A Macbeth Chat

If the Stratford Festival had nothing more than world-class productions, it would be well worth a trip.  The multitude of additional programming is a tremendous asset.  I knew when scheduling my trip that there would be a "Free Forum," but I had no idea who would be featured.  As luck (or fate) would have it, the conversation on the morning after Macbeth was with Ian Lake and Krystin Pellerin, the stars of the show.  I was there, notepad at the ready, to record some of their thoughts.

The actors were asked how they prepared for their roles.  Ms. Pellerin said that the role had been in her psyche since the audition.  She added that the two roles are a pair and that they evolve together.  Mr. Lake stated that he loves to do research before a role.  He stopped short of traveling to Scotland based on advice of his grandfather ("William Shakespeare didn't go to Scotland.  Why should you?").  He did read the play to prepare, especially important because the director, Antoni Cimolino, stresses the text in his productions.  Lake asked himself, "Where am I inside of this?  Where is the capacity for murder, greatness?"  Difficult questions, methinks, for a difficult role.

When asked about the difficulty of Shakespearean language, Mr. Lake commented that he would like to do the role again ten years later to see where he is with it.  (I, for one, would love to see it!)  He continued that the language is unique in this play.  He likened it to a flood of words, "vomited out."  The one time he is able to slow down and to think clearly about his actions, Lady Macbeth enters and pushes him forward.  Speaking of Lady Macbeth, her character hits the ground at full speed.  We (and she) are thrown in directly and have little chance to breathe.

What about the intimacy of small theatres?  Both actors like it.  Ms. Pellerin commented on the thrill of hearing an audience listening to their words.  Mr. Lake related two stories.  In a previous role, he threw a knife (a prop, I hope) inadvertently into the audience, leading to mixed reactions from the guests.  In his current role, he has noted that, while speaking of a tale "told by an idiot, full of sound and fury" he has heard the speech finished in whispers from the audience.  It reminded me of the "To be or not to be" speech from Hamlet.

Ms. Pellerin was asked about recovering from performances of Lady Macbeth.  There is a large space of time within the play when her character is not on stage.  What does she do?  She replied that she rests.  The role is a demanding one, and she commented that it is important to warm down, especially after the play is finished.  Anyone who has seen her performance can understand such comments.

Mr. Lake was asked why Macbeth shuts out his wife after Banquo's murder?  He replied that it is not a choice.  Macbeth doesn't plan it.  He believes that shame is a large part.  Macbeth is ashamed of his actions, and he doesn't want her to suffer as he does.  Excluding her is a sign of his care for and love of her.  Ultimately, this is a play about the pursuit of happiness...an interesting thought about a play so violent and emotionally draining.

Both actors were asked about the admirable qualities in their characters.  Mr. Lake began, stating that it is not an actor's job to judge a character's actions.  The job is to find humanity, regardless.  In the case of Macbeth, the actor must accept the character's villainy.  He journeys from hero to villain through a series of bad choices, but he keeps going.  His final battle against Macduff is his opportunity to fight with honor one more time.  Ms. Pellerin called her character strong, brave, and honest.  As an actress, she finds it satisfying to flesh out Lady Macbeth's weaknesses.  The character dashes the idea of human perfection.  With both characters we are able to understand more about the layers of humanity.

The discussion ended on a light note, with a question about the actors' feelings on cell phones in the audience.  Mr. Lake related a story about an occurrence during Macbeth.  A cell phone rang during Macbeth's speech at the end of Act II, Scene 1.  It fit too perfectly for him not to enjoy it and to use it to advantage.

I go, and it is done.  The bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

In a different production, though, Mr. Lake had to break character in the middle of a speech to ask an audience member to shut off the vibration of a call.  It is truly a shame that such instances even occur and that people cannot be apart from their devices for any sustained length of time.  Ms. Pellerin added comments about candy wrappers to the discussion.  The worst is the person who thinks that opening the candy slowly will make it less of an intrusion.  Again, why cannot audience members sit for a play without food or drink in hand?  Whatever happened to respect and decency?

Many thanks to the Stratford Festival for including so much additional programming to a season.  A long-time festival goer in the audience commented to me prior to the forum that she was surprised at the light attendance.  The forums are not really a secret, and they are certainly worth the time!

P.S.  What else did we learn from the Forum?  In addition to his acting work, Ian Lake is a recording artist with a track on iTunes, entitled "This Isn't My Day."  Check it out.  It's very good!

Scottish Spectacle

This year's trip to the Stratford Festival began with an anticipated Bucket List entry:  Seeing Macbeth live on stage.  With such a build-up, would I be disappointed?  Not at all!  In fact, this rates as one of the best stage shows of any kind that I have seen.

I decided to move down from the Festival Theatre balcony this year to take a seat in the orchestra.  It was perfect--comfortable with excellent sight lines.  Having a seat immediately adjacent to one of the voms gave a sense of being right in the middle of the action.  I know where to look for a seat on my next visit.

The play was set in traditional eleventh-century Scotland.  The set was compact and well-proportioned.  It was designed as a forest, but not so much that it became difficult to imagine a castle when necessary.  Trees, torches, upper and lower chambers--for such a small stage, dare I say it was lavish?  The sisters' cauldron was placed over the opening in the stage so that items could be raised up from beneath to simulate levitation.  Set changes occurred almost instantly in some cases.  As Macbeth's henchmen attacked and killed Banquo and chased Fleance into the forest, there was a cut to black.  The lights came up and suddenly the stage was a banquet hall with table and benches.  Kudos to the stage hands who made this transition perfectly seamless!

The acting in this production was phenomenal.  Ian Lake as Macbeth and Krystin Pellerin as Lady Macbeth were particularly noteworthy.  They fit the roles, and the roles fit them.  Lady Macbeth was psychotic from the outset, giving the audience little time to prepare.  It made me wonder, as an aside, what her backstory must be.  What happened to Lady Macbeth in her life before the play that turned her into such a character?  Macbeth evolved from a likable hero to a loathsome villain, and Mr. Lake made it believable throughout.  We were unable to see the dagger that leads him to murder, unable to get into his head to understand.  At the dinner banquet, though, Banquo's ghost was visible to us, welcoming us into Macbeth's ever-deepening mental instability.

The three weird sisters were terrifically creepy.  Their costuming, manner of speech, and a set of contact lenses made them literally chill-inducing.  Their final appearance in the play (no spoiler here) was one that will stay with me for a long time.

The only criticism that I could levy is one of volume.  While most of the dialogue was perfectly audible, some of Banquo's lines disappeared into the ether.  I was only four rows back from the stage; I wonder how the lines sounded in the balcony.

The play moved at a brisk pace.  It never felt long, and the 150 minute running time flew by.  I wonder how the actors recover from such a quick and moving production.  It took this audience member many minutes, and I was only watching!  To all involved in this production, I can give only one word.  Bravo!

Before He Was Shakespeare...

...he was Bill.  That is the premise of a new historical fiction (stress on the latter) movie, less about Hamlet than about its author.  The film was on the big screen courtesy of Fathom Events, and it is available (as of this typing) on cable as an on-demand offering.  Its DVD release is planned for later this spring.

Caution:  Some spoilers lie ahead.

We are taken back in time to Elizabethan England.  The island is under siege from King Phil-lip II, the King of Spain.  His armada having failed due to the vagaries of weather, he is looking for other ways to overtake England and to return it to the Catholics.  The King captures an Elizabethan spy, and soon a conference between the two powers to discuss the spy's return is to take place.  How best to use the meeting to remove the Queen?  Philip decides that a play's the thing.

This is where our hero, Bill, comes in.  Ousted from the band, Mortal Coil, due to his unpopular single-string lute soloing, he tries his hand at writing.  His attempt at musical comedy falls apart, and he turns for guidance to celebrated playwright, Christopher Marlowe.  Through a funny series of misadventures, the play ends up as the venue for Phillip's takeover of England.   Marlowe heads off to his eternal reward, the plot is thwarted, and Bill, I mean, William saves the day and begins a promising career as a playwright.  And everyone forgets about the spy whose capture started this whole thing.

In the vein of Mel Brooks or the Monty Python gang, this is a genuinely funny and enjoyable film.  Certainly one should not trust it too much for historical veracity, but for entertainment, it fits the bill.  (Apologies for the awful pun.)

King Christian of Jutland

Back after a brief break...

An off-hand comment by my brother led to another acquisition and this post.  (Thanks, Nick!)  It was an innocuous enough question:  "Have you seen the Hamlet with Christian Bale?"  A negative reply on my part and a quick Internet search on his and voila--the 1994 film Royal Deceit, starring Gabriel Byrne, Helen Mirren, and Christian Bale.

The film is in the Hamlet motif, but it is not exactly the Shakespearean story.  Rather, it is based on the Hamlet source material found in the tale by Saxo Grammaticus.  Many of the plot elements are very similar, but the dialogue lacks the Bard's iambic pentameter.

The story opens quickly.  The king of Jutland and his eldest son have been slain, purportedly by two of the king's subjects.  A la Macbeth, the two subjects have themselves been killed in order to conceal the crime committed not by them but by the king's brother, Fenge.  The king's other son, Amled, has been visited by the ghost of his father.  Hearing the truth, he seems to have gone mad, but it's just a ruse concocted in order to trap his uncle.  As viewers, we don't see much of the above action occurring.  It is all told to us via a narrator, whose words smooth over the rough plot points and keep the film brief (85 minutes).

Fenge becomes king by acclamation because the rightful heir to the throne, Amled, is mentally incapacitated.  A flashback during the election scene shows us how the death of the king transpired and the true treachery of Fenge.  As the new king, Fenge takes up with the queen (and his brother's wife), Geruth.

In an attempt to discover what Amled knows, Fenge sets a young maiden upon him.  Instead of informing, though, she and Amled conspire to keep Fenge in the dark.  Fenge sends one of his henchmen to spy on Amled, but all the henchman gets for his trouble is a log to the head.  Later, the henchman makes a second attempt, concealing himself beneath Geruth's bed.  Amled finds "the rat," stabs him to death and tosses him into the royal pigs' trough, where the henchmen "is eaten."

Fenge has no choice but to send Amled to England, where he shall (and does) regain his wits.  Fenge sends Amled with two escorts who carry orders for his friend, the Duke of Lindsey, to kill Amled.  Amled is wise to the plot and leaves some items in storage for his return.  In transit to England, he switches the orders so that the escorts are put to death instead.  It is in England where the plot of the story takes a different turn from the Shakepearean story.  Lindsey and a neighboring tribe, Ossmia, are at war.  After a sneak attack by Ossmia, Amled leads the Duke's troops into battle.  He becomes a war hero, tricking Ossmia into retreat and then stabbing their leader to death in a duel.  As his reward for meritorious service, Amled is given the hand of the Duke's daughter.

Amled returns to Jutland and, Banquo-esque, wanders into his own funeral feast.  A verbal confrontation with Fenge and some more machinations lead to the ultimate resolution.  This is not a wavering Hamlet.  Amled incapacitates Fenge's henchmen, stabs Fenge after a brief (and unsatisfying) fight, and then burns down the hall in which they all lie.  Amled, his wife, and his mother all live happily ever after.

Royal Deceit is an interesting alternate perspective on the Hamlet story.  It allows the viewer to see whence Shakespeare's work came and what changes he made when crafting his play and turning it into a tragedy.  I found that the absence of Shakespearean language actually gave me a greater appreciation for it.  The film itself was reasonably well done, although the visual and sound effects at times were tacky.  Overall, this is worthwhile viewing for Hamlet fans.

An Even Briefer Hamlet

Some discard items appeared at another local library.  One of the items drew my attention.  It was a two-CD set entitled Shakespeare:  His Life & Work.  I was able to pick it up free of charge.  (Thanks, Kathy!)

The work is a 150-minute biography and retrospective of Shakespeare's work.  Interspersed within the oral biography is a chronological treatment of Shakespeare's works, performed by Judi Dench and Timothy West.  As frequent guests of this site might guess, immediately I skipped to the fourth track on the second disc.  That is the Hamlet excerpt.  The biography sets the scene for Shakespeare writing the play.  While he was working on it in 1601, his father, John, died.  The inference is that the death of Shakespeare's father impacted his contemporary work.  There follows a very condensed plot summary.  The producers included one complete soliloquy as representative of the play.  Guess which.

A brief Hamlet (4:30), and an equally brief post.  The length of the set does give me incentive to undertake the remainder at some future point.

Hamlet Lives...Briefly

A local library offloading its supply of old LP's led to a find for the Hamlet collection.  The acquisition is a 1961 work entitled "Living Shakespeare:  Hamlet."  It is a strange piece.  As the editor, Bernard Grebanier, states in the written introduction to the LP, "Indeed, many advantages accrue from listening to this play."  With that sentiment, I can agree.  One too often misses the beauty of Shakespeare's language when it is buried underneath layers of stage action and directorial license.

The oddity here, though, is the inability of the listener to listen to Shakespeare's words.  The play has been drastically edited to fit onto one double-sided LP.  The running time for the entire work is approximately 60 minutes.  That is barely enough time to get the gist of the story, which is why Mr. Grebanier advises the listener to read the entire work prior to listening.  (A full written text of the play accompanies the LP.)  The plot here has been reduced to the main action of the story, with all subplots and many side characters removed.  A narrator serves occasionally to fill the gaps with voice-overs of what was eliminated.

The sound quality of the recording was good.  As one might expect of a disc of that age, there were occasional skips.  It was in excellent condition otherwise, and it did justice to Michael Redgrave in the title role.  His was the one name that I recognized, having seen him in the film, The Dam Busters.  Hearing him on the LP made me wish that it were a fuller, video presentation of the play.

The LP came with a script to follow the words.  Problematically, in places it did not match the action on the recording.  For instance, there is an extended stage direction describing the dumb show, which is not presented at all.  At least the script provided something to hold my attention while listening to the words.  It was strange, though, to read a stage direction, "They play" while hearing the metallic clanging of rapiers.

I suppose that this might be useful in a classroom setting, but I wonder why anyone might choose this instead of a legitimate, full version of the play.  Well intentioned, it is just a bizarre and rather pointless work.

The Bleak Midwinter

While watching one of the special feature interviews on the DVD of Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet, the director mentioned one of his other works, entitled In the Bleak Midwinter.  It sounded interesting enough to warrant further investigation.  Searches of DVD copies of that title yielded nothing.  Then I discovered that the film was released under a different title.  Thus, it became A Midwinter's Tale.  Copies were available for purchase online, so I ordered one.  The title is produced on demand by Warner Archive.  Fortunately, the DVD-R edition plays just as a normal DVD would.

The film itself is a charming comedy about a troupe producing a version of Hamlet.  The director is an out-of-work actor.  His sister's church is closing, so the venture is intended to save it.  There is no money available, so the play becomes a profit-sharing venture among the principals.  It is set to open on Christmas Eve.  What could possibly go wrong?

The actors who are enlisted are the best of a bad lot.  An early scene shows the open auditions.  A ventriloquist and dummy, an actress with finger puppets, an actor unable to do anything but a badly humpbacked Scottish king--they are some who do not make the cut.  Those who do bring their own issues:  alcohol, family troubles, sexual identity issues, depression, myopia.  Add to that a slightly deranged designer named Faj.  (It might be spelled with a soft "g" at the end instead.)  It is a motley assortment.

During the auditions, the actor chosen to play Laertes (and numerous other roles) gives his ideas on Hamlet.

"Hamlet isn't just Hamlet....  Hamlet is me.  Hamlet is Bosnia.  Hamlet is this desk.  Hamlet is the air.  Hamlet is my grandmother.  Hamlet is everything you've ever thought about sex, about geology...in a very loose sense, of course."

Of course.

During the course of the rehearsals, the actors go from not knowing much of each other to becoming, as "Ophelia" puts it, a family.  They make it to opening night, although not without considerable difficulties and the loss of their star.  A recurring theme is Noel Coward's "Why Must the Show Go On?"  When the curtain rises, though, all is right with the world.  The audience, at least the ones who are not cardboard cutouts designed by Faj, cheer wildly.  In fact, it's the most raucous fencing scene I have seen.  It led me to wonder if original Globe productions might have elicited oohs and aahs.

It was not all that bleak of a winter in these parts.  The worst weather day was the one that found me holed up watching Branagh do Hamlet.  As spring seems about to burst through, this Christmas tale was a pleasant way to spend an evening and a welcome addition to the collection.  It may not be an easy title to find, but for a Hamlet fan, it's worth the time and effort.