...now
finished in London, possibly on tour somewhere
For my
third visit to the theatre dedicated to Shakespeare, I figured it
might be time to take in something actually by the bloke.
Also, having
seen the left-field reworking 'The Rest Is Silence' earlier this
year I thought to take in a 'straight' version of
'Hamlet', as a kind of control to measure against
the experiment.
I can be as partial as the next man to the sexed-up, cinematic Shakespeare we often see on screen. But there
is still something appealingly rootsy about seeing a bare-boards production, in which planks of wood can represent the ramparts of
a castle or the bow of a boat, all under an open night sky. (Albeit one more beset by police
helicopters than 'twould have been in the Bard's day.) Typically, and
almost certainly traditionally, the company make most use of their
limited numbers by multi-assigning roles. But they also use these
editorially. For example, in a nice touch both the Ghost and Claudius (who
murders him and usurps his Kingship) are played by Dickon
Tyrrell. (Meat and drink to my theory the play is partly about the
child's split view of the parent.)
Similarly,
when the Players turn up their King and Queen are played by the same
actors as Claudius and Gertrude. An on-stage curtain closes and
opens, portraying their shocked reaction and underlining the
reflection. It's a neat device, but overall this scene epitomises all
that's wrong with this production.
After
an opening where the company take to the stage, playing instruments
and addressing us directly, it's less that the Players are cast
within the play and more they're producing the whole thing. The
play-within-the-play should not just be reflective but recursive,
smaller. It should be like a 2D construct within a 3D world, or a sketch
inside a portrait. As it is, there seems very little difference
between the two. The stock characters grate against any suggestion of
a psychological study.
We
talk of “Hamlet without the Prince” as a definition of
pointlessness. And it has to be said Michael Benz's Hamlet is
lacking. He can give us the mad Hamlet, but less the bad or
dangerous-to-know one. He seems more like a boisterous teen, playing
pranks, making smart-arse remarks, getting crushes on girls then
going off them. (Which interestingly isn't entirely unlike the sulky
emo Hamlet of 'Rest Is Silence.') The mad seems to
leech through when it shouldn't, and the crowd laughs at inopportune
moments. (Including his hesitation over killing Claudius, a dramatic
moment if ever there was.) However other actors are stronger,
particularly the afore-mentioned Dickon Tyrrell, so that's not the
whole of the problem. We must widen our gaze.
For
all of this being a dedicated theatre, it's quite possible the
setting is wrong. I've enjoyed plays at this very spot on two
occasions, the
Mystery Plays and Marlowe's 'Doctor Faustus'. But, perhaps
significantly, these were both performances as
much as they were dramas, works which came out at
the audience.
A
production of 'Hamlet' needs to do precisely the
opposite - draw us all in. The
recent version of 'Macbeth' by Platform 4 was in a dark and
confined box, which might have worked better than this open-air
space. Here, even after darkness falls, you're still aware of the
rest of the crowd, that we are all here watching this. Most likely
the play was written for an indoor theatre. (One opened in 1599,
replacing the Globe. There's no mention of 'Hamlet'
until three years later, though of course records of the time are
scant.)
But
most likely, what we have is a deliberate choice. In the programme
Dominic Dromgoole's 'Note on the Text' bases the
performance on the First Quarto (often dubbed 'the Bad Quarto'),
“which has a robust energy and a winning ability to get on with
it.” Later, Michael Dobson's 'More Matter, With Less
Art' expands upon the point:
“While
some actors and directors have preferred this play to be a lengthy as
possible, the most central part of its action occurring within the
brooding consciousness of it's protagonist as he thinks slowly and
meditatively aloud, many have instead wanted their 'Hamlet'
practicably short, the pith of the play lying in the
action-packed and political struggle.”
Talk
ye of politics, sir? Any politician knows the trick of pushing people
towards one bad alternative by contrasting it to another, while
steering the flock from all other options. Of course we don't want a
'Hamlet' that's three hours of a luvvie bedecked
in tights, orating endless soliloquies to a patient skull until it's
not just the Ghost who feels stuck in purgatory. This is a play by a
popular writer of the day. It has ghosts, wars, plots and duels - so
many of them it's a wonder Elsinore isn't rent asunder. It
should be exciting and animated.
But
there's a crucial difference between thrilling the audience and being
a thriller. There are a thousand revenger tales from the era, all
forgotten save by the most dedicated academics. Shakespeare was using
these as a base, but had other designs. As
said over 'The Rest Is Silence', “the
play exists first to precipitate Hamlet's conflicted state of mind.”
Any other method leads to madness.
Much
of the appeal of cutting down, reducing and simplifying the play
comes from pruning back at the ambiguity which suffuses it. But the
ambiguity isn't some obstacle, to be chopped away until the true play
is revealed – it is the essence of the play.
It's true that at least some of this may have been unintentional on
Shakespeare's part. It seems unlikely for example he would have
plotted to leave us with three text sources which can contradict each
other, even if he'd been able to. But he did write
a play where Barnardo and Horatio sight the Ghost before Hamlet even
shows up, yet Gertrude can't see him at the very moment he lectures
Hamlet. The net result is that all the ambiguity becomes beneficial,
whatever its source. It's there to be embraced, not thrown away. The obstacles become the signposts.
But to
assign the production a motive of 'fixing' the play, of making it
serviceable, may be to assume too highly of it. Something is more rotten still upon the South Bank. Things finish, I kid
not, on a song and dance number. The aim is crowd-pleasing, to give
the punters a good supply of yuks, a smattering of angst and nothing
too likely to confuse.
The
play's the thing?
The
tourists are the thing.
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