A Shakespeare-ience

The title alone would have been enough:  Shakespeare-apalooza-rama!  Seeing that Hamlet was included in the program made it a definite stop.

The dramatic experience was presented by Dream/Visualize/Create, an "organization of high school students and local artists devoted to producing socially relevant theatrical performances in the Rochester (NY) community."  The location for the extravaganza was MuCCC, a small black box-esque facility in Rochester.  It was both my first exposure to DVC and my first visit to MuCCC, but hopefully not my last of either.

The production combined several sources into a roughly 90-minute piece.  The first act opened with a prologue from Kill Shakespeare, a graphic novel series created by Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col.  The speech was accompanied by projections of art from the books.  Following that were several monologues, including the "O, what a rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy to whet one's Hamlet appetite.  Another excerpt from Kill Shakespeare led into the first act's major portion.

The bulk of the first act was a very compressed version of Hamlet entitled Hamlet, Approximately.  It is based on The Quick Hamlet by Philip K. Frey.  The play takes all five acts of Hamlet and reduces them into an approximate 30-minute running time.  This was done primarily through heavily-edited dialogue.  All of Shakespeare's original characters appeared, even Fortinbras, who often is omitted from full-fledged productions.  The action moved quickly, as one might expect.  While many, many lines were dropped, the plot of the play remained intact and completely comprehensible.

The actors, high school and college students, did an excellent job.  It was not a polished production, but it was a sincere effort to present Hamlet.  And it was enjoyable.  It was heartening to see such a young group work to stage a difficult play, to do it well and to exude enjoyment while doing it.  Yet another generation caught under the spell of Hamlet.  The applause at the end of act one was well deserved!

As the stage was being transformed during the intermission, the surplus of plastic sheeting covering the stage was a hint of what was to come.  While the sight of it did provide a visual rhyme, it was when the instrumental theme from the TV series Dexter played over the sound system that I laughed aloud.

Then came the second act.  Entitled ShakesBLOOD, it was an amusing mish-mash of Shakespearean works combined with quite a lot of blood.  It was heavily steeped in MacBeth, although Julius Caesar, Titus Andronicus and a hungry bear were included.  Even Hamlet, with his "To be or not to be" soliloquy, managed to make an appearance.  It was difficult to figure out what was going on with this work, other than an excuse to have some fun with Shakespeare while throwing blood about and occasionally dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller.  It was moderate entertainment done reasonably well.

The Shakespeare-apalooza-rama was an interesting addition to my Hamlet travels, indeed "an experience," as one audience member put it at the play's conclusion.  I will close this post with an extended quote from the play's director, which I believe sums up exceedingly well the benefit of this particular artistic endeavor, as well as any performance of Shakespeare's works.

"[How] do you perform Hamlet...the right way?  There are simply too many variables to consider--the production's concept, the skill level of the actors, the translation of the play being used, the cuts we have oh-so-pretentiously decided needed to be made, our interpretation of what Shakespeare actually intended in each scene, each line, each word.

Maybe it is enough that a production need only do one thing right:  take Shakespeare's centuries old text, dig in deep enough to find its heart, and lay it out on stage in such a way as to make a modern audience understand and appreciate [its]breadth and depth.  To make it mean something."

Amen to that!

The Other Side Of The Coin

The second evening in Oswego was a production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.  This was the first time I had seen the play performed live.  As it turned out, it was one of the best experiences I have had at a live theatre production.

Being able to see the play in repertory was a tremendous opportunity.  Entering the theatre for the second consecutive night, it was as if I were back home.  Seeing the actors back on the same set was as seeing old friends again.  (Seeing audience members in the same seats as on the previous evening heightened that sensation.)  That initial impression started the play on great footing.  It got only better.

Just as with their first appearance, Rosencrantz & Guildernstern appeared flipping coins.  The beauty of live drama, though, is the unexpected.  One tossed coin landed on edge and rolled across the set and off into the wings.  From offstage, "Heads!"  It was the first of what became two and one half hours of laughs.

Staging the play in repertory with Hamlet allowed for considerable allusion to and overlap with the previous evening's performance.  For instance, when Hamlet repeated the phrase "except my life" to Polonius, he grabbed Polonius' face, puckered Polonius' lips and forced him to mouth the phrase on the third recitation.  This action appeared in both plays.  Several other times such "Do You Remember?" moments appeared:  Hamlet running off stage yelling "Buzz Buzz," Polonius' bloody death, and the final death scene were all blocked as they had been the previous evening.  Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy was performed as previously with one exception--it was done in silence, literally.  The actor's mouth moved, but no sound emanated from it.  He was not the main character, so why would we want to hear him?

While Hamlet was oddly (and atypically) humorous, R&G was non-stop humor.  Much of this was due to the excellent acting.  The three main characters in the play, Rosencrantz, Guildernstern and the Player, were fantastic.  Rosencrantz and Guildernstern's ability to riff off each other was exceptional; it appeared as if these characters spent quite a bit of time together.

One scene was particularly noteworthy.  In Stoppard's original play, Act I ends as Hamlet sees Rosencrantz and Guildernstern at Elsinore for the first time.  At that point, the curtain drops for an intermission.  It rises approximately 134 lines of Hamlet later, just as the players are entering.  This particular performance had only one intermission.  At the point of the original curtain drop, it was as if someone hit the fast forward button.  The sound system played a greatly accelerated version of the discussion from Hamlet as the three characters moved quickly and mouthed the lines.  The blocking was the same as the previous night's scene.  As soon as they hit the appropriate place in the dialogue, the sound stopped and they picked up at the beginning of Act II.  It was incredibly inventive and very well done by the actors.

There was one change to the set.  The hole in the floor did not function as a grave this evening; rather it served as the actors' entrance and exit points for three crates, which replaced the barrels of the original play.  The pirate fight scene, complete with feathers and cannon balls (one in "slow motion"), was hilarious.

For a play that was as humorous as this one, the ending scenes were very emotional.  When Rosencrantz and then Guildernstern are "put to sudden death," it was sad to see them go.  In fact, their departure was more sorrowful than the final scene of Hamlet, the actual tragedy.  It was a sign that the actors were sympathetic in their roles.  As pleasant as it was to welcome old friends back to the stage, it was much worse to bid them farewell.

As the play concluded, I was left with considerable respect for the actors in the troupe.  To stage either Hamlet or R&G must be difficult.  To stage them both at the same time, switching between sets of lines on consecutive nights, is unimaginable.  And yet, they did it and did it exceedingly well.  It was an experience the likes of which I shall not have again.

Hamlet in the Snow Belt

The long-awaited visit by The Acting Company to SUNY Oswego arrived his past week.  (See 7/9/13 post.)  It was a tremendous opportunity to see Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead performed in repertory on consecutive evenings; indeed, an occasion not to be missed.  Hamlet, the first evening's production, was excellent in all respects.

The set was very simple:  some stairs, arches, a tile floor and curtains that could be drawn as necessary.  Later, a portion of the stage was opened to serve as a grave.  The costuming was traditional Elizabethan period dress--frills, neck ruffles and even a costume for Guildenstern that looked strangely Mayflower pilgrim-esque.

The text was edited to fit into a running time of roughly two and one half hours.  Ophelia and Laertes' conversation prior to his departure for France seemed shortened.  Hamlet's directions to the players were lengthier than is typical while the dumb-show was removed entirely from the play within a play.  There were no references to pirates, and the "How all occasions..." soliloquy was removed.  The conversation between the gravediggers and Hamlet's conversation with Osric were each shortened as well.  Hamlet and Horatio's discussion of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's death was included, although earlier remarks about being "hoist with one's petar" had been removed.  All told, the editing was sensible and did not detract from the play.  In a talk-back with the cast after the show, they were asked about the editing.  The version was edited with the intent of streamlining the second half of the play and driving the action in more of a straight line.  Omission of the "How all occasions..." soliloquy was based on precedent--the First Folio.

One noteworthy aspect of the play was the high level of humor.  While I have seen many live versions of Hamlet, I cannot recall as much audience laughter as in this particular production.  The "too, too solid flesh" soliloquy was broken up with some laughs, as was the "rogue and peasant slave" soliloquy.  At times, the humor seemed to mock the scene.  For instance, when Polonius was discussing the specialties of the players, Hamlet hit his head repeatedly against a nearby wall.  It was funny but a bit over the top.  During the play within a play, Hamlet discussed country matters with Ophelia--accent on the first syllable of "country."  That particular scene was as bawdy as I recall ever having seen it.  The subject of the humor level was discussed during the talk-back.  It was a conscious decision by the cast (Hamlet in particular) and the director.  The idea was to give the audience a chance to take a breath and to enjoy some of Shakespeare's wit.  As one cast member added, injecting humor to lighten the mood made the horror that followed even more horrible.

Two scenes are worth mentioning as particularly exceptional.  The nunnery scene was very graphic, and it included Hamlet spitting into the face of Ophelia.  As Ophelia tried to leave, Polonius could be heard yelling "No."  Hamlet, even more enraged, threw back the curtains to find no one there.  The later scene depicting Ophelia's madness also was notable.  It was no minor melancholy, but rather a quite pronounced break.

There were numerous other peculiarities to this production.  The ghost (a very young one at that) announces that he was killed with hemlock, not hebanon.  When the ghost beckons Hamlet to "Swear it," he is the only one to hear it, playing up the notion of auditory hallucinations.  Rosencrantz and Guildenstern enter while flipping a coin, a nod to Stoppard's play the following evening.  Hamlet's deed of killing Polonius (played as a very doddering old man) was especially bloody; the sponge and water were desperately needed to wipe up the mess on Hamlet's face and arms.  When the ghost appeared in Gertrude's chamber, she was able to see it but did not let on to Hamlet that it was so.  This was revealed in the talk-back by the actress who played Gertrude, and it came (seemingly) as a surprise to the actor who played Hamlet.  Hamlet was "spent" rather than "fat" in Gertrude's estimation of his being "out of breath" during the duel.

The duel scene was well choreographed, even if the stabbing deaths were a bit obviously sword-through-armpit gags.  The play faded to black just as a very martial Fortinbras enters to assume the throne.

All in all, this was a well-acted, well-produced, very enjoyable Hamlet.  The best part was that it was only the first night of two plays.  But that is to come...

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."