Bad Quarto

This Hamlet moment was dropped directly into my e-mail inbox.  Actually, it was grabbed by the spam filter and sent to junk mail, but it appeared to be safe, so I removed it from the collection of messages about male enhancement and clothing sales.  As it turned out, it was good enough to become the subject of a post.

The Taffety Punk Theatre Company of Washington, D.C., is staging Hamlet, but it's not the version most people would expect.  Their take is the First (or Bad) Quarto.  Discussion of this edition of Shakespeare's play surfaced in a previous post (see 11/23/14).  The Hartford Stage version of Hamlet that I saw (see 11/16/14 post) included a scene from the First Quarto that was discarded before the Second Quarto and Folio editions of the play became the mainstream ones.

It appears that Taffety Punk is taking things a step further by staging the First Quarto in its entirety.  The e-mail that dropped into my junk folder was an advertisement for it, including a link to a trailer.  As I type this, the trailer is available on the company's website.  While it does pique (this) one's curiosity, it does not really make me wish that a trip to D.C. were practicable over the next several weeks.  It's rather one of those, "Eh, interesting.  Moving on..." encounters.  If any readers are out that way, though, and are interested, though, consider this a helpful bit of information.

P.S.  Wouldn't Quarto be a great name for a dog?  "Bad quarto!  Bad quarto!"