15-Minute Hamlet

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15-Minute Hamlet is a 1976 comedic abridgement of William Shakespeare's Hamlet , written by Tom Stoppard.

Comedy genre of dramatic works intended to be humorous

In a modern sense, comedy refers to any discourse or work generally intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, television, film, stand-up comedy, or any other medium of entertainment. The origins of the term are found in Ancient Greece. In the Athenian democracy, the public opinion of voters was influenced by the political satire performed by the comic poets at the theaters. The theatrical genre of Greek comedy can be described as a dramatic performance which pits two groups or societies against each other in an amusing agon or conflict. Northrop Frye depicted these two opposing sides as a "Society of Youth" and a "Society of the Old." A revised view characterizes the essential agon of comedy as a struggle between a relatively powerless youth and the societal conventions that pose obstacles to his hopes. In this struggle, the youth is understood to be constrained by his lack of social authority, and is left with little choice but to take recourse in ruses which engender very dramatic irony which provokes laughter.

An abridgement is a condensing or reduction of a book or other creative work into a shorter form while maintaining the unity of the source. The abridgement can be true to the original work in terms of mood and tone, capturing the parts the abridging author perceives to be most important, it could be a complete parody of the original, or it could fall anywhere in-between, either generally capturing the tone and message of the original author but falling short in some manner, or subtly twisting their words and message to favor a different interpretation or agenda. Compare/contrast with epitome.

William Shakespeare English playwright and poet

William Shakespeare was an English poet, playwright and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's greatest dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon". His extant works, including collaborations, consist of approximately 39 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, some of uncertain authorship. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

The play, an excerpt from Dogg's Hamlet , condenses the original Hamlet, including all the best-known scenes, into approximately 13 minutes of on-stage action. This is followed by another even more drastically reduced performance of the play from beginning to end, lasting 2 minutes, bringing the total running time up to 15 minutes. [1]

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References

  1. 15-Minute Hamlet, BBC Radio 4 website.