Word: osric
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...Guinness credited John Gielgud with nurturing his early career in the '30s, and he played support in all the usual Shakespeare - Osric and the third player in "Hamlet," Aumerle in "Richard II" and Lorenzo in "The Merchant of Venice." The leads, like the two failed stabs at "Hamlet," nudged him further onto the screen - to pay the bills, Guinness always said - and it was in the movies that he became beloved...
Branagh stumbles on his casting of Billy Crystal and Robin Williams as the First Gravedigger and Osric, respectively, but the generally strong cast more than makes up for this misjudgment. Claudius (Derek Jacobi) is subtly played, his motivation portrayed not in a devilish light, but more as ambition that has gotten in the way of morality. Horatio, always a difficult role to play, is handled deftly by Nicholas Farrell, who conveys the emotion of his part without over-emphasizing his relationship with Hamlet. Laertes, a role often overlooked in modern productions, is carefully played by Michael Maloney, who shows...
Charlie, played by Linus Gelber, has the roles of both Osric and Ophelia in Hamlet. He is especially funny in drag as Ophelia, the facetious lover of both Laertes and Hamlet, and performs her death scene with drawn-out agony...
Todd Drexel's Osric, while dandyish, punctilious and well-oiled, manages for once to avoid being effeminate. Josef Sommer's handling of the First Player's ancient Roman narrative need not, I think, be quite so rhetorical...
...effective production, effective largely because Gielgud never makes fetishes out of his innovations. He puts costumes on his actors when their absence might be confusing--the priest who buries Ophelia is surpliced and Osric carries his elaborate hat. The "play within the play" is performed in costume. Hamlet sports a jersey and trousers, if not a cloak, of "inky black...