Short shrift

Michael Billington in The Guardian ponders the shortening running times of new plays and if this is having a detremental effect on quality simply because there is so much of a subject to fit into so little space that there isn't enough time to develop some ideas. As always he's generally right, although I am of the generation with a lower attention span. Interestingly he invokes a quote about Hamlet as a way of demonstrating how times have changed:

You can't, of course, simply re-create old forms: as Alain Robbe-Grillet shrewdly pointed out, Hamlet would not be a masterpiece if it were written today since we do not live in the age of the five-act tragedy. But the new, slavish obeisance to the 90-minute rule stems, I suspect, from a mixture of fashion and ignorance; in particular, a shocking unawareness of even the recent past when drama moved beyond a single situation or point of crisis to examine causes as well as effects.

That is a feature which I've seen drift away in modern theatre -- multiple settings. Some of the award winning recent plays, for example, Joe Egg have thrived in a single setting. But this has the effect of creating the feeling of sitcom. One of the reasons Hamlet feels epic is because of the sheer number and variety of scene changes.

Log execs: Visas crucial

I had to post this. It's an amazing way of introducing a pretty dry news story by invoking The Dane. What does the following have to do with paper pulping? "Had the fictional character of Hamlet been a Maine logging company executive rather than a Danish prince, his famous question may have been phrased a little differently: H2B or not H2B? Though it has had an effect on Maine's logging industry, the increasing scarcity in Maine of seasonal foreign workers available through the federal H2B visa program has not resulted in a situation as dire as that faced by Shakespeare's tragic figure."

02 Simon Russell Beale

Hamlet played by Simon Russell Beale
Directed by Clive Brill

There are generally three approaches to Shakespeare (and theatre for that matter) on audio -- recording the sound of a theatre production, creating a film without pictures, or producing a textual adaptation, in which the performances take a back seat to the performances. There is obviously some blurring of these approaches, but Clive Brill's production falls completely in the latter camp. It's the full text presented in a way which can be both heard and understood. Even if it renders it a bit slow in places.

It was worth hearing though, because for the first time I actually understood the sections of the play regarding Fortinbras. When cutting the play for production for performance the Norwegian is often the first to go, because the main domestic plot can happily play out without him. Which means on the odd occasion he and his invading army appear, I've often had trouble working out what they're doing there. I now know that Fortinbras Sr challenged Hamlet Sr in battle and was slain. Now Fortinbras Jr is throwing together a band of men to invade Denmark, partly out of vengeance but also to grab back lands which have been taken. I think.

The highlight is inevitably Simon Russell Beale's Hamlet. Something of an unsung actor (who some might remember as Widmerpool in Channel 4's adaption of Anothony Powell's A Dance To The Music of Time), he does stamp his ideas on the part and you get the feeling he's been wanting to express these ideas for years. It's a very regal version and you get the feeling that he would much rather go to Wittenberg than hang around the palace and the inevitable madness which will follow. But when he has to take the lead his dives straight in, convivial and excited. The venom with which he aproaches his enemies, especially, wierdly Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (who he has hardly any time for, fishing them out straight away) is excellent. You can see why he got the chance to repeat the role on stage at the Royal National Theatre in 2000 and a bit of a step up from second gravedigger which is the part he played in Ken Branagh's film version.

To be honest there are some pretty disappointing performances in here though. You would expect the late Bob Peck to inject some venom into Claudius, but instead he comes across as fairly pronderous, even generic, something that happens across the board. Perhaps the rule during this production was not to put too much of an interpretation on anything which might be fine if its to be used in study but does rather wring the passion out of it. Of the main cast, only Imogen Stubbs' Ophelia rises to the occasion, especially during her fall into madness.

The setting is simple, with subtle sound effects of wind or birds of echos depending on where the characters are. The specially composed music of Dominique Le Gendre is used to play in and out of scene and act breaks and although it's quite lovely, its deployment at times seems a bit random -- something booming before an intimate scene for example. Nothing earth shattering.

Which is unfortunately a good description of the production as a whole.

Listened to from a cassette on the 10th April 2005.

It is when Hamlet speaks to himself ...

Excellent Google Answer to the following question: "Taking into account the 16th and 17th Century English that was spoken in Shakespeare's time, (and using some of the suggestions shown in the following parenthesis), how do you perceive Shakespeare's ability as a writer (use of vocabulary, figures of speech, sense of dialogue, appropriateness and effectivenes of soliloquies, rhythm, use of blank verse) and as a composer of plays (plot, tension building, suspense of plot, climax, comic relief) when referring to the script of his play Hamlet?"

01 Nicol Williamson

Hamlet played by Nicol Williamson
Directed by Tony Richardson

The opening moments in any production of Hamlet are critical because the audience, assuming they know the play fairly well, will already be asking the 'How are they going to do...' question. It's the ghost. Hamlet senior. What is he going to look like? In a film, it's an even bigger challenge, because some people watching might expect a special effect. The approach here is a shot of bright light across the young Dane's face and his voice echoing through the frame. The style of the film is already crystallised. It's not about the surroundings or set dressing. It's about the emotion of the piece, the words. In this key moment we are looking in his eyes as he hear's his fathers words, and that's a device used throughout the piece.

On first appearance, Nicol Williamson might seem a bit old for the part. Certainly, I've seen Claudius's who look younger. But that does a disservice to his performance, which commands every scene he appears in. His Hamlet is far from mad; he's using a bluff technique to search for the why's of his father's death and how he's reacting to it. Unusually. in the intimate moments, during the soliloquy's he's at his most vulnerable, as though he's unable to come to terms with these feelings, and only really comes to life when he has someone to relate to.

A very young looking Anthony Hopkins makes a compelling Claudius, who with his gluttony seems like a man who could do wrong. Equally Judy Parfitt passes the test of being attractive enough for a man to kill for even if her skin is worryingly grey. Although not at grey as Ophelia, played by Marianne Faithful who in some shots looks positively black and white, almost as though the trickery of the film 'Pleasantville' had been used. Which is a shame because it detracts from rather a good performance.

The production was filmed at The Roundhouse Theatre which explains that use of extreme close up and the complete lack of establishing shots. The lighting absolutely picks up the actors faces, making what settings there are perfunctory. It mustn't have been a very easy shoot -- most of the speeches and scenes are played out in one shots -- there is very little editing in places, which allows the text the breath. I've seen the play many times and it was a joy on this occasion to hear how much of our language found a basis here.

The main oddity this time are the supporting actors. This is the only Hamlet you'd expect to find Michael Elphick and Angelica Houston standing around in the background, along with Roger Lloyd-Pack popularly known as Trigger in 'Only Fools and Horses'. The latter is particularly distracting because his face is so familiar and he appears, not only as Ronaldo, but also as a player, one of Laertes friends and a miscellaneous bystander in the duel at the end. One man should not have that many different beards. Also worth noting is the approach to the credits at the end, which are spoken, in a style similar to Truffaut's 'Farenheit 451' over a shot of Hamlet.

I watched the dvd of the film on the 30th March 2005.

Hamlet purists beware

Charles Spencer reviews Hamlet at the Royal Theatre in Northampton: "Unfortunately, Jane Birkin, still best known for her orgasmically breathy performance on Serge Gainsbourg's 'Je t'aime moi non plus', is a dreadful Gertrude. Still blessed with the ravaged remains of a once considerable beauty, her inexpressive little voice, mannered hand gestures and habit of squinting myopically at whoever she is addressing as if she has just mislaid her specs becomes a real test of the viewer's patience."

Classic Stage Explores Each Act of Hamlet, With Varied Directors and Actors

"an exciting new theatrical experience in which a company of distinguished actors and directors work through and explore each of the four acts of Shakespeare's masterwork in front of an audience," according to the announcement. "Audiences will have the chance to become part of the discovery process of the richness and mystery of Shakespeare's text, as they experience different Hamlets, through varying interpretations and actor and directorial choices."

Stylized madness: 'Hamlet' for the 21st century

"The first clue that director Dylan Lowthian's is a more comic "Hamlet" arises from the costumes, which are pantomime evocations of 17th-century dress. The dominant color is black. All the male characters are decked out in black Wellingtons (rubber boots, to the uninitiated), but Prince Hamlet wears a pair of black-and-white Converse (medieval basketball shoes). The black is accessorized by whiteface makeup, absurd white collars (worn by all characters but Hamlet) and, for the female characters, white pompoms."

Hamlet, thy name is madness

"Brun has the cast in very contemporary costumes, including camouflage wear for guards, Queen Gertrude in a First Lady type suit, Hamlet and his buddies in classic college duds, and two other women, Rosencrantz (Teddy Minford) and Guildenstern (Anja Sundali), in no-nonsense pant suits."

Hamlet's Cat's Soliloquy

"To go outside, and there perchance to stay
Or to remain within: that is the question:
Whether tis better for a cat to suffer
The cuffs and buffets of inclement weather
That Nature rains upon those who roam abroad,
Or take a nap upon a scrap of carpet,
And so by dozing melt the solid hours
That clog the clocks bright gears with sullen time
And stall the dinner bell .... "

[via Sore Eyes]

Going Awry On the Oscars

"Lisa de Moraes's March 1 column on the Oscar telecast was amusing and informative, but I protest her characterization of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" as "the drivel you're forced to memorize in school."

This Is How You Remind Me Of Hamlet

"iTunes was set to random and I'm just lying on the couch re-reading a couple of scenes from Act III. Up pops Nickleback's "This Is How You Remind Me," because while I may have made fun of the band awhile back, I still kinda dig the song. In fact, I've heard it many, many times -- yet tonight the song changed: somehow I heard Hamlet singing the song."

Why doesn't Hamlet kill his uncle immediately after his father's visitation?

"Hamlet is a momma's boy. His concern throughout the play is not primarily on avenging his father's murder, but on chastising his beloved mother. From the beginning, Hamlet is more upset about his mother's hasty remarriage than about his father's death. In his first monologue (I . 2 : 129-159), wherein he reveals the cause of his despondency, Hamlet speaks almost exclusively of his mother's crime, famously noting, "frailty, thy name is woman." And when, in response to his father's charge, Hamlet turns his attention to thoughts of revenge, he first exclaims, "O most pernicious woman" before thinking of his uncle (I . 5 : 105). It is his mother's crime that weighs most heavily on his heart."

A meditative 'Hamlet'

"This is most certainly a production worth seeing. In the intimate Black Box Theatre, you feel as if you are part of the story, as these very talented actors bring to life a challenging script. To make the production as true to Shakespeare's intent as possible, Borgers has even chosen the script from the Second Quarto, which is considered the most accurate publication of the original play."

To be Shakespeare Shakespeare or modernized Shakespeare: That is the question.

Robert Croghan designed the bland, faux-marble set. A humongous wheel thingy hangs from the ceiling during the final scene. Swinging back and forth (unintentionally, methinks) on Friday night, it looked like it was about to crash to the stage and gore poor Hamlet. That would put a daring twist on the play, come to think of it, though it would mean it could run only a single night.

To be or not to be, or why Hamlet is the most relevant play to modern times

What should he do? Should he listen to his heart, his superstitous visions of his father? Are they fanciful delusions telling him only what he wants to hear? How much easier would it be to ignore them, to pretend that all is as it should be? Not only could he protect his life and limb, but also the comfortable lie he has lived for a lifetime. For that matter, could it not be the truth?

'Fortinbras' puts spin on Hamlet's legacy

This thoroughly enjoyable production starts with the final scene of Hamlet, in which the dying prince, surrounded by his dead family, implores Horatio to tell the world the truth about the tragedy. He dies, and at that moment, Fortinbras strolls in, planning to make a royal visit on his way home from the Norwegian war against Poland. Fortinbras learns what has happened and decides to take over. He orders the servant Osric to store the bodies somewhere and clean up the mess, then he can take over the throne and announce the tragedy to the people of Denmark.

Harrison Students Take on the Bard's Difficult Tragedy

"Always at this age, one of the biggest challenges is to find a way for kids to relate emotionally to what's going on. `Hamlet' starts at a bad place and just gets worse. There are four deaths in the last five minutes of the play. It has to tumble to this horrible end, and that's hard for kids," he said.

Merlin's mad minimalist magic

"But they had it easy. Jack Bennett plays Rosencrantz, a Gravedigger and Mercellus, while Alex Woodhall tackles Guildenstern, Barnardo and the other Gravedigger. The two actors also share one of the props I forgot to mention earlier, a pair of spectacles. The doubling and tripling of roles is particularly hard on the actors, who have to move swiftly and at times seamlessly from one role to another. It is certainly ambitious, but by and large it works. I saw the play on the second night when, as is often the case, the pace was somewhat lacking. My colleague Eszter Balázs had seen it the night before, however, and said it was spot on. "

Even headed review of Olivier's film

In cutting this immensely long play to a running time of just over two and a half hours, Olivier and his screenplay collaborator, Alan Dent, eliminated some fairly prominent characters (notably Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Fortinbras) and even sacrificed a couple of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquies ('O what a rogue and peasant slave am I' and 'How all occasions do inform against me'), and thus made themselves vulnerable to charges of butchering the Bard. (Olivier, in answer to such criticisms, took to characterizing his film as merely 'a study in Hamlet.')

Seems, madam! Nay it is ... Jane Birkin

Jane Birkin, whose croaked anthem Je t'aime (moi non plus) sent a million adolescents crawling towards their French dictionaries, will make a rare return to the stage next month, to play Gertrude in Hamlet for the first time - in Northampton.

Hamlet revisited

"It is important that the task is done right, and to make sure the psychological journey of Hamlet is performed in a safe and trustworthy manner. There is no point in me making a 30-year old Hamlet: with my 24 years I can make the journey of an adolescent to a young man to a grown man," Gareth Taylor said.

Hamlet gets the Mystery Science Theatre 3000 treatment

"Servo: We win! We get any movie we want!
Crow: Mike, you're da bomb, man, what're you gonna pick?
Mike: Oh let's see, something I like. Let's say, say the greatest drama of all time. Pearl, send me Hamlet. With Ronna, Zepherelli, Olivie it's your choice.
Observer: Hamlet... German... Bratwurst.
Pearl: Hehe, perfect. You win, you get Hamlet. Oh boy do you get Hamlet. A dark, dreary, dubbed version made in 1960 for German television. God am I good."

Lost in translation

"This is perhaps what happened in the latest production of Hamlet, by The Actors Studio last week. It was staged in Bahasa Malaysia, and set in a contemporary setting (.22 calibres rather than rapiers and sabres). The fact that it was staged in Bahasa Malaysia seemed to have overshadowed everything else. And that's a problem when some of the actors seem to focus more on the language rather than the story itself. The result was like a pilot flying blind in the middle of a snowstorm, with hardly any contact with the control tower."

Branagh vs Zeffirelli

"The Zef. version is well, yes, crap when you try to compare it to the above. Yeah, where was Horatio (and, for that matter Michael Maloney, mikken?)? Where was the ghost's armour? Where was at least half the text, and the right order of it, and the sense of it? What was with Hamlet shagging his mother? And does anyone think Hamlet of all people would actually rip up a book, especially in Zef.'s pre-printing era setting? I can't be much more specific - I'd have to go watch it again and ... no. It's just wrong, and wrong, and wrong."

The Hamlet of Edmund Kean

(Hazlitt): Kean's surprise when he first sees the Ghost, his eagerness and filial confidence in following it, the impressive pathos of his action and voice in addressing it, 'I'll call thee Hamlet, father, Royal Dane,' were admirable. Mr. Kean has introduced in this part a new reading, as it is called, which we think perfectly correct. In the scene where he breaks from his friends to obey the command of his father, he keeps his sword pointed behind him, to prevent them from following him, instead of holding it before him to protect him from the Ghost.

The importance of arts in the prisons

So Wilcox, a slender, intense woman in big glasses, and a colleague, Mary Ann McGivern, began making trips to Pacific, teaching acting and playwriting, respectively. "Manuel gave me no peace. He wanted more. After one performance he said, 'Well?' and I said, 'Shakespeare.' His eyes got big. I said 'Hamlet.' His eyes got bigger. And then he said 'Yes.'"

Hamlet Video International

How unrelated can a domain name usage be? "Established in 1986, Hamlet Video International Limited is dedicated to the design, manufacture and supply of innovative, high quality, cost effective monitoring equipment to the television broadcast industry worldwide, with concentration currently on both digital and analogue video and audio test and measurement."

Hearing-impaired young people perform Shakespeare

"From the beginning, the boys seemed uncommunicative, but now our young actors are really inspired and seriously involved," said Asatiani, adding that the boys are very responsible, come to rehearsals early and often leave the theatre late, "they are so caught up with their roles that once, while playing, one boy began crying. They have very expressive faces and that's why we decided that while playing spectators will see them and not just their hands," she said.

Hyper Hamlet

" A cultural history of the play has to take into account the history of its text, of performance practices on stage and in reading, produced by what one may call, metaphorically, the cultural and political climate. Narratives, scenes, figures, phrases and ideas from the play entered the discourse of the moment, enhanced the play's cultural status as a classic, and in turn were fed back into the understanding of the play."