Reading Group #23 (Hamlet)

From post 11 in thread #22:

'Recently we discussed Shakespeare's influence on the world of the Gothic. Nowhere is his relationship with the genre stronger than when we consider Hamlet. I think the play (which I'm sure we are all fairly familiar with) could provide for an interesting discussion, especially if we examine it within the context of its influence on the Gothic. This could also be an interesting read to begin looking at cinematic comparisons: I'd suggest we take a look at Olivier's production, which utilizes the Gothic 'castle' as a visual motif. Anyway, this read will be a bit more free-form than our previous discussions, so feel free to bring any and all observations to the table (or not). '

So let's have some fun with this one! It will certainly provide for a nice epilogue to my fevered finals week and the somewhat scattered Hamlet paper I've been writing over the last few days...

Phew! So I wasn't imagining things.

I hope your finals week works well.

I may be a while on this one. I don't feel I've done proper justice to 'The Beckoning Fair One' yet and I've been intending to devote a whole evening to a really careful reading but can't seem to quite get round to it (head-scratching over Xmas pressies doesn't help - Bah! Humbug!). Once that's out of the way ...

However, this thread has finally prompted me to order the Olivier Hamlet/Henry V boxset that's been on my Amazon wishlist for months if not years - I hadn't been able to make up my mind between this and the six-play 'Laurence Olivier Shakespeare Collection'. Strictly between you and me - don't let it go any further as one could get burnt at the stake for it in some circles - I've never been much of a fan of Olivier. Perhaps I would have appreciated him more in the theatre - never saw him. It just seems inevitable that if one has a collection of Shakespeare DVDs (and video tapes in my case), there should be some Olivier in there.

I've just searched on another tab and according to LT I don't own an individual Hamlet, which seems unlikely. Now I'm confused. I've been here before - which is how I came to own three of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness thing - I'm just truanting from hunting for Xmas pressies on another tab.

#3 I've been here before - which is how I came to own three of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

I ended up with three copies of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

As an aside: My eldest son informed me that he has landed the role of Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Wished him all the best with it and warned him not to make a complete ass of himself.

#4 - Hah-hah!

I was very impressed by Kevin Kline as Bottom - it was the first thing that really registered him on my radar.

I must ask my son if the audition was a race to the bottom.

(I never walk away from the obvious ones.)

#4

That's wonderful, Peter! Are we talking professional or amateur production? You know who was an "unexpected" Bottom--James Cagney, in William Dieterle/Max Reinhardt Hollywood film from 1938. Apparently he got bad reviews at the time, but I loved him (the whole thing, in fact).

#3

If you find Olivier disgusts you, rankamateur, just slop those DVDs my-side. ;)

#7 Purely Student Drama Society, although he was called as an archer for Game of Thrones. He was most upset as it was in the first week of a new job and he couldn't take up the opportunity. :-(

Aaah! An actor with a day job? You must let us know when he breaks into BIG TIME. :)

He was disappointed about a year ago. He was contacted to be an extra in "On Stranger Tides" and was ready to travel to London for the shoot and the casting people just stopped sending him details. :-(

But hey, when the BIG TIME hits everyone will hear about it. I'm not behind the door when it comes to boasting about the successes of my children. :-) Proud Dad syndrome is alive and well and living in me!

Which reminds me, did I tell you about my...

No, no you didn't.

I've started working through the 1980 BBC production with Derek Jacobi - watched Act I tonight.

Patrick Allen makes for a very impressive ghost.

Rank, I'll confess that I'm not a huge Olivier fan, either, exactly (Wuthering Heights with Merle Oberon? That was a mistake...), but when it comes to his Shakespeare work I AM pretty devoted. His acting has never thrilled me in much else, but his Shakespeare is, I think, brilliant. Also, his overall directorial vision for Shakespeare is so unique and yet so fitting...I think he's probably one of the great talents, if you limit yourself to the work he was proudest of.

I'm a big fan of the Branagh production from the 90s, too. It's really different visually, as far as such a gloomy play usually goes, but because it's full text it has this 'epic' feel to it that really does it for me.

(Sorry this is so general, but after writing page after page about these two films for several days, my brain can only handle so many mentions of the words 'Olivier' and 'Branagh'...)

>12 housefulofpaper:

Never seen that one! I've watched a lot of those older BBC productions this year (the Titus Andronicus is amazing!!). I'll have to check it out at the library and report back...

By the way (and utterly off-topic), has anybody noticed how many new people are in this group? I just checked for the first time, and there's like forty people here now. But where are they? The half-dozen or so of us keeping the flame could probably use some fresh blood...

Is there a way to lure them into our web?

Can revenants type?

I've always been intrigued by the Stellan Skarsgård Hamlet from Swedish TV because of this one particular still:

http://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=972&artikel=4289960

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088293/

BBC does nice work. The sets in this production are gorgeous, the actors are a little stiff however (they did go full bear, end of part 2):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKGUCXf-Cu0

I'm new blood to the group and am keen to delve deeper into Hamlet.
As far as the films go I appear to have a number of them. Olivier of course - but whilst he is undeniably brilliant the film is a trial, what with the screeching orchestral track and the wild pan and zoom shots off the battlements, I thought it a bit OTT. More to my taste is the elegant Brannagh production. Ethan Hawke's is underwhelming, and Mel Gibson's just the opposite but not in a good way - nice crypts though. I have the BBC version and will watch it for more input, I haven't yet - I have the 37 dvd boxed set and am a bit intimidated; hardly know where to start and which order to watch them in.
Has anybody seen the Russian 'Gamlet'?
The treatment of Hamlet by Frank Kermode in Shakespeare's language is fascinating, more on this later perhaps, but in an odd quirk I ordered a 37 volume Shakespeare ( arriving next week ) and the seller added an extra Hamlet - odd because Kermode postulates that everything in Hamlet is doubled.

18

We were just talking about fresh blood! Welcome, welcome! :)

I disagree about Olivier's production, but that might just be because I'm a big fan of 'over the top,' haha. Also a big fan of the Branagh: his delivery of the 'to what base uses we may return' speech (my favorite in the play) gives me literal chills (whereas Olivier, damn him, cut it from the film!)... Hawke's is definitely underwhelming (in an OVERwhelming kind of way, really). Haven't seen Gibson's...

LOVE the BBC producs; rent them at the library often. Favorite (by far) is their Titus Andronicus. The Coriolanus is quite good, I think. Loathed Anthony Hopkins' Othello (though Bob Hoskins as Iago? He was BRILLIANT!) Also rather fond of their Tempest. Need to check out the Hamlet...

There was a Russian student in my last Shakespeare class. We collaborated on our final project together and she told me about the Russian production, but it's been very difficult to come across. She said, her own bias aside, it was the best Hamlet she had ever seen. Very curious. Have you seen it? Thoughts?

Again, welcome to the group. This is an unorthodox thread, as far as our usual reading material goes, but always glad to have another member on board! :)

#18, #19 - Yes, welcome to the group.

I suppose I'd better put my hand up and admit I've been slagging-off that BBC Shakespeare series on another thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/11366#3081054. Among other things, I blame it for the almost complete absence of Shakespeare productions on British telly since; plus, I wasn't impressed with a lot of the productions when they first appeared on television.

I can't remember the Hamlet, though, but I am a bit of a fan of Derek Jacobi, so it's probably time I added that to my collection.

19.
Thanks for the effusive welcome! I shall be back with more Hamletian when I have investigated my new edition. I have not yet seen the Russian film, but would like to. I am re-watching The Wire at the moment - there are quite a number of parallels between D'Angelo Barksdale 'nephew to the King' and Hamlet - way too many to be a coincidence.

One of my upcoming directorial projects at my theatre, after I tackle Prometheus Bound (and, possibly, Shaw's Don Juan in Hell), is Oscar Wilde's Salome. It's my favorite play, but until last week I had yet to realize the parallels between it and Hamlet. I presume the Herod/Herodias thing (of Christian sources, obviously, and not Wilde, haha) bore some inspiration for Shakespeare...or was there really a, er, 'incestuous' precedent for Hamlet in the historical literature that Shakespeare used to research his work? Or maybe this uncle-father/incestuous-mother thing is a more common motif than I've realized? I'm pretty well aquainted with most of the body Gothic, and either Hamlet set the precedent for the colluded uncle/usurper-to-the-throne that features so heavily in the early romances, or there is something else predating it itself. I'm horrible at Google-researching these days, or I'd just pop in a search. Post-finals, though, I'd rather just ask all of you than spend another hour at the computer!

(And excuse any rambling or general confusion up there, it's 6 AM here in California and I've been awake since 4 AM yesterday morning, God bloody help me!)

Oh, starkimarki: slightly off-topic, but I noticed you have the facsimile of John Austen's illustrated Hamlet that Dover put out a while back. I picked up the Poe compendium they published and admired the print quality, but the black color of the cover came off on my fingers. Is the Hamlet higher quality? I've been waiting to find someone who has a copy to get an opinion. It's not super expensive, but I'd rather hear from a fellow Goth than read the Amazon reviews before picking one up... :D

20

I know I keep harping on that BBC Titus Andronicus, but I just love it. Have you seen that one? I promise you'll enjoy it. Well, maybe not PROMISE...but I PREDICT you will...

23.
The Hamlet is of a very high quality. Sewn binding, and excellent illustrations in the vein of Beardsley. It is bound in 'Ultima 7' ( whatever that is ) and has shown no sign of leaching colour. It is though, oddly gaudy. Wherever I put it it seems to stand out on the shelf, I would have preferred the spine titling a bit more muted, and the 'leather' less shiny, perhaps if it had been done in red and gold rather than sky blue?. Great value still. If you enjoy a 'gothic' book then this Hamlet will have you, but it is super(ish) expensive I fear, it was reviewed recently here: http://booksandvines.com/2011/11/02/hamlet-by-william-shakespeare-1920-edition-p...

#24 - Not sure - is that the one where the daughter has what look like bunches of twigs sticking out of her sleeves?

ETA - GO TO BED!!!

25

Is the 'Ultima' some kind of cloth? Thanks for the ellucidation! :)

26

Ah, sleep was FABULOUS! Yes, it is; in the BBC, however, think she just has stumps. There's a marvelous scene of her flipping pages with her teeth: brutal stuff, certainly, but they kept it just over-the-top enough to do justice to the intentions of Titus, which I appreciated.

27.
It's a paper base with an acrylic coating, it looks like very shiny leather, really it looks like a children's book. It has none of the gravitas and gloom of the sepulchral vellum used on the Schroder issue, but costs 200 times less.
I had a look at the bbc production yesterday. Stage settings, with the odd wisp and gust of dry ice thrown in, but beautifully played, Jacobi perhaps a few years too old, Stewart in fine voice. Haven't enjoyed this pairing since Sejanus and Claudius.
Reread Kermode - very up on hendiadys now. There is no end to enjoying this 'poem unlimited'!

On the more general subject of Shakespeare and the Gothic:

There's a fascinating, if rare, book of literary criticism on the Gothic/Romantic tropes of English fiction by a Finnish man named Eino Railo called The Haunted Castle. You can find copies on eBay for four or five dollars by a defunct publisher called The Gordon Press, which specialized in VERY obscure reprints (the seller has perhaps twenty copies, but once they're gone I doubt you'll ever even see a copy of this outside of a university library). Railo's book is one of the best surveys of Gothic fiction I've encountered. He goes on at length about Shakespeare's influence on the trappings, if only seldom the themes, of the Gothic; regarding Hamlet, Railo speaks quite eloquently about Hamlet's gift to the Gothic of the haunted castle, the disembodied voice, the sensation of imminent doom, etc. Has anybody else ever encountered this excellent little volume? Since purchasing it, I've noticed it used as a source in many other volumes of Gothic lit crit. Thought I'd put it out there for anybody interested in discussing/aquiring a copy...

> 29

I had never heard of it, but I was intrigued enough to order a copy.

(Incidentally, 33 years ago this month, I saw Kenneth Branagh take the lead in a school production of 'Toad of Toad Hall". Just thought I'd mention it...)

#30 - Ditto what houseful said. It's been on my ebay watch list for months, since veil first recommended it to me, and seeing as I'm buying all these Christmas presents for other people ...

Toad of Toad Hall - one of my most treasured books when I was a little kid, absolutely loved it. No idea what happened to it (might nip back over to ebay).

I've seen Acts One to Four now, so I've seen the third appearance of the ghost (after two appearances on the battlements).

This is not an original observation - I read it somewhere recently, but I can't remember where; I imagine it's a well known, if not a commonplace, observation by now - but it's noticeable (at least when it's pointed out!) that Hamlet's ghost is different in this scene. Whereas before everybody present could see it (Hamlet, Horatio, the sentinels) here only Hamlet can see it. The effect is to make it appear as a hallucination and not a real (or "real") spectre. And thus a psychological phenomenon rather than a supernatural one.

It's funny, watching this play with an eye to the gothic elements - and in fact being invited to see it as one of the roots or founding texts of the genre - that in performance it constantly seems to be turning away from those elements and focusing on the big themes - love, duty, politics ("Hamlet focuses on the big themes" - a stunning insight! - but I'm sure you know what I mean: just reading or watching for ghosts and castles is really missing the point.

However, the other observation that I half-remember is to do with christian theology as it applies to the treatment of the ghost: Shakespeare is treading a dangerous path, because presenting Hamlet's ghost as a soul in Purgatory is a Catholic viewpoint; one that is countered by suggesting it might be a "goblin damned" that is trying to deceive him - a more Protestant (specifically Calvinist?) idea.

32

Regarding the first part of your post, I made this point about the second appearance of the ghost, and Hamlet's madness as a whole, on the student forum in my last Shakespeare class: (I think only about half of it applies to your post, actually, but I'm too lazy to edit it... :D )

'I think an interesting interpretation of Hamlet is that while, no, he does not actually go mad, he plays it so well that in places he may skirt the line so closely that, if only for a moment or a conversation, he's nearly mad. His predicament is certainly unenviable, and his collusion so frantic, that I think this may well be the case. Consider his abuse of Gertrude in her bedchamber: while Hamlet, Horatio, and two sentinels all saw the ghost of Hamlet's father in Act I, only Hamlet can see him in Act III. I find this interesting. I think it possible that Hamlet's second 'visitation' is actually entirely delusion brought on by, perhaps, his guilt at his castigation of his mother (which was, of course, discouraged by the non-imagined ghost). If this is granted as true, he is both sane and insane over the course of the play: fervent and fevered in his considerations to the point that, if only for a brief moment, he crosses the line into madness. Legal minds have invented an entire criminal defense for that kind of occurence: temporary insanity.'

As far as Hamlet productions 'turning away' from the Gothic elements, I think you're right (take for instance Branagh's production, which eschews most of those trappings in favor of lighter visuals and more restrained performances). That said, I think completely eliminating the gloom and 'haunted castle-y' aspects of Hamlet is actually taking a great liberty with Shakespeare's intentions; I mean, the play itself, on paper, supports a darker interpretation. I'm reminded of recent productions of Macbeth that have tried to entirely remove the witches and many of the supernatural motifs in the play: and that gets to a point where it's really just a case of, 'Well, why not have a male Prospero? You could still be true to The Tempest's themes...' (And anybody who saw Julie Taymor's latest Shakespeare production is familiar with what I'm talking about, I think.) But without a valid context to be viewed in, the themes are not true to the intentions of their author. Granted, modern directors should feel free to take some liberty with a four-hundred-year-old play: but there needs to be limits. There are some aspects of the plays that should be givens (Macbeth's appropriation of the supernatural, Hamlet's malaise, The Tempest's otherworldliness) and some things that should be open to interpretation. After all, getting back to Hamlet, the play's themes (love, duty, politics, and (above all else) death) are deliberately written with an eye towards bleaker import (this is a tragedy, after all).

So to condense, my near-epic ramble over with, I like my Hamlets dark and consumed with gloom (kind of like my men, really...but that's another post...).

> 33

I'm gratified that my particularly scatterbrained contribution prompted such a lucid response! I didn't really manage to put into words what I meant. I'll have another go, and I'll try to be concise.

This is a text that still hasn't exhausted all interpretations in over 400 years. The gothic is in certainly in there, so is politics. But watching a skilful performance, as opposed to reading the text silently to oneself, the drama is always to the fore: love, hate, anger, sorrow...

>34 housefulofpaper:

The gothic is in certainly in there, so is politics. But watching a skilful performance, as opposed to reading the text silently to oneself, the drama is always to the fore: love, hate, anger, sorrow...

Very well put! :)

Really great discussion, all! Moving ahead, I'd like to approach another Blackwood yarn: this one is fairly lengthy but absolutely thrilling, and some of you may already be familiar with it: 'The Wendigo.' I like to read this when the weather gets chillier and things become rather gloomy here, by the sea. It's an exceedingly atmospheric piece and I think you'll all fall in love with it (if it doesn't keep you up at night, that is...).

New thread is up.

Woah!!! I haven't finished with The Beckoning Fair One' yet!

And I've ordered an Oxford Shakespeare Hamlet with all the Nectar card points I earned buying Xmas pressies (plus both Henry IVs).

I managed to get myself totally side-tracked for a month or so with Taming of the Shrew (long story - and I managed to end up convinced that I'm the only person since Will himself who actually understands what's going on in the play!) - which is why I haven't been contributing much to these threads: now it looks as if veil has managed to launch me on an equally long-term Hamlet kick and that's conflicting with TBFO and Xmas is getting in the way and there seems to be a lot of wine and food flying round lately and this computer's been acting up and absorbing loads of my time to little or no avail and the fish have been deliberately hiding lately and these miserably short days and grey weather have been really depressing me and making me read things like Three Men in a Boat and watch lots of episodes of 'The Big Bang Theory' to cheer myself up and ........... (shuffles off muttering to himself and twitching gently ....)

I have just received my 'Hamlet', from the Limited Editions Club, illustrated by Edy Legrand. This is with the text of the First Folio so a bit more difficult at first glance. The volume predates Olivier but the pictures do have battlements. I was thinking about just how far the play has penetrated into our culture, I seem to have any number of books based around the play. One Big Damn Puzzler is one that contains a version moved into South Sea Island culture:

Is be, or is be not, is be one big damn puzzler:
Is you be bigger man for put up with
Clubs and bamboo pits of real damn bad luck,
Or, is take blowpipes for fight herd of pigs
And is by use of snakebite, end they?

Since I was recently in Vanuatu and fascinated by the pidgeon there, I looked it up -

Sipos man ia i wantem hed blong hem i so
Long rob mo spear blong bigfala save or blong karrem
Power againsem wan solwata blong warri, mo blong
Lukluk blong stoppem olgetta.
Blong tete mo slip i nomo gat mo long wan slip
Blong tallem long ol i finis.
Long inside warri mo long fullap seksek,
Bodi ia emi masta blong olgetta.
Emia emi marretam save blong wan tem blong tete mo slip
Blong save slip mo lukluk, awae emia nao merrisin
Long taem yu ded slip, wannem lukluk nao save gat.
Taem we yumi seksekem out ol rabbish tingting blong mekem yumi spel
Emia nao respect we i mekem i strong long life
Long hu we i save kassem han mo humbak long ol taem
Ol smol man, ol high man
Long seksek blong lovem
Long late blong law long rabis fasem blong office mo blong sharrem
Sick man ya face blong hemi nogud
Taem man ya hemi save se last wind blong he i kam i mekem wattem pin
nating nomo
Hu nao bae i kessem
Blong mekem noise mo sweat undanit long wan rabis life
Be emia we i fright long samting afta long tete
Long island we never gat, long who we i go i nogat man i kam bak
i mekem hed i fasfas mo i mekem yumi mas kassem ol sick yumi gat no blong fly i go long narafala we yumi no save
Emia tingting blong mekem yumi evriwan i fright olsem wan pikinini
Mo emia man ples i stanup blong finnem
Emi kiaman sic blong tingting we i no strong blong go,
Mo wok wetem strong leaf mo taem save ol se ol swell i tanem,
Mo lusum nem blong fight.

It's not quite iambic pentametre, probably not quite on topic either.

This is a bit more urbane, and quite amusing IIRC - The Prince of West End Avenue

Back to the BBC..............

I still haven't made a proper start on this, but the Oxford Shakespeare edition arrived yesterday (carelessly packaged!) and I started reading the bare text last night (didn't even bother with the footnotes). Long ago, I had a few chunks of Hamlet off by heart, so I'm a little surprised to find that I don't seem to have ever properly studied it. So I'm coming to it fresh, as it were - it's a bit intimidating.

A big question, it seems to me (for the purposes of this thread, I mean), is how did Shakespeare intend his audiences to see the ghost? Was it meant to give them a bit of a scary thrill, as with a modern horror story; or was it intended to serve a purely intellectual function? #32, houseful's comments on the theological aspects, add interesting complications to the question. I'm sure the groundlings' beliefs on ghosts wouldn't have matched that well with the contemporary orthodoxy on them. I've no idea at all about these things but I'd bet my life that Will had it all at his fingertips. I look forward to boning up on it all.

On the subject of boning up: I'm trying to remember the name of a book I thought I had on an Amazon wishlist but, as it turns out, haven't. It was about Elizabethan attitudes to the supernatural and magic, it was a scholarly work and I seem to remember it was written by a female academic. Anybody know what I'm not remembering?

Paul: I'm sure that the audience, who was mostly drunk by the time the play's got playing (so to speak), found the ghost either creepy or kind of a let down (I think it would be reaching to say that they had any real intellectual reaction to it). I wonder what the 'hype-machine' was like in those days? I can count a number of films I've seen that have fascinated me to no end and been a little taken aback that they've been marketed simply with their thrill-factor, as it were, and none of the pathos that has made them interesting productions. It would be somewhat amusing to wonder if Hamlet was marketed as a thrill-a-minute supernatural shocker or something...

Pre-Xmas ramble amid the tumult of a little gathering, so I didn't say as much as I wanted to say about this, but there's a rough go of it!

> 39

(I hope this works)

Could the book in question be this:

www.librarything.com/work/27165/workdetails/72159461

Or this:

http://www.librarything.com/work/15137/workdetails/72159818

At last 'The Haunted Castle' has arrived, so I can press on. Having gone a bit off topic considering the universality of Hamlet's dilemma, and whether it is applicable to a South Sea Islander, I read Grammaticus, Saxo THE HISTORY OF AMLETH PRINCE OF DENMARK, which was Shakespeare's source I believe, here there is no ghost, though Hamlet does feign madness and do the side trip to England. In the introduction we learn that 'Amleth' is old Danish for 'dullard' which is taken as a hint that the story is in fact a reworking of Brutus and Tarquin, there are also other indicators for this.

Another view of the story is taken by John Updike in Gertrude and Claudius, here Hamlet is cast as the villain, a petulant teenager determined to destroy his mother's chance of happiness. An interesting take certainly.

I watched the recording of a Broadway production with Richard Burton--anyone seen it? Technically it's bad (the recording), especially the terrible sound, you have to fight to pluck out the performance. Unprepossessing cast (worst Ophelia ever), but Burton is surprisingly interesting: a weak, pouty, sentimental Hamlet this.

I saw The Peter Hall Company's 1994 production - it "toured" before opening at the newly re-named Gielgud Theatre. Michael Pennington's Claudius was particularly memorable: getting laughs from his courtiers with "as t'were with a defeated joy, With an auspicious and a dropping eye," etc. - these are politician's gags, not simply less than top-flight Shakespearian rhetoric.

And at the climax, when he realises that Gertrude has been poisoned, his body language totally changes: from an energetic, dominating top dog to a puppet with its strings cut.

The programme prints some "Extracts from Peter Hall's talk to the Company on the first day of rehearsals": ..."Politics are extremely important. Claudius has a very difficult job to make his regime work ...He is an extremely capable King who is courteous, politic, polite, who is getting the country together and making it work again...Claudius has been elected because he is quite obviously the best man for the job".

Of course, this analysis somewhat overlooks how the vacancy arose!

Very late newbie to the group and this thread (thank you, Lola). Not much to add, except to say I was, among other incarnations, a Shakespearean actor, and played the Dane (many decades and lives ago).

I think it's impossible to view Olivier and do him justice without keeping in mind the inertia of historical style, something he inherited (and improved upon) (listen to Gielgud's "..To be or not to be....", as well, as another instance). I also played Stanislavski; a comparative illustration might be the Moscow opening of the Seagull, when the 4th wall was penetrated for the first time, to my knowledge, in the western theater. Unheard of, and apparently the audience went, almost literally, insane. There was such an encumbrance of "accepted" theatre. Olivier's bringing the works to screen, his keen director's eye, his fine, trained instrument - I honor him for all these things. For "reality," I'd have to wait for the revolution of Stanislavki, applied almost by suffusion across the western world, so we now have someone like Branagh, who is in my mind a perfect master of all that remains of classical training in England - a simple example, watch his face; every muscle like a string, bouncing alive and naturally to the word, and the thought that impels it - as well as a master of the true, personal immersion in the role.

Sam Waterston once told me (he was playing the Master Builder), regarding Shakespeare: in the beginning, was the word. He's right. Some take the word, and that's it - they're not "in" the text. I find this kind of Shakespeare to be cold, pedantic, most often, false. Others are "alive," but not with the word. A sea of emotion, and Shakespeare's glorious poetry foundered by this tidal wash of "feeling" without generation from the text. Some see that it is, in Shakespeare, the very text itself - not subtext, but text - that gives everything needed to sail.

Welcome to the group, trouveperdue (and to the site).

Fascinating post and you've given me a lot of food for thought (as well pointing me to yet more stuff that I really should read up on).

Yes, wonderful post, trouveperdue, and hi again! Is there any way to extrapolate backward into history of dramatic styles, from whatever little we have now (no idea what the earliest extant recordings, audio or visual, of any Shakes play may be)?

Lola, I don't know if the recorded material goes back that far - I earlier referred to Gielgud, and realize I was mistaken - it wasn't "...To be, or not to be," but "O, that this too, too solid flesh...." that I heard, and I'm not certain when this was recorded. I can only say that as an actor, facing the role, I committed a grave error - something of the taste for studying medical history, I suppose - in that I read everything I could on the players playing the role, from Richard Burbage up through Richard Burton and beyond.

I finally realized - this is such a no-brainer - how fatal it is to approach the text, with anything but the virgin's eyes and heart on the page. I had the good fortune to meet and work a very short bit with Michael Pennington, of the English Shakespeare Company. In some book of modern players approaching the role, (sorry, can't recall the title - included Richard Thomas's (Waltons) spare and much hailed performance) he specifically mentions that dread, of hearing all the historical whispers in one's head, when one comes to that dreaded speech. I think of all the plays, in this play, this is the greatest mountain to overcome. To be, or not to be, indeed.

49

Welcome to the thread, trouveperdue! Fabulous insights! Glad to have you on board. :)

#49

Oh yes, I wasn't thinking from the performer's point of view, just wondered what we can tell about the general differences there may exist between, say, a 19th century take on Hamlet and ours.

Lola, can you clarify a bit? You mean, as audiences watching the play, or readers reading the play - general cultural view on Shakespeare, or Hamlet? Dramaturgy? "Serious" reading of fiction?

I'm thinking of performance styles--do you think they are strictly individual ("Gielgud's" Hamlet, "Olivier's" Hamlet... not to mention directorial ones), or are there wider "schools", such that watching a performance you could date it to a given period. If you had to pick out of a police lineup of Hamlets a 19th century performance, would Kean catch your attention at all, or would he come across as just another our-day possibility?

Lola, I'll have to ask forgiveness for a poor memory on a lot of things, now - been out of the life for decades. It used to be - weird as this is - I actually went through the line of actors playing the role, moments before entering the stage, feeling myself part of that line and asking that I do justice to their contributions. Meaning, at one point, I was at least as aware as one could be, from the vantage of modernity, of, say, Kean's or Irving's reputation. I regret I don't remember much.

That said, my suspicion is that the 19th century, as the centuries prior, would see more of a "schools" or "known" approach to the role (any role), though each actor had their known strengths within that range of acceptability. To borrow from Lukacs, I suspect it is modernity that birthed the bourgeois, mass sensibility, and the supremacy of individual expression. So you see, even in such "old school" guys as Olivier and Gielgud, vastly different approaches. Olivier was, of his day, all muscularity, verve. (So much so, it was a mixed blessing to play Laertes - Olivier was known as not only a good fencer in actuality, but a somewhat wanton one, and "Laertes" often got skewered, during performance; he busted the jaw of the stuntman (I think it was) standing in for Claudius...with Olivier doing the "flying stunt" himself. Gielgud was a mellifluous singer. Both, I think, can legitimately claim to have honored:

"Speak the speech I pray you as I pronounced it to you,

trippingly on the tongue; but if you mouth it as many of your players

do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the

air too much with your hand thus, but use all gently; for in the

very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of your passion,

you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it

smoothness. Oh, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious

periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split

the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of

nothing but inexplicable dumb-shows and noise. I would have such

a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant — it out-Herods Herod.

Pray you avoid it."

I think it's impossible to totally jettison one's historical inheritance. But I also think every era of this role, if the actor took the above truly to heart, would see a distinct, living creation that could be called "unique."

Such a marvellous reply, thanks, trouveperdue!

I watched a DVD of the Gregory Doran/David Tennant Hamlet this evening.

When Tennant first appeared on screen, looking like a sulky and rather invalidish adolescent who's been badgered into his black tie and dark suit, I thought, "Oops - this isn't going to work." It did, though - within minutes I found myself gripped and I was quite swept along through it. I thoroughly recommend it.