What Happens in Hamlet

The title of this post comes from the title of a book written by J. Dover Wilson.  The book had been recommended to me long ago by the same person who started me on this blogging venture.  His comment:  "[For] any Hamlet freak, it's 300 pages of pure pleasure."  When I found a copy at a local library, I decided to pick it up and perhaps to read it over a school break.  Once I started it, though, I found that I could not put it down.  It seems odd to call such a book a page-turner, but this one certainly is.

The first chapter of the book is an open letter to W.W. Greg, the author of a previous work, entitled "Hamlet's Hallucination."  I did not realize until I opened Wilson's book that it was tied directly to a previous post (11/11/13).  That roped me in immediately.

Wilson suggests jumping ahead to Chapter V, which I did.  It is excellent!  It discusses "The Mousetrap" in depth.  Much consideration is given to the dumb-show and to why Claudius does not react.  I found Wilson's hypothesis to be both unique and entirely plausible.  Exceedingly interesting was his description of how he would block the scene were he the director.  That has given me a standard by which to base future productions that I will see.

Once Chapter V was concluded, I returned to the beginning of the book and read the rest in order (giving Chapter V a second perusal).  The entire book is an analysis and explanation of the plot of Hamlet.  As Wilson states repeatedly, Hamlet is a drama to be acted and not merely a book to be read.  He treats it as such, and his discussions center on the staged performance of the play.  For as much as I have read of Hamlet and for all of the versions that I have seen, I learned quite a bit from Wilson.  He does a tremendous job of helping a modern-day student of the play to understand what an Elizabethan audience would have taken for granted.  His discussions of Elizabethan politics and spiritualism were particularly illustrative.

Chapter VI is another highlight.  In it, Wilson discusses the mystery of Hamlet's melancholy.  We know that Hamlet is not well, but we are never given an exact cause for his disorder.  The description provided by Wilson reads as a diagnosis of manic depression.  As Wilson states repeatedly throughout his book, though, Hamlet is a fictional character in a fictional play.  To attempt to take him out of context and to analyze him as if he were a real person is "wrong in method and futile in aim" (Preface to 3rd Edition).

Chapter VII left me thinking one word:  Bravo!  Wilson dissects the duel, explaining Elizabethan fencing terminology in a manner that is both understandable and informative.  Much of the context of the scene is lost on modern-day students, and the manner in which the scene often is staged causes considerable confusion.  As with his treatment of "The Mousetrap," Wilson describes in depth how he would block the scene as a director.  Reading the chapter made me realize that I have never seen the duel as Shakespeare might have intended it and as Wilson would stage it.  As Wilson comments, "How different an atmosphere from that of the modern theatre!" (287).

I noted one very interesting and ironic footnote in the book.  Although it has nothing to do with Hamlet, it definitely struck me.  The first edition of the book was published in 1935.  At the beginning of Chapter VI, Wilson makes the following comment:  "Whatever may be thought of the Nazi movement, it offers plenty of first-class material for future dramatists, or film producers" (200).  If only Wilson had known how prescient those words would be!

As Wilson concludes at the end of Chapter VI, "There are as many Hamlets as there are actors who play him..." (238).  I already have seen many of those, but this book does a masterful job of hypothesizing how Shakespeare intended his Hamlet to look.  It is bar none the best Hamlet reference that I have encountered.  I already have purchased a copy to add to my own bookshelf and to return to many times.  I cannot recommend it highly enough.  I believe that Harold Child has described this book best.

"Your Ideal Spectator for this purpose would be a very thorough and intelligent Shakespearian who knew Hamlet well but (to his shame) had not read What Happens in "Hamlet"--if anyone could be said to know Hamlet well without having read your book."

Wilson, J. Dover.  What Happens in Hamlet.  3rd edition.  Cambridge University Press, 1956.

Benny as Hamlet

After viewing Mel Brooks' take on Hamlet in To Be or Not To Be, I was able to find a copy of Ernst Lubitsch's original film of the same name.  It provided an occasion to see Hamlet (such as it was) one more time as well as to compare and to contrast Brooks' and Lubitsch's works.

The plot of this film is much the same as Brooks' re-make.  It revolves around a Polish theatre company in Nazi-occupied Warsaw.  In this version, the lead characters are Joseph and Maria Tura, played by Jack Benny and Carole Lombard.  Bronski, the lead in Brooks' film, is a secondary player in the troupe, although his imitation of Hitler is spot-on.  The actors use their dramatic wiles to escape from Poland in much the same fashion as the remake, although the Schindler-esque rescue of exiled Jews is absent from this version.

The appearance of Hamlet in this film is slightly modified in the remake.  Tura is the lead in a full-fledged production of Hamlet, not a shortened remix.  As in the remake, though, we are not able to see much beyond the opening of the soliloquy.  It still is distracted repeatedly with members of the audience departing the theatre.

The humor of Lubitsch's original is much more understated than the over-the-top slapstick of Brooks' remake.  Both are enjoyable, but each in its own way.  The original does provide one wonderful quote that did not appear in the remake.  As a die-hard Hamlet fan, I could still relate.

"Even Shakespeare couldn't stand seeing Hamlet three nights in succession."

Hamlet As Archetype

Hamlet has been characterized many times in many different descriptions.  Robert Ornstein's essay "The Mystery of Hamlet:  Notes Toward an Archetypal Solution" summarizes these and adds a new variation on the theme.  The essay, found in the collection Hamlet:  Enter Critic, is the topic of this week's post.

Previous descriptions of Hamlet as recounted by Ornstein have included the following.

• Gay and debonair Elizabethan courtier
• One curled in the fetal position on Ophelia's lap
• Malcontent
• Lunatic
• Ideal Prince
• Neurotic
• Ritual Scapegoat

Ornstein asserts a new role for Hamlet:  juvenile delinquent.  His justification of this description includes much favorable evidence.

• Truancy from school
• Victim of an unsatisfactory home environment
• Stepfather is a tippling criminal.
• Mother is a shallow, good-natured creature too easy with her affections.
• Unable to communicate with his parents and seeks affection outside of the home.
• Maladjusted and emotionally unstable
• Has bad dreams
• Moody, hostile, withdrawn, cynically contemptuous of authority
• Homicidal and suicidal tendencies; carries a knife and knows how to use it
• Abnormally preoccupied with sex
• Incapable of returning love of girl he sadistically maltreats
• Dresses in black and affects a casual slovenliness
• Deprived of status in society
• Seeks attention through violence
• Creates a scene and is sent away for radical therapy

If we grant this description of Hamlet, then the remaining characters of the play fall into other archetypal roles.  Polonius becomes the stool-pigeon.  Ophelia is the "long-haired kid from the next tenement."  Laertes is the "hot-tempered, mixed-up younger brother."  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are "crooked social workers."  Fortinbras is "a reformed delinquent."

Ornstein uses T.S. Eliot's verdict to summarize.  Hamlet is a "rebel without a cause, consumed with an unfathomable hatred of a world in which he never had a chance."  He delays action because he knows that it will in turn destroy him.  "[When] harmony is restored in family and state, the juvenile delinquent ceases to exist."

The Other Mel as Hamlet

While looking for a copy of Sam Peckinpah's film, Straw Dogs, at the local library, I noticed a film entitled To Be or Not To Be.  Maurice Hindle had mentioned it in his book, Studying Shakespeare on Film (see 11/9/14 post).  The DVD I found was not Ernst Lubitsch's original, but rather Mel Brooks' 1983 remake.  I figured to give it a try.  (As the librarian commented, "He's great, isn't he?"  She meant Mel Brooks.)

Set in WWII Germany, the film depicts a Polish actor, Frederick Bronski (Brooks), leading a scheme to escape the Nazis who have just overrun Poland.  As we discover, one of Bronski's trademark dramatic performances is a short work entitled "Highlights of Hamlet."  It begins with Act III, Scene 1, as one might suspect from the title of the film. We never get to see much of the performance, though.  Every time Bronski gets into the soliloquy, someone gets up and walks out of the theatre.  There are reasons for this, but to say any more would spoil the plot of the film.

Although this is by no means a full-blown Hamlet, I will still give it a mention in the blog.  Even the other characters realize that the on-stage treatment of Hamlet is painful.  As a Nazi officer describes it, "What he did to Hamlet, we are now doing to Poland."  (Ouch.)  The film is rather humorous, and it has given me incentive to find the original to compare.

Hawke as Hamlet

A day free from work gave me an opportunity to spend the better part of the afternoon with Hamlet.  This time, it was a chance to revisit Michael Almereyda's 2000 film starring Ethan Hawke in the title role.  I had seen it once many years ago, well before I began this blog.  Time to dig the DVD copy out of the collection to give it a repeat viewing.

What struck me throughout the film was how well Shakespeare's words fit into the updated context.  This is a modern presentation of a very old play, and yet the words did not feel out of place.  And while the script is much reduced, most of the words that one would expect did appear.  I was surprised at how much of the original play remained in the film.  There were numerous novel re-workings of the play and the dialogue.  The final lines of the film ("Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own."), for instance, had been moved from the Player King's speech in Act III, scene ii of the original.  It was as if Almereyda had been advised by Hamlet himself:  "Suit the action to the word, the word to the action...."

While the film displayed the timelessness of Shakespeare's work, it also provided a window into a then-modern time period that is now recent past.  Sights of cumbrous movie cameras, rental VHS tapes at Blockbuster Video (RIP), Polaroid snapshots, pay phones, fax machines and floppy disks are a sign of the relentless progression of time and technology.  Even a familiar voice welcoming a caller to Moviefone (777-FILM) is now just a memory.  Oddly, these sights and sounds felt, to me, more ancient than the dialogue being spoken by the actors on the screen.

I could not help but to notice one popular culture reference that was present.  As Hamlet spoke the "Rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy, his own call to action was voiced while pictures of James Dean appeared on the screen.  Filmdom's original "Rebel Without a Cause" was a fitting counterpoint to Shakespeare's "Rebel With a Cause."

Considering the modern re-working of Hamlet, it would be senseless to recount all of the differences between the play and the film.  One notable adaptation, though, involves Gertrude.  During the duel scene, oddly played as a fencing match on a rooftop, it becomes obvious that she is aware of Claudius' scheme involving the poisoned chalice.  The camera betrays that realization on her face.  When she takes the cup to drink, it is an act of sacrifice, preventing her son from getting it.  The Gertrude of this version of Hamlet commits suicide in order to attempt to save her son from death.  The act only delays the inevitable, though, as Laertes and a handgun finish the action.

According to Orson Welles, director of a screen version of Macbeth, "[Assuming] that the film is an art form, I took the line that you can adapt a classic freely and vigorously for the cinema."  (See Hindle (11/9/14 post), pg. 33.)  This version of Hamlet is adapted freely and vigorously, the result being a very entertaining and satisfying film.

The Missing Scene

As I watched the Hartford Stage production of Hamlet (see 11/16/14 post), something was rotten in Denmark (or, at least in Connecticut).  I've seen the work many a time, but I couldn't recall a scene starring Horatio and Gertrude.  Yet, here it was playing out before me.  Horatio was telling Gertrude about a letter he had received from Hamlet.  He told her of the treasonous plot against Hamlet's life, a plot perpetrated by Claudius.  He told of Hamlet's success at foiling the plot.  Gertrude learned that Hamlet was on his way home and that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern had been killed.  She was left anticipating her son's return and realizing that her husband was almost a murderer for the second time.

Where on Earth did all of that come from?  Where were the usual references to "High and Mighty" and pirates?  I checked a print copy of Hamlet at the first opportunity and could find no reference to this scene.  Oddly, though, it seemed vaguely familiar.  When I sat down to write a post about the version of Hamlet that I had seen years before at the World Financial Center in NYC (see 8/3/13 post), I had a note about a scene between Horatio and Gertrude.  I blamed it on a trick of the memory; after all, I couldn't find any trace of such a scene, and I had never seen it again.  Maybe this addition to the Hartford version was what I had stored away subconsciously, or maybe that was an example of misremembering after all.

As it turns out, there is indeed evidence for this conversation.  The First (or "Bad") Quarto of Hamlet includes this scene.  I have included the text below, with the spelling edited into a more modern presentment.  A modern-day DVD release might call it an Outtake or Deleted Scene, as the Second Quarto and Folio dropped it entirely.  So a typical reading or viewing of the play would not include it at all.  One could go many years--or forever--without ever knowing that the scene existed.  Maybe that was the playwright's intent (if it was even his creation in the first place).

The conversation adds a new dimension to the characters involved.  We see that there is a more than casual relationship between Horatio and Gertrude.  We know Horatio as a friend to Hamlet.  Apparently the prince thinks highly enough of Horatio to ask him to deliver a message to Gertrude, and Horatio holds Gertrude in enough regard to deliver the message personally.  He even offers to carry the wishes of the mother back to her son, whom he will meet upon his return.

I believe that this scene also has an effect on the conclusion of the play.  By the time we have reached the duel, Gertrude knows the capabilities of Claudius.  She has been told by Hamlet that Claudius murdered her first husband, which she may have doubted.  In this new scene, she has learned that Claudius has attempted to have her son murdered, which may have confirmed her initial suspicions.  When Claudius urges her not to drink from the poisoned chalice, does she suspect that another plot is afoot?  Does she drink knowing that she may be sacrificing her own life?

Enter Horatio and the Queen.

Hor. Madame, your son is safe arriv'd in Denmark,
This letter I even now receiv'd of him,
Whereas he writes how he escap'd the danger,
And subtle treason that the king had plotted,
Being crossed by the contention of the winds,
He found the Packet sent to the king of England,
Wherein he saw himself betray'd to death,
As at his next conversion with your grace,
He will relate the circumstance at full.

Queen Then I perceive there's treason in his looks
That seem'd to sugar o'er his villany:
But I will soothe and please him for a time,
For murderous minds are always jealous,
But know not you Horatio where he is?

Hor. Yes Madame, and he hath appointed me
To meet him on the east side of the City
Tomorrow morning.

Queen O fail not, good Horatio, and withall, commend me
A mother's care to him, bid him a while
Be wary of his presence, lest that he
Fail in that he goes about.

Hor. Madam, never make doubt of that:
I think by this the news be come to court:
He is arriv'd, observe the king, and you shall
Quickly find, Hamlet being here,
Things fell not to his mind.

Queen But what became of Guildernstern and Rosencrantz?

Hor. He being set ashore, they went for England,
And in the Packet there writ down that doom
To be perform'd on them pointed for him:
And by great chance he had his father's Seal,
So all was done without discovery.

Queen Thanks be to heaven for blessing of the prince,
Horatio once again I take my leave,
With thousand mother's blessings to my son.

Horat. Madam adieu.

Hamlet in Hartford

As mentioned in a previous post (8/31/14), Hamlet provided a reason for a trip to Hartford.  I was able to view the Hartford Stage's production of the play, directed by Darko Tresnjak.  It was a chance to experience a new theatre and one more directorial take on Shakespeare's work.  On both counts, it was a worthwhile venture.

The Hartford Stage theatre is an excellent place to see a show.  The room, newly remodeled, is cozy and comfortable.  The sight lines are great, with seats staggered enough in height that the head in front should not be an obstruction.  My seat, second row center section on an aisle, had two arm rests and plenty of room. The seat itself was actually turned away from the stage area due to the round house orientation of the room; it was odd but not too much of an issue.  Being close to the action and having space made up for the slight turn.  (As an aside, why are patrons allowed to bring drinks into the room?  The staff should consider revising that policy.)

The set was a novel design.  The stage was in the shape of a cross, with black and white faux-marble floor tile.  The tile was lit from underneath, so that the white could be brightened or turned into other colors.  In the "Swear it!" scene, different portions were highlighted, impelling the cast members to run from place to place.  In a later scene, the white tile was alternating red and blue.  The cross was edged with benches on the portions of the stage projecting into the crowd.  There were several openings in the floor which were used throughout the play--a grave, a lower level of the castle, the arras concealing Polonius (?).  The center of the cross also opened, to great dramatic effect.  As sharp as the floor looked, the use of large cardboard cut-out curtains instead of real red velvet was notably tacky.

The costumes were very lavish period design.  There were neck ruffles on the men.  Hamlet was usually attired in black, except for a striking red military outfit donned after his return from England.  The priest, who yelled angrily throughout Ophelia's burial, had a nicely-designed black Roman chasuble.  Several persons in that scene, wearing full black robes, were not identified.  Perhaps they were acolytes, but they looked like full-sized Jawa from Star Wars.  There was an exhibit in the theatre highlighting costumes from the company's past productions; this production's versions fit nicely in that collection.

I found the acting to be inconsistent.  Hamlet was well played; sensitive, sometimes sarcastically humorous and generally believable.  Claudius was harsh and overbearing, which worked.  Ophelia was cloying and annoying; too sing-songy at first, not believable in the nunnery scene and just plain irritating after the death of Polonius, who was by turns humorous and bland.  The players were all male, but the one playing a female role (quite buxom in costume) was a bit over the top comedically.

I must include a special note about the Ghost.  The first "appearance" was merely light and smoke exiting from one of the holes in the floor.  When he appeared in person, though, it was a grand entrance indeed.  He was raised through the hole in the floor at center stage, in full armor and on (fake) horseback.  It was quite a sight!  His speaking was a bit emotive, but the stage presence was certainly commanding.

The script was edited into a two hour and forty minute time frame.  The action moved quickly; in fact, the first act, which ended after the "Witching time" soliloquy, seemed to fly by.  Polonius' instructions to Reynaldo did not include any direction to spy on Laertes.  Hamlet did not reprimand Polonius about using the players "better than their deserts."  Hamlet's directions to the players were edited, and the dumb show was removed.  Ironically, though, Lucianus was actually given lines during "The Mousetrap."  "By and by" was not easily said.  The search for Polonius was much streamlined.  There were no pirates, no mention of "High and Mighty" or bungholes, and Osric's role was reduced.  Additionally, the delivery of some of the soliloquies was directly to the audience, which I find confusing.  Are we observers or participants?  The fourth wall was shattered further when an insane Ophelia delivered a flower to a surprised audience member.

One notable addition to the text was a scene in which Horatio and Gertrude converse about Hamlet's pending return from England.  The inclusion of and effect of this scene will be the subject of a more in-depth discussion in a future post.

The role of Fortinbras was oddly used.  There was mention of him early on, more than is typical.  There was a very brief and awkward insertion of his request to march across Denmark, but the "How all occasions" soliloquy was excised completely.  When Fortinbras appeared at the end of the play, it did not seem that enough had been done to explain why, and he did not order Hamlet to be carried out.  The reason for that, though, made for an excellent ending to the play.

The duel scene was staged vertically, not horizontally.  In a round house setting, someone has to be at the actor's backs.  In this case, the center section of the audience was at the back of one of the actors, which prevented any facial expression from being seen.  There was not much action in the fight, and the climactic exchange of the poisoned foil was rather lame.  Horatio yelled his closing lines, which did not help the somber mood of the scene.  Fortinbras arrived on cue to see the dead bodies strewn about the stage.  The final scene, though, was incredible.  The dead Hamlet fell on his back across the hole in the center of the stage.  The floor opened beneath him as his body straddled the opening, and the ghost on horseback rose from below.  Hamlet was not borne "like a soldier to the stage," but rather as a dead child cradled in his father's arms, rising to the heavens.  As the lights faded to black, that final sight of Hamlet and his father was a powerful one indeed, a master stroke of direction.

All in all, this was an interesting version of Hamlet.  While not the best one that I have seen, it certainly was well worth the trip.  And that final scene will stay with me for quite a long time.

Hamlet on Film

A trip to a local second-hand store landed another addition to my Hamlet collection.  This time it was a book by Maurice Hindle entitled, Studying Shakespeare on Film (NY:  Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).  While not strictly about Hamlet, it was an interesting read and provided material for future searches and posts.

A quotation in the book's introduction certainly rings true with my many Hamlet discoveries.

"Translation is an inexact art, carrying responsibilities to respect the author's ends, even as you wilfully [sic] tamper with the means" (xv).

On stage, in print, and especially in film, Shakespeare's work becomes a metaphorical piece of clay.  It is molded by the director or the author and, while it remains a piece of clay, it can be much changed in shape from its original appearance.  This was readily apparent in two of the films that I have seen and have described in previous posts:  Zeffirelli's Hamlet (see 9/14/14) and Gade's Hamlet, The Drama of Vengeance (see 10/19/14).

Hindle's book, useful as a text for a college course on Shakespeare, describes several productions of Hamlet in varying degrees of depth.  (They are identified below by director.)

• Svend Gade
• Laurence Olivier
• Grigori Kozintsev
• Tony Richardson
• Franco Zeffirelli
• Kenneth Branagh
• Michael Almereyda
• Rodney Bennett (BBC-TV)
• Peter Brook (BBC4, 2001)

He includes separate "Critical Essays" for Olivier, Branagh and Almereyda.  Additionally, he references two versions that he must omit for space considerations:  Celestino Coronado's Hamlet and Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be.

Hindle's book provides a suitable companion for Hamlet viewing.  Now to find some of the versions he mentions...and the time to watch them!

Polonius At Sea

While reading a journal article of the connections between Samuel Clemens and Shakespeare, I came across another Hamlet reference in Mark Twain's work.  This one is found in his Letters From Hawaii.  (The journal article that led me to the passage is referenced below.)

The section in question is entitled "I Endeavor To Entertain The Seasick Man."  In order to help a nauseous fellow passenger, Twain reads a poem that he has prepared.  It is a paraphrase of a Shakespearean passage rewritten in rhyme to make it easier to remember.  The passage should be familiar to fans of Hamlet.  It is presented below in its entirety.

Polonius' Advice to His Son--

Paraphrased from Hamlet 

Beware of the spoken word! Be wise;
Bury thy thoughts in thy breast;
Nor let thoughts that are unnatural
Be ever in acts expressed.

Be thou courteous and kindly toward all —
Be familiar and vulgar with none;
But the friends thou hast proved in thy need
Hold thou fast till life’s mission is done!

 Shake not thy faith by confiding
In every new-begot friend,
Beware thou of quarrels — but in them
Fight them out to the bitter end.

Give thine ear unto all that would seek it
But to few thy voice impart;
Receive and consider all censure
But thy judgment seal in thy heart.

 Let thy habit be ever as costly
As thy purse is able to span;
Never gaudy but rich — for the raiment
Full often proclaimeth the man.

Neither borrow nor lend — oft a loan
Both loseth itself and a friend,
And to borrow relaxeth the thrift
Whereby husbandry gaineth its end.

But lo! above all set this law:
UNTO THYSELF BE THOU TRUE!
Then never toward any canst thou
The deed of a false heart do.

The reaction of Twain's audience upon hearing the passage was to vomit.  He did not care for the passage, but noted that "if he got seasick again, he would like some more poetry."  A Shakespearean critic, perhaps?


Hirsh, James. 1992. “Samuel Clemens and the Ghost of Shakespeare.” Studies in the Novel 24 (Fall): 251-272.

Hamlet In Brief

This week's brief post is largely from F.E. Halliday.  His essay entitled "The Poetry of Shakespeare's Plays" is one of the entries in Hamlet:  Enter Critic, cited numerous times in the blog (see 7/29/13 and others).  It is not Halliday's discussion of the poetry that is the topic here; rather it is a statement that appears early in the excerpt.  It is only three sentences in length, although one is a glorious run-on.  For me, it summarizes well why many people, myself included, find Hamlet to be so worthwhile.

"Hamlet is the great landmark in Shakespeare's progress, standing like a rock, conspicuous and unmistakably defined, exactly in the middle of his career.  In sheer bulk it is much the biggest of the plays; the hero is the most famous in all literature, partly because we all tend to identify ourselves with him, partly because in Hamlet we seem to come closest to Shakespeare himself; the imagery is distinctive both in form and content; it is the first of the series of great tragedies; and it is the first play in which Shakespeare's mature style is clearly revealed.  All his previous work was, in a sense, a preparation for Hamlet; no other subject had made such demands, and it is as though Shakespeare, feeling himself at last equal to the task, decided that the time had come to show the world what he really could do."

Hamlet the Silent Prince(ss)

A Tuesday evening silent film festival seems hardly the place to find Hamlet, and yet there he was again.  The George Eastman House's (GEH) Dryden Theatre aired the 1921 version of Hamlet, starring Asta Nielsen in the title role.  The film was accompanied live on piano by Philip Carli, who also provided a brief introduction.  The 35-mm print from the collection of GEH is the tenth film version of Hamlet, the first having been produced in 1908.  What sets this version apart is the star.  Asta Nielsen is a Danish actress.  This film is not, as Dr. Carli put it, a “trouser role.”  Namely, Nielsen does not play a male role as did Kelli Fox at Geva Theatre (see 7/21/13 post).  Hamlet in this film is female, and therein lies the mystery.

For a 93-year old film, it has held up surprisingly well.  It was shot in part at the actual Castle Elsinore, and the scenery adds a dimension to the work not seen live on stage.  This particular print was also in great shape for its age, although it was apparent that some of the intertitles were not original to the print.  Seeing the film with a live piano accompaniment definitely made it a memorable (and one time only) experience.

And then there was the story…  Shakespeare’s Hamlet this is not.  The film opens with Norway and Denmark at war.  The elder Fortinbras is slain by the elder Hamlet, who suffers a wound thought to be mortal.  Meanwhile, Gertrude gives birth to a daughter.  When she hears that her husband is near death, she and her nurse hatch a scheme to allow her to remain the queen.  Her child will be announced as a prince.  Her husband does not die, and he has to be brought into the royal deception.

Hamlet grows up keeping the secret of his gender.  Eventually, he heads off to Wittenberg, where he meets fellow classmates Horatio, young Fortinbras and Laertes.  They all become fast friends.  Back home, Gertrude has fallen for Claudius and the two conspire to kill her husband with an adder from the castle dungeon.  Hamlet is summoned home for his father’s funeral.

Hamlet learns that the adder that killed his father was similar to those found in the dungeon.  While investigating, he discovers Claudius’s dagger and intuits that his father had been murdered.  (No ghost ever appears.)  He decides to “put on an antic disposition.”  He is introduced to Ophelia, but he has no feelings for her.  He is drawn to Horatio instead.  When Hamlet discovers that Horatio has feelings for Ophelia, he feigns an attraction to Ophelia to break up any relationship between her and Horatio.

The staging of “The Murder of Gonzago” and the death of Polonius follow as traditional.  In a difference, though, Claudius sends Hamlet to Norway to be put to death by Fortinbras.  Hamlet intercepts and rewrites the order and has his two unnamed followers put to death.  In a scene that elicited a collective laugh from the audience, we see Fortinbras read the revised order and look to Hamlet for clarification.  Hamlet throws his arms up and shrugs, and the two followers are sent to the scaffold.

Hamlet returns to Elsinore and joins Claudius in a drunken revel.  He encourages Claudius to drink until he passes out and then sets fire to the chamber, killing Claudius.  Meanwhile, Laertes has returned to mourn the death of Ophelia.  Gertrude seeks revenge on Hamlet and enlists Laertes for the murder plot which is entirely her own invention.  Hamlet and Laertes duel, and Gertrude poisons a cup for Hamlet.  During the action, however, she inadvertently drinks from the poisoned cup and dies.  Laertes stabs Hamlet, killing him while seemingly escaping death himself.  As Horatio is caressing the torso of the now-deceased Hamlet, he discovers the secret and realizes why it is that he had such feelings for Hamlet.  Fortinbras enters on cue to take the Danish throne.

This is definitely the most bizarre version of Hamlet that I have seen.  Whereas Zeffirelli's version (see 9/14/14 post) was "adapted from" Shakespeare, this one could have been advertised as "inspired by" the original.  If you have the opportunity to find and view this one, its oddity makes it worth the time.

Back to the Fringe (Part III)

The third Hamlet event of the 2014 Rochester Fringe Festival was the most complete rendition of the lot.  Produced by the Shakespeare Company of Greater Rochester and entitled Shakespeare's Greatest Hits, its stately purpose was to...  Well, I'll let the festival guide describe it.

"In the whole of the Shakespeare canon, two plays stand above the rest as the epitome of what makes Shakespeare entertaining, insightful and engaging: the gripping drama of HAMLET, and the doomed romance of ROMEO AND JULIET. See five brave souls portray every character (yes, every character) in every scene (yes, every scene) of these two great plays that play great together!  And all in about an hour…"

The stage at MuCCC was set for an interesting evening of drama. Not that there was much to set on that stage.  There was a backdrop screen to create a backstage area and a shin-high barricade to simulate a freshly-dug grave behind it.  The rest of the props were carried in and out by the five players.

As I discovered, the version of Hamlet presented here was akin to The Fifteen-Minute Hamlet previously described (see 2/9/14 post).  The pace was quick, as one might expect with the time constraint.  Cast members flew in and out of scene, veritably running from backstage to front stage.  As a result, costumes--bedsheets, hair extensions, beards--were sometimes not entirely in place.

One of the oddest parts of the performance was the script.  Regardless of props, each cast member carried a copy of the script.  The performance was basically a dramatic reading performed while running around stage.  I'm unsure if that was a sign that this production was thrown together quickly and without regard for memorization or if the reading is an intentional part of the play's kitschy charm.  It was off-putting at first, but after a while I had grown used to it.

There were several other interesting facets.  Only one of the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern duo appeared in a speaking role.  The other was a suit of clothes, carried on and offstage on a clothes hanger by the speaking member of the pair.  The play-within-a-play was performed by sock puppets, and Hamlet's father (the white sock) was offed rather violently by Claudius (the black sock).  The arras that hid Polonius was a bedsheet thrown hastily over his head and shoulder.  The duel ended when Hamlet and Laertes bled "on both sides," although no swords changed hands and no blows were ever struck.  Claudius did not have a chance to drink from the poisoned cup before he was stabbed to death.

In 24 minutes, it was all over.  Mission accomplished.  The entire play was compacted into less than a half hour.  Romeo and Juliet, equally amusing and equally brief, followed.  Then we were shooed from the theatre so it could be cleared for another play, slated to begin ten minutes later.  As dramatic evenings in general and Hamlet in particular go, this one was indeed wondrous strange.

Back to the Fringe (Part II)

A second offering at the Rochester Fringe Festival included a bit of Hamlet.  The title of the production was "Merely Players."  The festival program described the show thus.

“All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players…”  Join us in exploring the complex relationships among iconic Shakespearean men and women through mask work, pantomime, scene work and puppetry.

It was unclear who "us" was; there was no playbill introducing the cast or the production company.  Even the accompanying photo in the festival program, reproduced below, left much unanswered.  All members of the six-person cast wore black, and the one major prop as such was a chair that was used for a few of the scenes.  Each scene save one was introduced by two members of the cast, who described the portrayal of the man and woman we were about to see.

Among the repertoire was Act III, Scene iv of Hamlet.  It was an adapted version of the bedroom scene between Hamlet and Gertrude.  For a show investigating the relationship between the sexes, this scene fit very well.  It was edited so that it included only Hamlet and Gertrude; Polonius and the ghost of Hamlet's father were mentioned but did not appear.

The scene was staged in a decidedly offbeat fashion.  The dialogue was fed through the sound system from offstage, perhaps a pre-recorded reading by two members of the cast.  The "action" onstage involved two puppets.  Basically they were masks attached to pieces of fabric.  Three cast members worked each puppet:  one for each hand and one for the body/head.  It was a strange presentation.  The cast did their best to make the puppets display the emotion of the scene, but the unchanging expressions of the masks worked against them.

Overall, this had to be one of the oddest additions to the Hamlet collection.  It was definitely a "Huh?" moment, suitable for a quick viewing and a quick recap for the blog.

Back to the Fringe (Part I)

It has been one year since the Rochester Fringe Festival provided a topic for a post.  (See 9/30/13.)  Its return to Rochester brought with it several productions that included presentations of Hamlet.

In a return from the 2013 festival, the Rochester Community Players presented SaMe SeX ShAkEsPeArE, a collection of gender-bent scenes from selected Shakespearean works.  This year, in addition to dramatic excerpts it included an original scene based on "Lover's Sonnet #116."

Blogger's luck shone again with a scene entitled "Hamlet Soliloquy."  The speech in question was the "Rogue and Peasant Slave" soliloquy.  It was performed by a young actress, Rebecca Miller, who was in perhaps her second stage performance.  (The playbill noted that her stage debut had been in A Midsummer Night's Dream during the recently concluded summer.)  She wore dark modern dress (hooded sweatshirt, jeans, low-cut Chuck Taylor Converse sneakers).  The set was minimal--a stage with one metal folding chair.  The speech itself was performed in a very straightforward, believable manner.  It was not overly emotive, not grossly edited, not overdone.  Frankly, it was real.  Ms. Miller managed to avoid direct eye contact with any audience members, something I found much more suitable than other versions of soliloquies that have bordered on breaking the fourth wall.  It was refreshing, and it left me wishing that there had been another Hamlet scene or two to follow.

SaMe SeX ShAkEsPeArE was a brief taste of Hamlet (and an up-and-coming talent in Ms. Miller).  It was enough to whet the appetite for both and to leave me looking forward to what was to come.

Revisiting Huck

In several earlier posts I discussed connections between Hamlet and Huckleberry Finn.  I was able to obtain a journal article discussing further ties between the two literary giants.  (Thanks Jeff!)  The article, written by Anthony Berret, S.J., is entitled "The Influence of Hamlet on Huckleberry Finn." (See citation below.)  This week's post draws largely on Fr. Berret's article.

Previous posts on this blog (6/22/14, 6/29/14) discussed the appearance of a modified version of Hamlet's soliloquy in Chapter XXI of Huckleberry Finn.  Also discussed in additional posts were burlesques of Hamlet, both in American vaudeville (7/13/14) and in Mark Twain's own work (7/6/14).  Fr. Berret mentions several versions of Hamlet burlesques, including Twain's abortive attempt, within the current article.  (Now I have even more future library finds!)

Fr. Berret shows that the parallel between Hamlet and Huckleberry Finn is much more significant than the mere appearance of the soliloquy.  The early chapters of Huckleberry Finn are similar to the beginning of Hamlet.  Both main characters are "restless and [feel] confined by civilization."  Both are mournful, dejected, lonesome.  Huck makes references to ghosts, especially "a ghost who is trying to reveal something."  Hamlet has the same sentiments about ghosts after the spectral appearance of his father.  Fr. Berret draws a parallel between the ghost of Hamlet's father and Pap Finn, whose appearances seem ghostly.  Just as Hamlet has two fathers, one natural and one foster, so Huck has Pap and Jim.

Both Hamlet and Huck are caught in moral dilemmas.  For Hamlet, it is acting upon the death of his father.  For Huck, it is whether to return Jim to slavery.  "Probably the gravest difficulty each one faces is the conflict between obedience to felt duty and reverence for the dominant culture of his society."  Both characters react similarly, deferring final action and becoming distracted in dramatic pursuits.

These dramatic pursuits fill the middle sections of Hamlet and Huckleberry Finn.  In the former is the play-within-a-play, wherein Hamlet tries to catch the conscience of the King.  In the latter is the play performed by the king and the duke.  The "To be or not to be" soliloquy appears at this point in both works, while "would-be actors...are rehearsing their show."  As the plays unfold, we discover how "Huck resembles Hamlet in his enthusiasm for drama."

The final episodes of Hamlet and Huckleberry Finn--the duel and the Phelps farm episode, respectively-- show further similarity.  In each, an earlier character returns to precipitate action.  In the former it is Laertes; in the latter it is Tom Sawyer.  Both returning characters lead the main character into action, and the protagonist's chief task is accomplished, although not as he had planned.  Both Hamlet and Huck find that providence has played a role in leading them to that point.

As Fr. Berret summarizes, the similarities between Hamlet and Huckleberry Finn add an extra dimension to each work.

"Awareness of these parallels enriches the experience of reading the novel.  It creates comedy by contrasting the two works, and tragedy by comparing them.  It adds to the novel's identity by relating it to Shakespeare's tragedies and their American burlesques."

American Literary Realism, 1870-1910, Vol. 18, No. 1/2 (Spring--Autumn, 1985), pp. 196-207

Revisiting Gibson

A day off from work gave me a good excuse to spend the day with Hamlet.  It was a return to the first performance that I had ever seen, Franco Zeffirelli's film starring Mel Gibson.  I forget when I saw it for the first time, but it was shortly after its theatrical release (and before I had read the text).  I recall watching it on a "new release" VHS copy rented from a video store.  I guess that dates me.  This time I watched it on DVD (a somewhat less obsolete format) as one more among many versions.

I discovered soon into the film that this is not Hamlet.  Rather, it is a film based on the Shakespearean play of that name.  That it is billed as "adapted from the play" says something.  It makes little sense to compare it to a stage production, as they are completely different beasts.  A film allows the luxury of numerous lush sets, novel camera work, cuts and dissolves.  This film is terrific in those aspects.  The production is visually stunning in cinematography and costuming.  The big-name cast is top-notch.

I found the screenplay to be a mess.  This is a function of having seen many stage productions and having a sense for what goes where in the play.  The film script is heavily edited to reduce it to a running time of 135 minutes, and as a result it is incredibly disjointed from Shakespeare's original.  While I could spend much time recounting this (and the Internet probably has much of this discussion already), one egregious example occurs in the middle of the film.  It begins with the nunnery scene.  The dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia does not include the word "nunnery," and Hamlet knows all along that they are being watched.  Following the interaction, it is decided that Hamlet must go to England.

Cut to a tomb, in which Hamlet speaks the "To be or not to be" soliloquy.  It is a great setting for what Mel Gibson calls "a speech about a Catch-22," and he delivers it exceedingly well.  The speech dissolves into Hamlet on horseback and then on a shore, sunbathing.  Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for their first appearance.  There had been no introductory conversation between them and Gertrude and Claudius.  They chat with Hamlet, he states that man delights not him and the players enter.  There is no discussion between the players and Hamlet, and there is no speech about "rugged Pyrrhus."  They are off-screen quickly and Hamlet dives into the "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy with no introduction and no context.  The "Murder of Gonzago" scene likewise was rewritten.  Polonius' description of the actors' talents (tragical historical, etc.) moves there, as does the actual nunnery dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia.

Revisiting the film these many years later made for an interesting viewing experience.  More interesting at this point, though, were the two documentaries on the DVD.  Themes and questions that have surfaced in previous posts and in my own reflection on Hamlet were discussed by the cast and crew.  One such question is that of the problem of Hamlet.  As Gibson puts it, Hamlet's main problem is that no one understands him.  How is the problem solved?  There is no definite answer.  The actor just wanders in and goes crazy.  Ironically, though, Gibson calls Hamlet "the one voice of sanity throughout the play."  The character is very personal to the actor portraying him, which leaves the actor "pretty much on [his] own."  It's more than a part; it's an "assault on [the actor's] personality."

The contrast between Hamlet on stage on Hamlet on film is addressed by Mel Gibson.  As he states bluntly, "Film is not really the place for Hamlet."  To his mind, Hamlet is for the live stage.  It is a work to be redone night after night, "taking risks, getting it wrong, making it better."  While this film version is good in its own right, it made me appreciate a straightforward stage version even more.

Hamlet on the Beeb

Another acquisition from a local library was a VHS copy of the BBC production of Hamlet from 1980.  It was part of the Time-Life collection, "The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare."  Interestingly, it the same version for which I obtained the vinyl recording described in a previous post (7/21/14).

This particular production of Hamlet starred Derek Jacobi in the title role and Patrick Stewart as Claudius.  What was notable immediately was the amount of facial hair present on cast members.  Nearly every actor sported beard and mustache.  Patrick Stewart even sported a full head of hair, the first time I recall seeing him that way.  I also noticed that Hamlet and Ophelia seemed older than typical.  Jacobi was 42 years old at the time, and he looked it.

The production was a taped version of a live performance.  As such, the play is performed on a stage set.  The decoration was minimal.  Interestingly, it appeared that the rear of the stage was set on a slant in order to give the perception of depth.  Costuming was typical period with lush garments befitting a royal court.

The running time of the performance was just over three and one half hours.  Not much seemed to have been edited from Shakespeare's original.  In fact, the only shortening that was noticeable was in Hamlet's instructions to the players; Herod was not out-Heroded this time.  Other than that, it was a very full, straightforward production.  And it felt it.  By the time it was finished, I felt that I had been through a long performance.  Not much of the direction was given over to humor.  It was very traditional, satisfying and long.

Hamlet's soliloquies did display some peculiarities.  Jacobi chose to play them in part as direct conversations with the audience.  It was a bit disquieting when he was looking directly at me (or rather, the camera) while speaking.  The "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy was very emotional and loud.  Upon Ophelia's entrance at the conclusion of the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, Hamlet takes the book she was "reading" and inverts it.  Apparently she had been holding it with the text upside down, a sign that perhaps she had been spying on him.

I mention two other minor points of note.  When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were welcomed to Elsinore, they were not confused by Claudius and Gertrude as is usual.  Claudius shook hands with Rosencrantz first and Guildenstern second, and then Gertrude did the opposite.  Perhaps this was an attempt by the director to give each of them a distinct personality and not make them completely interchangeable.  When Hamlet thrice spoke the line "except my life" to Polonius, he feigned suicide with his dagger, sending Polonius from the room as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern entered.

The duel scene included both rapier and dagger.  Hamlet's first hit on Laertes was a very cheap one.  The second hit resulted from a much more extended and athletic exchange.  In a bit of turn-about, Laertes's fatal hit on Hamlet is also a cheap one, delivered as Hamlet attempts to return a dropped rapier to Laertes.  Claudius' death scene is fairly violent.  He is run through with the rapier and then forced to drink from the poisoned cup.  This is a decided contrast to the RSC production featuring Stewart as Claudius, when he drank from the cup by choice after shrugging.  (See 2/23/14 post.)

Length aside, this was a very respectful and respectable production of Hamlet.  It is one that I can say I have seen once, although I don't know if it is fit for a repeat viewing.

Coming Attractions

A trip to the Connecticut State Capitol in Hartford led to an unexpected Hamlet encounter.  At one of the building entrances was an exhibit of several costumes from previous productions of Hartford Stage.  Near the display was a poster advertising their 2014 fall season.  As luck or fate would have it, guess which play is included.  (Would I be mentioning this otherwise?)

In other developments, and because it's never too early to begin preparing, the Stratford Festival announced its 2015 season.  One of the headliners (or THE headliner, according to this blogger) is the return of Hamlet.  Information will be forthcoming on the Stratford website.  Stay tuned.

It appears that there are now two more trips on my calendar.

Approaching Hamlet

A recent trip to a local library provided another encounter with Hamlet.  The library was unloading its supply of obsolete VHS tapes in order to reclaim storage space.  The "sale" (they were free) allowed me to acquire a copy of a 1975 work entitled "Shakespeare and His Stage:  Approaches to Hamlet."

The program discusses different ways that an actor can approach the role of Hamlet.  The role, as described by narrator John Gielgud, is "the peak of every actor's ambition if he wishes to be remembered by posterity."  The memorable performances of Nicol Williamson, John Barrymore, Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud are juxtaposed against the developing performance of Stephen Tate.  In addition, the program includes numerous views of Shakespearean sites in the author's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.

Early in the program we see Stephen Tate working through the nunnery scene.  Later, we hear his voice-over of the "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy.  That is followed by Nicol Williamson's performance of the same soliloquy.  Williamson's Hamlet is described by Gielgud as "deeply internalized...a full psychological rendering."  Interestingly, Tate and Williamson's performances differ in the text that is used.  While Tate's Hamlet refers to himself as a "stallion," Williamson's is a "scullion."  This is an example of the effect that a director and a particular translation can have on the performance.

John Barrymore's Hamlet is shown during the "Now might I do it" soliloquy.  As Gielgud comments, Barrymore's performance displayed the "exaggeration of the silent screen" (or is that silent scream?), although the clip that we are shown is a screen test that does include the audio.

The greatest degree of comparison is reserved for the greatest soliloquy.  We see Tate working on the "To be or not to be" soliloquy with his director.  We can forgive him for flubbing the words as he is still learning the part.  That scene is followed by a fully realized voice-over of Tate's performance.  Next, John Gielgud delivers a straightforward stage reading of the speech.  Finally, Laurence Olivier's film version of the soliloquy is shown, complete with shots of our protagonist atop a height watching waves crashing into rocks.  The point is not to decide which is better, but rather to show how Shakespeare's words can lend themselves to various approaches.

At the conclusion of the program, John Gielgud describes the role of any actor, not just one stepping into the role of Hamlet.  Acting represents a "gesture of sacrifice."  The actor's job is to create another life before the audience, and that creation requires the sacrifice of the actor to the character.  The program shows us four gentlemen who have made that sacrifice memorable, with a newcomer to the ranks hoping to join them.

Hamlet the Shadow King

Hamlet made a recent appearance at a local cinema.  This time, he was a character in a production of Kill Shakespeare, based on the graphic novel by Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery.  The performance, hosted by the Little Theatre, was a dramatic reading of the script while slides depicting illustrations from the graphic novel were displayed on the screen behind the actors.  The production was presented by DVC, the group responsible for the Shakespeare-apalooza-rama! performance described previously (see 3/16/14 post).

The story involves numerous Shakespearean characters attempting to kill--or to save--the playwright responsible for their existence.  In terms of specifics, though, I must admit that I found the plot to be rather muddled.  This was undoubtedly a result of editing a large graphic novel series into a ninety-minute stage production.  As Mr. McCreery discussed after the performance, the story arc that comprises it fills twelve issues of the graphic novel series, so significant editing was necessary to fit the performance into a reasonable time frame.

Hamlet is the "Shadow King," the leader of the group that saves Shakespeare.  The young man we see in this production is similar to the tragic hero with whom we are familiar.  The death of his father and remarriage of his mother are part of the initial back story.  He is bothered by visions and ghostly visitations.  He is privy to the performance of a play entitled "The Murder of Gonzago."  In this work, however, Hamlet's romantic interest is Juliet.  (Romeo does appear, but his involvement with Juliet was not entirely clear.)

Following the performance, Conor McCreery was available to speak with the audience and to answer questions about his work. Kill Shakespeare contains numerous allusions to Shakespeare's original works.  Mr. McCreery stated that this was done deliberately, but he and his co-author avoided turning their work into a game of "Spot the Reference."  While transforming the novel into a stage production, many familiar lines and allusions were kept for benefit of the audience.

During the talkback, Mr. McCreery gave a comparison of Hamlet in the character's original setting and Hamlet in modern time.  He opined that Hamlet's Wittenberg would be equivalent to UC-Berkeley now, and Hamlet probably would be a liberal arts major.  One audience member asked the author if he thought the Bard would enjoy the work.  The response was an emphatic "Yes!"

Seeing Kill Shakespeare performed on stage enticed me to look for the graphic novels for a future read.  Based on Mr. McCreery's advice, though, I will wait.  The entire twelve-issue story arc is due to be released in October, 2014, as a hardcover Backstage Edition with annotations from Shakespearean scholars.  I'll look forward to adding it to my Hamlet collection.

A Hamlet Request

While looking through old greeting cards, I came across a thank you note from nearly two decades ago.  It jogged my memory of a long-forgotten interaction and another occasion when Hamlet made a random appearance in my daily existence.

Working in a high school leads to many interesting questions, often from students.  Occasionally, though, these questions come from unlikely sources.  Such was the case in early January, 1997.  A gentlemen ventured into the school building looking for someone who could help him with a favor.  He needed a Latin translation of a line from Hamlet, but his own Latin skills were rusty.  Specifically, it was one of Polonius' parting wishes to Laertes:  "To thine own self be true."  I didn't know the answer, but I knew whom to ask.  I got the answer from one of our classics teachers and forwarded it to the gentleman.  I still remember the loose Latin translation:  "Sta temetipso," which translates to "Stand on your own."  Later a thank you note arrived at school from the visitor.  He was grateful for the response.  As he put it, "[this] was important to me at my stage in existence."

Nearly twenty years later, the brief interaction is yet one more example of the impact of Shakespeare's work.  For the visitor as for so many others, Hamlet holds a significant place.  It was important enough to this gentleman that he sought out a translation. And it is important enough to this blogger that it's been over one year since my first post...and still going strong.

Hamlet at the Plantations

A trip to Ithaca provided another occasion to see Hamlet.  This time, it was the Ithaca Shakespeare Company's presentation at the Cornell Plantations.  The stage was set deep in the woods, nestled among the trees, far from modern annoyances (and modern lighting).  It was a picturesque location.  Unfortunately, that was one of the few positives of the evening.

The stage set was very rudimentary, with multiple levels and an area beneath the stage floor to serve as Ophelia's grave.  (Amusingly, she stayed there during the duel and popped out for the curtain call.)  The painting of the set was reminiscent of a high school musical, though.  Furniture was minimal; in fact, the chamber scene between Hamlet and Gertrude had none at all.  The costumes were Medieval period, aside from modern footwear and (sometimes wrinkled) chinos.  Claudius spent the evening not in a crown but rather in a jeweled headband, which reminded me of Wonder Woman's head-wear.  The Ghost wore white make-up to give the appearance of a pale complexion.  When he removed his helmet, however, some of the make-up went with it, leaving his natural skin tone apparent.

The acting was emotive and overdone.  I did not find any of the actors believable in the roles.  The dialogue was stiff and unnatural, and the bulk of the lines were delivered while yelling.  Undoubtedly this was an attempt to project due to the lack of external amplification, but it removed a sense of natural conversation among the actors.  Hamlet was a combination of Jim Parsons' Dr. Sheldon Cooper (from TV's The Big Bang Theory) and Jim Carrey's Ace Ventura with overactive salivary glands.  The attempt to portray Hamlet's insanity was far beyond the pale.  By the end of the play I was waiting for the duel so that the rest would be silence.  The best acted parts were those of Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, although the latter two actors spent much of their non-speaking scenes upstage whispering between themselves.  It may have been an attempt to play up the conniving, spying aspect of their characters, but it became annoying.  Their entrance to the play was marked by coin flipping, an inside reference to Tom Stoppard's play, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.

The script was edited to fit in a running time of approximately 2.5 hours, a function of the decreasing amount of sunlight and the lack of artificial lighting.  While this is a typical length, the editing was atypically sloppy.  Gone were Polonius' instructions regarding spying on Laertes, "outward limbs and flourishes,"  beautified being a "vile phrase," most of Hamlet's instructions to the players, the dumb show, references to "herb of grace o' Sundays," the gallows maker and bungholes.  For all that was excised, however, the role of Fortinbras was left in the play.  As a result, the "How all occasions" soliloquy, the one most easily removed, remained.  It added nothing to the action and only made the play drag.

One major change was the movement of the "To be or not to be" soliloquy.  The director justified this in the playbill, writing that the speech "doesn't grow out of any specific dramatic circumstances in the play" and is a "movable set piece."  Hamlet thrice delivered the line "except my life" to Polonius and then, while supine on the stage, delivered the "To be" soliloquy.  It ended with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern entering to tell Hamlet about the arrival of the players.  The "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy followed.  The action moved to Claudius, Gertrude, et al, discussing the players.  Ophelia was left alone on stage, Hamlet entered and the play moved into the nunnery scene.  For such a "movable set piece," the flow of action in this section of the play was largely disrupted.

The eventual arrival of the duel scene signaled that the evening was drawing to a close.  The role of Osric was not at all the fey, effeminate portrayal that is typical, and there was no discussion of the warmth of the castle or his hat.  In fact, he wore no hat at all.  The duel involved both rapier and dagger.  In a new twist, Laertes' dagger was the instrument envenomed.  Oddly, it was that weapon that fatally wounded Hamlet, Laertes and Claudius.  Hamlet's death was awkward, but all things considered, that was neither unsurprising nor unwelcome.  As one last example of the sloppy editing, the play ended seemingly mid-line.  Fortinbras commented that the sight of bodies "shows much amiss," and then the cast members still standing took a bow.  Did the actor forget the concluding line "Go, bid the soldiers shoot." or was its omission a directorial decision?

While I was awaiting the start of the play, I overheard a discussion between two audience members.  One asked what the story of Hamlet is about, and the other commented that she had never read it.  It is a shame that their first exposure to Shakespeare's masterpiece was this rather ham-handed attempt.  Hopefully they have a future opportunity to see it done much more respectably.

Hamlet in Louisville

What better setting for Shakespeare's tragic masterpiece than Louisville's Central Park?  A multilevel amphitheater stage surrounded by trees, the sound of crickets, a relatively overcast and cool evening with occasional mist and slight rain--it was perfect for settling back into a wooden Adirondack chair for two and one half hours of Hamlet.  The production was presented by Kentucky Shakespeare, the oldest FREE Shakespeare festival in the country.

This production was set in the Elizabethan Age, with traditional period costumes.  Polonius sported a neck ruffle, while Claudius spent the entire play in what could have been a well-worn bathrobe.  The stage was minimally decorated, but its levels and niches worked extremely well.  As it turned out, the height of the upper levels was a huge benefit.  The chamber scene was performed on one of these upper levels.  It was at that point of the evening that the rain, while not heavy by any stretch, became too much for an obnoxious couple several rows ahead.  They opened their umbrella, thereby obstructing the view of numerous patrons behind them.  One patron even mentioned this to the couple, who ignored him and continued to obstruct the view.  Eventually the mist stopped and they put the umbrella away, restoring some sense of normalcy to the evening.

The script was edited very adeptly.  The intermission followed the "Madness in great ones" line, and action resumed with Hamlet's instructions to the players.  There was no mention of Norway.  This condensed the play into a story of Hamlet and family and removed parallels with young Fortinbras.  Because of this, the "How all occasions" soliloquy was removed.  The play flowed very well and the action kept moving and seemed relevant.  While poor editing can leave the play lacking, that was not the case here.

Some comments on casting...  The actors did an excellent job with their roles.  Of note was the role of Polonius.  He was neither overly foppish nor overly meddling.  In a witty reference to the evening's weather, he looked up at a gloomy sky as Hamlet commented about Ophelia not walking in the sun.  There were no age issues as occur sometimes; Hamlet, Ophelia and Laertes all fit.  Two obvious variations were the casting of an African-American actor as the Ghost and a female in the role of Rosencrantz.

As to the performance itself...  Hamlet's first soliloquy began with a comment about his "sullied" flesh, not "solid."  The "rogue and peasant" soliloquy was very well delivered; although audience laughter and applause felt out of place, it was a sign that the speech resonated with them.  The "To be" soliloquy seemed shortened, or it just flowed very well into the next scene.  The "witching time of night" soliloquy fit perfectly with the weather--dark and cool with a misty rain that had just begun and what could have been bats flying overhead.

The interactions with the players had some novelties.  As the "Rugged Pyrrhus" speech was delivered by the first player, other members of the troupe mimed the action to fit the words.  Before The Mousetrap, Hamlet's full instructions were left in the acting script.  The dumb show was left in the script as well.  Oddly, Hamlet did not sit with Ophelia during the play-within-a-play; instead he roamed the stage while delivering his commentaries.

As Claudius and Laertes were discussing the murder plot, Hamlet's letters arrived.  I noted that the references to "High and Mighty" and being "set naked" were omitted.  Subsequently in a very subtle and clever edition, Claudius begins to describe preparing a chalice and stops abruptly as Gertrude enters.  This added a bit of mystery to the duel.  What did he mean by preparing a chalice?  What did he do to it?  The audience is left to wonder.

The graveyard discussion between the gravediggers was shortened; the reference to the gallows was dropped.  Additionally, Hamlet's comments on bungholes were removed.  In lieu of a funeral cortege, Laertes carried Ophelia to the grave and placed her in the ground.  The discussion between Hamlet and Horatio regarding the fates of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern was shortened cleverly--the audience entered in medias res as the characters walked from offstage already in conversation.  The exchange with Osric was rather tepid and uninteresting.  (Why were two maids mopping the stage with modern mops during the interchange?)

The duel scene was well choreographed.  Hamlet and Laertes used both rapier and dagger in the fight.  The stabbing of Laertes was excessive and violent, not the usual quick exchange.  With Fortinbras out of the picture, the evening's action ended as the stage lights faded to black on "rest."

As I was heading back to my car to leave, I happened to be behind a pair of young gentlemen discussing what they had just seen.  One commented on what a great story Hamlet is.  I would agree wholeheartedly.  It also was great to see Hamlet affecting another generation of playgoers.  That's what a great play and a great production can do, and this one was no exception.  It was exceedingly well done-- a terrific reason to spend a free evening in the woods.

Hamlet on Vinyl

A local library was unloading some old vinyl recently.  The shopping excursion became yet another Hamlet experience.  Among the acquisitions was a promotional album for Derek Jacobi's BBC performance from 1980.  The single disc has a Behind-the-Scenes listen on Side A and a few excerpts on Side B.

Side A features several actors and the director discussing various aspects of the play.  Derek Jacobi, who played Hamlet, described his role as that of a "Man with a capital M."  For him, Hamlet is a man of spontaneous action who cannot commit the non-spontaneous killing of Claudius.  Later on Side A, we hear Jacobi performing the "To be or not to be" soliloquy.

The director, Rodney Bennett, describes Hamlet as a "God and Thunder" revenge play.  It was Shakespeare, he states, who added the character of Hamlet to extant sources.  The play for Bennett is not about Hamlet's delay.  If that were its sole focus, it would be a "dull play."  Rather, he sees Hamlet as a man of action, a dangerous man who could do it at any moment.  For him, Hamlet, the play, is a thriller.

Patrick Stewart portrays Claudius in this production.  That interested me immediately as I had already seen the RSC production in which he played that role.  (See 2/23/14 post.)  He speaks on this album of playing Claudius as a loving man:  one who loves his people, his queen and his stepson.  It is not until the nunnery scene when Claudius begins to suspect that there could be issues with Hamlet.  As Stewart quotes Shakespeare, "There's something in his soul/oe'r which his melancholy sits on brood...."

Rodney Bennett concludes the brief discussion with his opinion of why Hamlet has remained so popular.  It "asks a lot of questions and doesn't answer very many of them."  It is up to the audience, the scholars, the actors to answer them.

After listening to the album, I did some research and discovered that this version is commercially available on video.  It has been added to the blogger's ever-growing "to do" list.  Aside from the obvious draw--it's Hamlet--it will be interesting to compare Patrick Stewart's portrayal of Claudius in this production with that of the RSC production.  "If it be not now, yet it will come."

Vaudeville Hamlet

The appearance of Hamlet in Huck Finn got me looking for other appearances of Hamlet in American vaudeville.  One resource that I found was Ray B. Browne's 1960 article entitled "Shakespeare in American Vaudeville and Negro Minstrelsy" from American Quarterly (Vol 12, Fall, pp. 374-391).  In it, the author cites numerous examples of Hamlet being adapted for the "popular" stage.

• "Hamlet":  a five-stanza straight-faced account of the play
• "Hamlet Travestie" a.k.a. "Zouave Johnny's History of Denmark":  in which Hamlet's "mamma" kills his father with poison
• Dan "Jim Crow" Rice's blood-curdling account of the play
• "Hamlet's Lament":  sung to the tune "Wearing of the Green"
• "Hamlet" a.k.a. "N--'s Description of Shakespeare--Hamlet":  to fit the minstrel song "Jim Crow"

Browne describes two additional productions of Hamlet on the vaudeville stage.  The first is Hamlet the Dainty.  While the plot follows closely Shakespeare's original, the cause of the tragedy is whiskey.  Hamlet's father is killed with whiskey in the mouth at Claudius' hand.  Laertes is an alcoholic, and Gertrude dies from an alcohol overdose.  Another version, Ham(om)let, Prince of Dunkirk, has considerable contemporary flavor.  Polonius, a Prohibitionist, is not mourned.  The Ghost is found working in a sulfur factory.  The skull unearthed by the gravediggers is that of temperance crusader Carrie Nation.  "Alas!  Poor Carrie!  I knew her, Horatio."  The play concludes with the "usual number of corpses" and with an angelic Ophelia grinding a contemporary tune on a hand organ.

As we have seen, one of the beauties of Hamlet is its adaptability to different settings.  American vaudeville provides us yet more examples of this flexibility.

Hamlet as Burlesque

In an endnote to the Mark Twain Library edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I came upon a reference to a "fragmentary Hamlet travesty" that Mark Twain attempted in 1881.  The text of this unfinished work is found in Mark Twain's Satires & Burlesques (S&B).  Entitled Burlesque Hamlet, it runs roughly 37 pages in length and covers the action through the beginning of Act II, Scene ii of Hamlet.

Notes in the University of California Press edition of S&B attempt to explain the origins of the Burlesque.  Twain's concept was to add a new character to the play.  It was a notion given to starts and stops in the author, a notion that remained ultimately an unfinished product. The new character, named Basil Stockmar, purports to be Hamlet's foster-brother.  He is a book salesman, visiting Elsinore with the intent of selling subscriptions to one of his latest pieces.  He appears in the action of the play, but he does not interact directly with the characters.  Given to occasional asides and monologues, Basil's part in the play is entirely accidental.  Twain intended not to manipulate Shakespeare's original text, only to throw anachronism into the mix.  His primary gag in the existing Burlesque is to have Basil state that in a drunken revel he has swallowed a spool of thread and then to recite his lines while pulling "a couple of hundred yards" of thread from his mouth.

The Burlesque is an interesting idea, but one the results of which readers are left largely to imagine for themselves.  The bulk of the existing fragment of the work is mostly Shakespeare and little Twain.  It appears that Twain grew tired of the work and stopped just as Hamlet has called Polonius a fishmonger and declared conception to be a blessing.  It is for us to consider how Basil might have affected the remainder of Hamlet and how his presence could have injected humor into the tragedy.

Within the editor's introduction to Burlesque Hamlet there is a reference to another such work.  Joseph T. Goodman, a contemporary of Twain, wrote his own treatment of Hamlet and sent it to Twain.  As the editor notes, "Hamlet's Brother was packaged and filed away among Twain's papers, where it still rests today, untouched anywhere by Twain's revising hand."  Perhaps someday a trip to Berkeley, California, may shed light on what exactly is there.

The Huck Finn Soliloquy

Following last week's post is a further discussion of the Hamlet Soliloquy in Huck Finn.  The passage was the subject of a 1969 article by E. Bruce Kirkham in the Mark Twain Journal ("Huck and Hamlet:  An Examination of Twain's Use of Shakespeare."  Vol. 14, Summer, pp. 17-19).  Prof. Kirkham begins with an analysis of the soliloquy, comparing each line to the original Shakespearean texts (Hamlet, Macbeth and Richard III).  He continues with a discussion of variations between them, explaining why it might be that these differences occur.  He believes that Twain was purposeful in his selection of source lines and in the changes that he made.  He presents Twain's passage in translated modern English, read as an "original composition."

Prof. Kirkham's thesis is that the soliloquy parallels a thread running through Huck Finn.  Each of the sources within the soliloquy embodies themes of action and inaction.  We have seen this previously in Hamlet.  Its protagonist knows what he must do, but he fails to act.  Huck has the same issue in Twain's book.  He debates the morality of helping Jim to escape.  "Society tells [him] he should not; humanity tells him he should."  Upon hearing the soliloquy, which urges "action at all costs in all situations," and seeing Jim returned to slavery, Huck decides that it is time to act.

As Prof. Kirkham concludes, the soliloquy serves as more than mere comic relief.  It "serves to point up an important theme in the story."

Hamlet and Huck Finn

Where best to find references to Shakespeare's masterpiece than in Mark Twain's masterpiece?  In revisiting the latter's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I ran into the former's Hamlet.  I don't know whether my subconscious remembered this confluence of literary icons from a previous reading of Huck Finn decades ago, but there it was, front and center in Chapter 21.

In lieu of retyping the relevant passage, I found the following breakdown on the Internet at http://jmohsen.weebly.com/shakespearean-allusions-in-huck-finn.html.  It was so well arranged that I copied it below.  The website includes further dissection of the soliloquy, including the original citations from each of the three Shakespearean works quoted.

Allusion in the Hamlet Soliloquy in Huck Finn

In Huck Finn, the King performs a creative version of Hamlet’s soliloquy, with allusions to three of Shakespeare’s play.  Below is the actual breakdown of the allusions, with a color code to understand the original text behind each allusion.

Key 
Hamlet’s Soliloquy

Other Hamlet
Macbeth
Richard III

Soliloquy
To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would fardels bear, till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,
But that the fear of something after death
Murders the innocent sleep,
Great nature's second course,
And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune
Than fly to others that we know not of.
There's the respect must give us pause:
Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The law's delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take,
In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards yawn
In customary suits of solemn black,
But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns,
Breathes forth contagion on the world,
And thus the native hue of resolution, like the poor cat i' the adage,
Is sicklied o'er with care,
And all the clouds that lowered o'er our housetops,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.
'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery- go!

created by Yvonne Hangsterfer and Jerome Mohsen (c) 2012