Tennant's Hamlet: Appealing to a Modern Audience

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Adam McKee Tennant’s Hamlet: Appealing to a Modern Audience Any film made in recent history has been targeted at a modern audience, as that is the only way to be successful in the business, so it comes to no surprise that even Shakespearean plays are being recreated frequently to continually have a version that appeals to the modern audience it faces, and none does it better than the David Tennant version of Hamlet. The directors decision to rearrange some of the scenes, while also adding and removing other to make the play more clear to a modern audience, the plays costumes and props are clearly targeted to appeal to the modern audience, and the directors choice of actors in the play are also targeted towards a modern audience. In Gregory Doran’s 2009 version of Hamlet, the clear target audience is the modern audience. First of all, the directors rearranging, removal, and adding of scenes adds to the appeal of Doran’s version of Hamlet to the modern audience. In act IV scene VII lines 123-164 of Hamlet there is a very long exchange of words of revenge towards Hamlet between Claudius and Laertes, but in the David Tennant version much of the unimportant speech is cut out and only the most important of the conversation is left. This appeals to a modern audience, because this particular scene is very long with many allusions and metaphors to seeking revenge on Hamlet, but in this version most of these are cut out and the point is made very quickly instead. The director, Gregory Doran, also chose to add parts and dialog to certain scenes, this passage is no different as the characters are talking about how the plan to take revenge the director adds the word rapier in to the dialog to let the modern audience know that they are talking about a sword, and later changes the word unbated to “unblunted” to describe to a modern audience who may not know the meaning of
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