Hamlet is for the Birds

We've attended two plays in the past month, actually films of stage plays.  The first was a Royal Shakespeare Company production of "Othello."  I had been looking forward to it, but it really left me cold.  The production was staged with a number of Black actors, so one of the reasons Othello so easily fell for Iago's lies didn't exist.

Hamlet, which we saw last week, was quite fantastic.  It was a National Theatre production, with Benedict Cumberbatch in the leading role.  He was great, as was the actress (Sian Brooke) who played Ophelia. You could see Ophelia coming apart as the play progressed from scene to scene.

But why was Hamlet for the birds?  Well, during intermission a bird (or several birds, we couldn't really tell) either woke up or came in the door, and began flying around and around and swooping over the audience and across the screen.  That continued for awhile and was very distracting, but finally the bird(s) must have gotten tired and settled down somewhere so we could enjoy the rest of the play in peace.