| Early impressions The impression I had of Hamlet was of someone intriguing but in the end slightly irritating because he went on so much: he seemed so self-indulgent. That bothered me, so I went away and read the play and realised that what had happened was that the part had become terribly bogged down with modern psychology. It had become a play about a self-involved, non-altruistic person constantly fighting his own demons. It had also become a part about a scholar rather than about a prince. Hamlet was continually interpreted as a person incapable of ruling, incapable of doing the task that his father had set him. Whilst Hamlet can be played in many, many different ways, I personally donТt think thatТs the way I can do it Ц for me itТs not a play about a man who procrastinates. Succession The play was first performed in a culture somewhat paranoid about the question of succession. In Elizabethan times (and indeed prior to that) there were constant tussles for power and rebellions fomented around people who thought they should be king. Hamlet returns to Denmark when his father dies, but itТs Claudius, not Hamlet, who is crowned. In the play, Denmark is an electoral monarchy Ц a son doesnТt automatically become king because his father was king, and yet Shakespeare was writing for a primogeniture culture. An Elizabethan audience would automatically have assumed that the kingТs son would inherit. Because Hamlet doesnТt succeed his father on the throne, he is denied any function. ThatТs an aspect our director Michael Boyd has brought out in this production - the political nature of the play. If you have the rightful king at Court and Claudius has usurped his place, there is a feeling that Hamlet suddenly becomes radioactive. Nobody wants to be associated with him because the power is with the King and Hamlet is seen as a threat. Which edition? Because in some places the play does become repetitive, Michael pruned the text heavily, even hacking away whole soliloquies at times. WeТve also gone back to the first Quarto for a lot of scene orders. The first Quarto is probably the nearest thing we have to a prompt copy. ItТs thought that the Folio, which would run for well over 4љ hours, was the full literary text Shakespeare wanted kept for posterity. The Folio is full of wonderful passages but itТs unsustainable in theatrical terms. Shakespeare was pragmatic and IТm sure at the time he would have cut the text. For example, in the second half of the play thereТs a very long scene between Horatio and Hamlet in which Hamlet tells Horatio about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern - how he woke up and looked in their pack and so on and so on. ItТs beautiful, but far too long. So weТve replaced it with an incredibly succinct scene from the first Quarto between Gertrude and Horatio which serves two functions: firstly, it tells the same story, only succinctly, and secondly it shows us that Gertrude has been changed by what Hamlet has said to her in the closet scene. It all helps to make the second half of the play move at an incredible pace. Research I did an enormous amount of reading of various academic texts about the play and what amazed me was that everybody thought it was such a problematic play. The difference between academia and theatre is that academics look at a play like Hamlet purely in literary terms Ц they donТt approach it in the same pragmatic way actors do. When youТre working on a scene you suddenly realise why things are the way they are. For example, John Dover Wilson wrote at great length about the play within the play, asking how it could sustain both a dumb show and The Murder of Gonzago? He asks why Claudius doesnТt just storm out. But what becomes very clear when youТre playing it is that itТs done for dramatic reasons. The eyes of the Court are on Claudius as Hamlet desperately tries to push him to the edge, get a reaction out of him and test his guilt, so it makes complete sense that the dumb show becomes part of the machinery to do that. Spying WeТve based Polonius on a sort of Walsingham figure, Queen ElizabethТs spymaster. Intelligence in those days was written in coded letters or carried by word of mouth. In a world in which spying is rife, there are people listening in, overhearing things. ThatТs why, for so much of the play, Hamlet is so cryptic. Much of what he says has double, triple, even quadruple meanings. Hamlet is very, very clever at not being nailed down by people like Rosencrantz or Guildenstern, who are, essentially, sent to spy on him. Michael has created a paranoiac world where people are listening in on people and others, like Ophelia, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, are used. The Court is a very small world, a claustrophobic, intense and fairly repugnant world and at the hub of this web you find Polonius. Religion Everything happens so quickly to Hamlet Ц his father dies and in less than two months his mother has remarried, married her brother-in-law and Hamlet has been shoved out of the way. Naturally heТs full of righteous indignation but in the first soliloquy, you get a strong sense that heТs also baffled. Right from the word go, Hamlet knows there is something wrong, so when Horatio and the guards tell him about the ghost, he believes them immediately. He wants to believe them. And he immediately he chooses to believe, when he sees the Ghost, that it is Сan honest ghost.Т I read a wonderful book by Stephen Greenblatt called Hamlet in Purgatory which gives a history of Purgatory from a specifically English context. The Ghost comes to Hamlet from Purgatory i.e. a concept Catholics believed in but not Protestants. England had changed very rapidly from being Catholic to Protestant. Under Mary it returned to the old faith and back again under Elizabeth. Beliefs werenТt clear cut, faith vacillated - Catholicism wasnТt just simply wiped out. No one knows whether or not Shakespeare was a practicing Catholic, though it seems likely his father was. Much of the religion, the specifically Catholic religion, is covert in the play. I think Shakespeare is questioning which is the real faith but he had to be incredibly careful, which is why much of it is buried or incredibly cryptic. He risked severe punishment if he was thought to be pro-Catholic. In a sense though, religion falls away and the end of the play is far more secular. In the final scene, the audience is left not knowing where Hamlet has gone Ц is he in Purgatory? I think itТs important that the ending is left open. Corruption Essentially the play is about corruptibility Ц thatТs one of the main themes, the corruptibility of humanity, whether in a physical or a moral sense. To a certain extent at the beginning of the play Hamlet, who has until now been sheltered from it, is suddenly faced with the reality of the world. Until then he hadnТt realised how corrupt and corruptible humans are. The play is full of images of corruption and decay Ц thatТs one area where academics can be particularly helpful. I read a brilliant analysis of the language of the play and how much of it is to do with disease, corruption and weeds. ItТs disgusting right from the start and through the first part, gets worse. In the second part, when Hamlet returns from England, thereТs less imagery. Instead youТre given a physical sense of decay ЦYorickТs skull, OpheliaТs grave and so on. Hamlet seems colder, more objective when heТs holding the skull. HeТs learnt to let go of much of what was festering in his mind. ItТs as though heТs stepped outside and, after a struggle, heТs more able to accept, has a colder view of the world. The first half of the play is more cerebral, the second half more physical. I think what Hamlet learns is that he canТt take on the corruptibility of humanity because he canТt do anything about it. He has that wonderful line to Laertes when he says СLet Hercules himself do what he may, / The cat will mew, and dog will have his dayТ [5.1.287-8]. He knows itТs useless to fight against it any more. Procrastination ItТs always said that HamletТs tragic fault is that he considers too much, that he procrastinates Ц Olivier famously subtitled his film (1948) Уthe story of a man who could not make up his mindФ - but I disagree. The reason he canТt act is because he has a conscience, he thinks things through and ponders the consequences. None of the other characters (Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes) think of the consequences of their actions apart from Horatio, whoТs more passive. What makes Hamlet a wonderful, humane character is that heТs the only one thinking about things, he thinks heТs crazy, thinks heТs gone mad. Madness I donТt think Hamlet is mad but at times he must wonder about his sanity because heТs alone in the way he thinks. At moments he does seem to come very close to the edge of real madness - Shakespeare deliberately makes it ambiguous. In the closet scene, for example, his father saves him. I genuinely believe his mother canТt see the Ghost and there are various theories as to why she canТt - she is a state of sin and so forth. For my own part I think itТs more moving that she canТt see it and yet HamletТs desperately trying to make her see. Stamina Actors of all ages have played Hamlet but in the text it very clearly says heТs 30. I think thatТs quite deliberate, because there is something about turning thirty that forces you to grow up, to face up to things. That, coupled with death of a father, is a major reshaping of oneТs whole way of looking at the world. On a purely technical level, I have more skills now, at 35, than I had 10 years ago when I played Coriolanus here at the RSC. Coriolanus is an incredibly linear part, whereas Hamlet is much more expansive and complex. IТm glad it wasnТt Hamlet I was asked to play back then. ItТs a hugely demanding role both vocally and physically - at the end of almost four hours, Hamlet has to fight with Laertes. I was lucky, because the rehearsal period was longer than usual, which gave me time to prepare (I was actually rather grateful too when Michael cut bits!). We would run scenes again and again and again, then Michael would give us notes and weТd run it again, all of which helped to build up stamina Ц emotional, mental and vocal stamina. ItТs very different to working in film and it took a while for me to get back in shape. I havenТt done any Shakespeare for nine years, so itТs lovely for me to be back after such a long gap.
Источник: http://www.rsc.org.uk/ |
