The RSC Does Hamlet

A snowy winter day provided the perfect opportunity to spend some time with Hamlet.  This time, it was the 2009 film adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC) production.  The film appeared on PBS in 2010 as part of their Great Performances series, which was when I recorded it originally.  It is available on DVD and Blu-Ray as well.

Although this is an adaptation of a stage production, it does not suffer from the claustrophobia of the Tony Richardson version (see 7/28/13 post).  This is a fully-realized film version that retains some of the trademarks of its precursor.  Elsinore is a showpiece of modern-day hyper-surveillance, with closed circuit cameras and two-way mirrors.  (Mirrors feature heavily in this production.)  Seemingly everyone is both spying and being spied upon.

The modern updating of the play is apparent in the set, with its ubiquitous cameras.  The costuming is smart business suits and formal wear, with occasional blue jeans, leather jackets and even a T-shirt exaggerating well-developed abs.  Surprisingly, the gravedigger shoveled earth while attired in suit and hat.  In another update and in similar fashion to the University of Rochester production (see 10/14/13 and 10/20/13 posts), Ophelia finds condoms in Laertes' luggage as he heads off to France.  The arrival of the players to Elsinore is signaled by an auto horn, and Fortinbras' troops travel through Denmark by way of helicopters.

David Tennant is excellent as Hamlet.  I will admit that I thought his first soliloquy was a bit on the emotive side, but it did not become an issue as the play progressed.  In fact, I found his portrayal to be quite believable and well done.  Oliver Ford Davies as Polonius is also noteworthy.  He was sympathetic as a sometimes doddering old man with an underhanded side, and he even elicited several laughs during the course of his scenes.  Patrick Stewart, very good as Claudius, also plays the Ghost, an interesting double.  In one odd change, the role of Cornelius becomes Cornelia, perhaps in order to introduce more of a female presence.  The players, though, remain all male.

The production runs to approximately three hours.  For the most part, edits to the original text were not glaring, although with the play's length it is difficult at times to remember the order in which everything occurs.  A mention of "our philosophy" appears, as it did in the Hamlet Live production (see 8/25/13 post).  The dumb-show is retained, and it is gloriously bawdy.  In Act IV, though, obvious changes were made.  The "How all occasions" soliloquy is grossly shortened, and it is moved to just before Claudius and Laertes plot Hamlet's death.  This change stood out as an obvious alteration.  Also, all mention of pirates is removed from the play.  There is no discussion of Hamlet's letters home, and Fortinbras does not appear at the end.

There are numerous novelties to this production that make it memorable.  The altercation between Claudius and Hamlet at the conclusion of the play within a play is noteworthy.  As discussed by W.W. Greg (see 11/11/13 post), perhaps the reason that Claudius arises is not so much due to the content of the play as that he finds Hamlet's behavior to be offensive.  In this production, this line of reasoning seems to be apt.  The dumb-show piques Claudius, but it does not bring him to the level of outrage.  Nor does the continuance of the scene seem to be enough to break him.  Rather, Hamlet's persistent commentary and jibes finally evoke a response.  Claudius approaches Hamlet, and the unspoken communication between them speaks volumes.  Each knows what the other knows and has done.

One rather annoying item was Polonius' tendency to address asides directly to the camera, seemingly breaking the fourth wall.  Instead of an arras, Claudius and Polonius conceal themselves behind a two-way mirror, as does Polonius when he hides in Gertrude's chamber.  The death of Polonius occurs by gunshot, leaving a cracked mirror in its wake.  Hamlet's "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy deserves special mention.  Tired of being watched, he climbs up to destroy a closed-circuit camera.  Throwing it in pieces to the floor, he remarks "Now I am alone."  It adds an extra dimension to that speech.

The climactic sword fight is retained as a fencing duel.  The first palpable hit and second touch occur rather quickly.  At the point that Gertrude drinks, her facial expression when beckoned by Claudius to refrain gives the audience pause.  Does she know?  And when Claudius' treachery is exposed, the resolution is unique.  Instead of being run through by Hamlet's sword, Claudius grabs the envenomed sword point, thereby cutting himself.  Suicide?  Subsequently, as he is forced to drink the poisoned chalice at sword point, he shrugs and drinks.  Patrick Stewart stated that he inserted this gesture into all of his performances, but he refuses to explain his motivation.  That, he states, is for the audience to interpret.  The play ends with "The rest is silence."  Is Hamlet looking forward to oblivion or to Heaven?  This is another question left for the audience to ponder as the set fades to black.

Overall, this is a very good production of Hamlet.  It manages to give homage both to Shakespeare's original and the RSC stage production while bringing new dimensions to the work.  It is a worthwhile addition to the Hamlet canon.

Wilson on Hamlet

The book What Happens in Hamlet by J. Dover Wilson was recommended to me as a future read.  While the book itself has joined a rather lengthy "to do" list, an excerpt from it appears in Hamlet:  Enter Critic (see 7/29/13 post).  That allowed me to get a taste and to move the parent work a bit further up among future reads.

The excerpt discusses the deteriorating relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia.  Specifically, it deals with the puzzle of Hamlet's language toward her in the "nunnery" scene (III, i).  Why should Hamlet subject her to such "inexcusable" treatment?  The answer, Wilson posits, is simple.  Hamlet must have overheard Polonius' previous comment to Claudius:  "At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him" (II, ii).  Wilson describes how a simple stage direction might include Hamlet entering in time to hear the lines before he is noticed and engages in conversation with Polonius.

Making this assumption, Wilson continues, eases the general working of the plot.  It becomes the "mainspring" of acts 2 and 3.  It adds intelligibility to the nunnery scene.  Also, it adds "fresh light and shade" to the play scene.

If this is the case, then what might be the reason for Hamlet's appearance and conduct in his earlier interview with Ophelia (II, i)?  When last we left him, he was hearing from the ghost of his father and vowing to put an "antic disposition" on.  Wilson believes, though, that Hamlet's conduct towards Ophelia at this stage is not part of that guise.  He ascribes it to some sort of "terrible dream or overpowering delirium" resulting from Hamlet's melancholia and his recent visit with the ghost.  We see that his mental instability has grown more intense since that previous scene.  He seeks Ophelia for consolation, gets nothing and realizes that their relationship is over.  Once Hamlet overhears Polonius' scheme in a subsequent scene, he is "consumed with savage anger" and decides to use Ophelia as the cause of his "antic disposition" to fool Polonius.

It is an interesting and sensible hypothesis and one that will now be an item to consider whenever the opportunity to see a performance of Hamlet arises.

Stoppard, Hoffman & Hamlet

The recent passing of fellow Upstate New Yorker Philip Seymour Hoffman led me to IMDb to look over his body of work.  Lo and behold, the filmography included something entitled The Fifteen Minute Hamlet.  Written by Tom Stoppard, it depicts Shakespeare's attempt to film his masterwork on one quarter-hour reel of film.  After a poor response to the initial viewing, he edits it further.  What results in each case is a very compact and sometimes humorous version of Shakespeare's longest play.

The beautified Internet, specifically YouTube, has the version starring Mr. Hoffman as Bernardo and Horatio and Laertes.  Divided into two clips, both are posted below for your viewing enjoyment.

The circumstances that led to this post bring added poignancy to two particular lines of the tragedy.  As Hamlet speaks the line "There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow," Mr. Hoffman as Laertes can be seen in the background.  Later, as Horatio, Mr. Hoffman provides his own epitaph:  "Good night sweet prince, and flight of angels sing thee to thy rest."

Stay, Illusion!

One of 2013's Christmas presents, courtesy of my brother, was a new book on Hamlet, entitled Stay Illusion!  The Hamlet Doctrine by Simon Critchley and Jamieson Webster.  It is a book written by self-described "outsiders to Shakespearean criticism" who use other outsider interpretations of Hamlet as the means to discuss the play.  As a fellow outsider to the field, it seemed only natural to dig in (with the secondary goal of having something to share with those who might find this post).

Different critics each are given a portion of the discussion in this work.  Carl Schmitt leads off, and his theory that Hamlet is a mask for James I of England is an interesting idea.  Other interpreters include Walter Benjamin, Hegel, Freud, Lacan, Nietzsche and even Herman Melville and James Joyce.  Melville, one of the book's "secret heroes," appears as the author of the book Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, in which Hamlet figures.  Joyce's contribution to the discussion is Ulysses, a "rumination on Hamlet from beginning to end...."

This is a sometimes heavy but rather enlightening and different look at Hamlet.  I will admit that there were portions that required multiple readings even to begin to grasp.  The book is steeped in psychoanalysis, an area with which I am not exceedingly familiar.  I was taken particularly with discussions of Freud's work, "Mourning and Melancholia."  Its content resonated far beyond the scope of Hamlet.  One of Hamlet's oft-described problems, his emotional state, could have been a by-product of his self-consciousness, which "gives us extraordinary insight into ourselves" but leads to numerous problematic offshoots, including melancholy.

Love and nothingness play roles in the discussion as well.  The play begins with a literal nothing--a ghost-- and ends with silence.  Love and its abnegation figure repeatedly.  Love can breed doubt.  As Freud is quoted, "A man who doubts his own love may, or rather must, doubt every lesser thing."  Is this why Hamlet begins to doubt the sincerity of the ghost?  And his own ability to act?

One of my previous posts (12/3/13) was about Mueller's work Hamletmachine.  It makes an appearance late in Stay Illusion!  While the book recounts portions of Mueller's play, it does not make it any less confusing.  Perhaps some future clarification will present itself.

The authors' conclusion could easily be a summary of this entire blog venture.  (Replace the word "book" with the word "blog" in reading the quote.)  I reproduce it here not to take it for my own, but to share words that I found particularly relevant.  Hopefully they may fit some visitors to this blog.

"We are but inauthentic amateurs, like some of those we have undertaken to work with in this book....  [This] is essentially a book about nothing, for the love of nothing, for the nothing of love, for the love of Hamlet."