Entertainment desk
< August 13	<< Jul \| August \| Sep >>	Current desk >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Entertainment Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

August 14

Playing Hamlet

Having recently stumbled across several 19th-century reviews of actresses playing "the melancholy Dane" in an otherwise straight Hamlet, one reviewed here, I wondered how often this has been attempted on the professional stage. Doug butler (talk) 14:24, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

See: Thy name is woman: female Hamlets from Sarah Bernhardt to Cush Jumbo - in pictures. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 16:13, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The tradition of female actors playing adolescent males is a long one - see breeches role and principal boy. Alansplodge (talk) 09:54, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Never thought of Hamlet as pre-puberty, but why not? And many thanks JAS for the Guardian link. Great pics. Doug butler (talk) 14:55, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Adolescence is defined as "from puberty to legal adulthood". Prince Hamlet#Hamlet's age says that the text can be interpreted to make Hamlet either 30 or 16 years-old, with most evidence supporting the latter. Alansplodge (talk) 22:00, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

An informative and interesting link. Thanks. Doug butler (talk) 23:40, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't that be Hamlette? Clarityfiend (talk) 21:54, 16 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly, Bart Simpson has played Hamlet in Tales_from_the_Public_Domain#Do_the_Bard,_Man. --Error (talk) 15:02, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Since of course, Bart Simpson is voiced by a woman, Nancy Cartwright, that would be Hamlet as played by a male as played by a female. --Jayron 32 16:18, 17 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

In Shakespeare's time women's roles were often (usually?) played by boys, so in some of the comedies a boy played a girl impersonating a boy. —Tamfang (talk) 00:22, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Such traditions lasted much later that Shakespeare's time. See Mary Martin, who became synonymous with the stage role of Peter Pan. --Jayron 32 12:41, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, that's "principal boy" (linked above) in the British pantomime tradition. Robin Hood, Dick Whittington, Prince Charming and Aladdin can be, and often are, played by women, like this for example. Alansplodge (talk) 16:54, 19 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Per Cross-gender acting, (with the exception of Viola de Lesseps) "In Renaissance England, women were forbidden from performing on stage". Clarityfiend (talk) 00:16, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Pros and cons of different fingerings of the same note on a flute

First let's look at the most common note to talk about this way: B♭.

This note can be fingered either with the special B♭ key for the LH thumb or using the RH index finger's key. The latter is definitely the better fingering for A♯, which is often used next to B (it is the leading tone in the keys of B major and B minor.) Moving the left thumb between its 2 keys can be difficult.

Here's another note: D (the fourth line only please.) The standard fingering is the same as E♭ only with the RH little finger lifted up. This is the fingering all sources I've read say is the proper fingering. But trill sources say there's another fingering for this note: use the fingering for C, plus the left of the 2 trill keys (not the right one please.) Even independent of trills, this fingering is the best one assuming the E♭ key is broken on your flute; it also works even on flutes whose foot joint is missing. (The standard D fingering requires the foot joint.)

Any other notes with different fingerings that have both pros and cons?? Georgia guy (talk) 20:32, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia guy, I think you'd need to find a dedicated fluting forum, blog or similar to get such specialised advice. As a long shot, you might try contacting the Finnish flute tutor Heline on "U-Toob" and asking her. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.121.162.207 (talk) 12:59, 21 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Kamarinskaïa - The Grand Budapest Hotel

Hi, Sorry if I'm writing in the wrong heading (sysop on the french WP). Do you know where I can find the score of Kamarinskaïa that we may hear in the The Grand Budapest Hotel ? OT38 (talk) 21:08, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Just to be sure, "score" means the written sheet music: is that what you are looking for? The movie has a soundtrack cd, The Grand Budapest Hotel (soundtrack) which mentions that the performance of the Russian folk tune Kamarinskaya is the well known adaptation by composer Michael Glinka. You can see the score for it here among probably other places like books of Glinka's works. If you want to hear audio, there are a lot of other performances of Kamarinskaya on Youtube with different versions of it. The movie version is here. 2602:24A:DE47:BA60:8FCB:EA4E:7FBD:4814 (talk) 22:31, 14 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

The sheet music of Grand Budapest Hotel's version isn't the genuine sheet music of Kamarinskaïa (it's an adaptation). Can it help you to answer more precisely ? --OT38 (talk) 07:59, 15 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I'm still not sure what you're looking for: do you mean that Kamarinskaïa on the movie soundtrack is different from Michael Glinka's version? Or that Glinka's version is adapted from the original folk tune? Often folk tunes circulate for a long time before being written down, so there are a lot of versions around. Composers doing adaptations usually change things and make variations on the tunes they adapt. Something like that happened with the Shaker hymn Simple Gifts whose tune was used in Aaron Copland's composition Appalachian Spring. I'm not familiar with Kamarinskaïa or with The Grand Budapest Hotel but I'm envisioning something similar happening. 2601:648:8202:350:0:0:0:2B99 (talk) 10:04, 20 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]