Tom: "Hamlet is the air.... Hamlet is geology."
As Joe begins his auditions, he discovers that the performers willing to partake in his profit sharing enterprise are an eccentric lot. After weeding out the extremes of this lunatic fringe, Joe settles on a cast of six to play the two dozen roles in Shakespeares play.
The production is supposed to be therapy for Joe but he quickly becomes the therapist for his company of misfits. One of the charms of the film is the gentle way that Joe handles his actors and is sensitive to their insecurities. Here he counsels Terry who plays the queen both on and off the stage.
Joe: "I'm worried about the voice...technically it's great."
Branagh pokes fun at the theater world but also has a wonderful affection for it. He loves actors and all of their neuroses; he loves the family feeling that evolves when a company like this comes together; and he loves the delirious rush of adrenaline that comes from any kind of creative endeavor. By choosing Hamlet as the play for Joe's company, Branagh shows how bad bad Shakespeare can be but he also finds an occasional moment of magic to remind us of the power of the play and the unexpected way actors can move you.
The film moves at a swift, witty pace yet still finds time to develop the characters beyond the stereotypes that they begin with. Michael Maloney as Joe begins as a frenzied out of work actor bursting with unfocused energy. He's suffering from the kind of crisis of faith that actors go through when they're rejected once too often and are desperately trying to convince themselves that it's nothing personal. But he emerges from the process a new man and with his faith refreshed.
Branagh repeatedly uses Noel Coward's Why Must the Show Go On? as the thematic thread for his film because it's the question that everyone's asking. But for Branagh and Joe's company, the answer's quite simple, the show must go on because there's no other option. As actors they simply must perform.
Noel Coward: "I'm simply asking, why must the show go on?"
