The French Connection.
TM: I love Ophelia singing on the roof just before Laertes comes up to help her down. I get goosebumps every single time and the memory of shooting that moment is crystalline in my mind.
Thanks so much for talking with me about your film. I really enjoyed it and hope that it finds the success it deserves. Good luck and I hope our paths cross again.
DH: Thanks! For all the teachers and students out there: We’re still taking the film — roadshow-style — to high schools, colleges, and universities around the country. If you’d like us to visit your school with a screening and a workshop, let us know. And thanks again for watching!
TM: Thanks indeed. You can find us at rollthebonestheatre.com and hamletinthegoldenvale.com