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Experiments with Virtual Theater
on Internet Relay Chat

INTRODUCTION

• Computers and Theater
• Playful Irreverence: The Spirit of The Hamnet Players
• A Repertory Company?
• The Hamnet Players and the Problem of Genre
• Form Versus Content
• The Scope of This Paper

HAMNET: THE SCRIPT

• Incongruity
• Play with the Characters, Plot, and Text of Shakespeare's Hamlet
• Play with the Conventions of Script Writing
• Play with Language
  • Register
  • The Freezing of Online Style
  • Obscenity
  • Lexicon
• Play with the IRC Software
  • Nicks
  • Other IRC Commands

THE LOGISTICS OF VIRTUAL PRODUCTION

• Generating Interest: Public Relations
• Casting
• Performing the Text, Not the Play
• Using Prepared Files
• Ascii "Sets": A First Step Toward Multimedia Performance
• Getting into "Costume"
• Coping with the Real Troubles of Virtual Theater

PERFORMING HAMNET

• Writing as Performance
• Improvisation in Hamnet Performances
• Parodying Other Shakespearean Plays
• Playing the Theater Game
  • Playing with the Script
  • Playing with the Role of Actor
  • Playing with the Role of Audience
  • Playing One's Role
  • Having a Cast Party
• Playing with the IRC Software
  • Non-performative Reference to Commands
  • Performative Use of Commands
• Playing with Language
  • Obscenity
  • Parlor Word Games
  • Spelling Games
  • Puns Galore
• Playing Around: Virtual Flirting
• A Carnival of Wordplay

REFLECTIONS

• The Flowering of Verbal Art in Digital Culture
• Genre Revisited
• Why Shakespeare?
• Globalization, Democratization and The Hamnet Players

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ABSTRACT

ABSTRACT

This is a study of the Hamnet Players, a group who perform parodies of Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams on IRC (Internet Relay Chat). We focus primarily on their first production, a hilarious parody of Hamlet, called "Hamnet". The main source of humor is the playfully irreverent juxtaposition of Shakespearean plot, characters and language with materials from Net and IRC culture. Hamnet productions are currently primarily textual, but the players are already experimenting with graphics and sound. We analyze (1) the substantive and stylistic features of the "Hamnet" script; (2) the logistics of virtual production; (3) improvisational play with the Shakespearean canon, the "theater game," language itself, the IRC software, and the situation of typed online interaction. Our approach draws on sociolinguistics and discourse analysis; the ethnography of oral genres of verbal art; Shakespearean studies and analyses of literary genres; research on communication and popular culture; and recent studies of language, play and performance in computer-mediated communication. Hamnet productions are not only experiments in virtual theater; they are also carnivals of wordplay, chock-full of wit and humor. They provide new and important evidence for the rise of interactive digital writing as stylized performance.

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