Sarah Casagrande, Campus Carrier entertainment editor
Playwright and actor Timothy Mooney’s “Breakneck Hamlet,” which he will perform on Friday at 7:30 p.m. in the E.H. Young Theater, differs from William Shakespeare’s original play in two distinct ways. The play has been cut from four hours to just one, and Mooney is the only actor on the stage.
“Cutting some of my favorite lines was a real challenge,” Mooney said. “The hard part was deciding which passages were crucial to understanding the plot.”
“Breakneck Hamlet” is the newest of Mooney’s eight one-man shows and has been performed over 30 times at festivals and schools across the country. Mooney will perform alone on the stage, mostly reciting Hamlet’s key monologues, but dialogue will also be inserted from “another half dozen” characters.
“I actually find myself dying as one character, and then as I fall, I roll across the stage and turn into another character, who is also dying at that time,” Mooney said about one of the scenes from the play.
For the past four years, the Berry College Theatre Company has received funds from SGA to bring in a performer from outside the school, and this year Mooney was chosen to visit.
“So far we have been very fortunate,” associate professor of theater Alice Bristow said. “Every time we have applied, [SGA] has given us the funds.”
Mooney contacted Bristow because he was traveling through Georgia and wanted to come back to Berry to perform. Junior Mercedes Meyers, vice president of external affairs for BCTC, arranged for Mooney’s visit and negotiated his contracts.
“I’m really excited about it,” Meyers said. “I’ll be there hosting the event since I’m in charge of it, but even if I wasn’t I would definitely go.”
Mooney performed at Berry in 2009 with another of his written plays, “Molière Than Thou.” He was brought in by Vincent Gregoire, Nichols professor of French, after they met at a conference.
“It was a complete success. He was truly brilliant,” Gregoire said. “Mooney has a wonderful sense of humor and is a first-class actor.”
Like other guest performers, Mooney will hold a workshop for theater students the morning after his show. The workshop is meant to teach students how to be creative and write their own performances.
“I think it’s wonderful for the students to see an actor that has created their own work,” Bristow said. “[The students] have to learn to be entrepreneurs.”
Mooney said he looks forward not only to performing at Berry again, but also getting out of the cold weather and snow of Chicago. The show will be his first college performance of the spring semester.
“I had a great time the last time I was at Berry,” Mooney said. “I have vivid memories of the gorgeous campus and the many deer that lingered in the fields.