Cheer Up, Hamlet

Finally, the holiday break from school has given me some time to get back into Hamlet!  As promised (see 12/8/13), I have begun to delve into the first season of Slings & Arrows.  It took the opening credits of the first episode to provide fodder for a post.  The theme song for the first season of the series is a witty little ditty entitled Cheer Up, Hamlet.  In the tradition of Hamlet Cha Cha Cha (see 8/14/13 and 8/19/13) and Richard Thompson's cover of The Story of Hamlet (see 10/6/13), here is one more auditory treat.  Thanks to YouTube, you can both read the lyrics and listen to the performance.

Cheer up, Hamlet!
Chin up, Hamlet!
Buck up, you melancholy Dane!
So your uncle is a cad who murdered Dad and married Mum.
That's really no excuse to be as glum as you've become.
So wise up, Hamlet!
Rise up, Hamlet!
Perk up and sing a new refrain!
Your incessant monologizing fills the castle with ennui.
Your "antic disposition" is embarrassing to see,
And by the way, you sulky brat, the answer is "To be."
You're driving poor Opheila insane.
So shut up, you rogue and peasant!
Grow up, it's most unpleasant!
Cheer up, you melancholy Dane!

Shore on Hamlet

How should one judge Hamlet?  W. Teignmouth Shore weighed in with his opinion on the matter in Shakespeare's Self (1920).  His thesis is as follows.

"Hamlet, as should all Shakespeare's plays, ought to be judged as an acting play, written for an Elizabethan audience, which revelled in horrors, jeered at madmen, loved ghostly thrills, believing in the appearance on earth of the spirits of the dead, and which delighted in watching fine sword-play."

Shore contends that Hamlet was a familiar story to playgoers of the period, and Shakespeare took the story and adapted it for his contemporary audience.  He rewrote the play, but he did not remodel it.  Had he done the latter, then he "must have been an exceedingly poor playwright."  To judge Shakespeare by modern criteria, though, takes his work out of its intended context.  Rather, he should be viewed within his particular time frame.  There is the rub.

Shore contends that Elizabethan playgoers "wanted and demanded melodrama decked out with poetics."  They were not interested in careful plot construction or subtlety in character drawing, so this is what Shakespeare gave them.  The poetry aside, Hamlet is "crude melodrama, which is quite exciting when it is acted as melodrama...."

Shore blames both the audience and the playwright for the puzzle that is Hamlet's character.  The audience is at fault for probing Hamlet as an actual person.  Shakespeare's offense is taking an actor's part and and using it as "an outlet for [his] unconquerable impulse to pour out poetry on the slightest provocation."  Hamlet babbles on matters that he, as a character, could not have had any knowledge.  Apparently he learned this loquacity from his father, whose ghost also runs at the mouth.

Ultimately, Shore finds the poetry to be the quality that makes the play fascinating.  It saves the play from its melodramatic trappings, even if the outbursts often have nothing to do with the action of the play itself.  Shore sums up his analysis with a note of thanks.  "Yet we must thank heaven that Shakespeare was more of a poet than a dramatist" (author's italics).

...It Is To Come

While I have already mentioned a benefit of working in a school (see post on 9/10/13), one of the hazards of the teaching profession is time disappearing in a haze of correcting papers and submitting grades.  This is especially true as a holiday vacation looms on the horizon.  So blogging about Hamlet will have to take a bit of a break.

As a preview though, one of the next items on my "to-do" list is a Canadian TV series entitled Slings & Arrows.  I discovered it in the playbill for the Stratford production that I reviewed previously.  (See post on 11/17/13.)  A little bit of research and an Internet purchase later, I have Season 1 ready to go.  Now if I can just find enough free time to give it a proper viewing...

Hamlet Huh?

When I was writing about the University of Rochester production of Hamlet (see 10/14/13 post), I came across a reference to The Hamletmachine in the playbill.  I figured that it was worth a look, so I took to the Internet.

First, I visited the Wikipedia page for the play (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamletmachine).  It was not terribly helpful.  At least it gave an introductory description.  The play, by Heiner Mueller, is a reading of Hamlet applied to some modern situation, perhaps Communism and Soviet-bloc Europe, perhaps feminism.  Interpretations vary.

At the bottom of the entry is a copy of the text of the play (http://members.efn.org/~dredmond/Hamletmachine.PDF).  As it is only nine pages long, it was easy to print a hard copy for reading and adding to my Hamlet file. Reading it led to even more confusion, though.

"What is this?"  The play is a quick read, considering its length, but it is not a coherent read.  I read it several times, and I am still not entirely clear what is going on.  So back to the Internet I went.

Within the realm of YouTube I found a "synopsis" of the play, which I have posted below.  This clarified things a bit, although the overly informal nature of the clip distracted from its stated purpose.  Other YouTube clips of the play's performance--some mislabeled, some in foreign languages--shed no light on the issue.

One of the beauties of Hamlet is its adaptability.  The play can be molded into whatever context the director wishes, generally with good results.  The caveat, though, is that it can be changed beyond recognition.  That is the case here.  Aside from the use of character names, the relation between Hamlet and Hamletmachine is unclear to this blogger.  Perhaps a staged production will come to the area.  Until then, though, this version of Hamlet will not pique my curiosity much further.