Hamlet
About the Production
Once upon a time there lived a Prince Amleth, whose father, the King of Jutland, was killed by his own brother, the prince’s uncle…Â
This was a story told by the wonderfully named Saxo Grammaticus, a thirteenth century Danish historian. The tale was picked up in the mid-1500s by Matteo Bandello, an Italian writer of short stories, and adapted to his needs, and then the French writer and translator, Francois de Belleforest, took Bandello’s version and did much the same in 1570. He expanded the original story in his version and introduced the main character’s famous melancholia, and it’s almost certain that Shakespeare took his inspiration for Hamlet from this version, translated into English. (‘Cymbeline’, ‘Much Ado About Nothing’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ almost certainly trace their roots in much the same way, as does John Webster’s ‘The Duchess of Malfi’.).Â
Shakespeare’s play was published in 1601, though it had been in existence, and performed, before then. It’s even thought that a early version of it existed as far back as 1589, written by either playwright Thomas Kyd or Shakespeare himself, but the script has been lost. It’s thought that the ‘Ghost’ made its debut in this version, but to date, that remains unproven.
Our script is not as Shakespeare wrote it. It’s simply far too long for our needs. Branagh’s film adaptation (1996) retained every word and ran for over four hours and a standard stage version will easily run to three and a half. In our version we’ve edited the text significantly, taking out fully a third of what was there. However, we’ve not been so foolish as to endanger the story proper. The key plot components, important speeches and oh, so quotable lines are all there. Gone are many of the political aspects, and (purists look away now) some of the flights of poetic fancy. We believe we’ve struck the proper balance here between art and comfort. We’ll leave the decision as to whether we called it right down to you.
‘Hamlet’ is part of the English revenge play tradition. A crime or wrong-doing has taken place and the drama proceeds from the protagonist/s attempting to seek some form of justice, either by simply disclosing the offence or exacting revenge upon the perpetrator. The history of revenge plays goes back at least as far as Aeschylus and his Oresteian trilogy in 500BC, which were translated into Latin by Seneca half a millennia later and from Latin into English over a thousand years after that. These then provided the model from which English playwrights would craft their own stories. Thomas Kyd’s ‘The Spanish Tragedie’ (1588), John Marston’s ‘Antonio’s Revenge’ (1599), Cyril Tourneur’s ‘The Revenger’s Tragedy (1607) are classics of their kind. Of all of them, however, ‘Hamlet’ remains the exemplar, for its depth, its questioning of the human condition, its ability, centuries on, to make itself so clearly understood.Â
A final note. In Old Norse, in which the original tale was told, the name ‘Amleth’ meant ‘Not sane’. Which of course throws into question any and all of the protagonist’s considerations and actions. Perhaps think on that.
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The Cast
Behind the Scenes
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The Reviews
Ranting Prince Falls Into A Bear Trap
It is a brave undertaking by any amateur company to tackle the Mount Everest of English tragedy. Those who do should bear in mind Hamlet’s own words about rash, intruding fools and the engineer being hoist with his own petard. Pitfalls are everywhere, as big as bear traps.
The director is Luke Argles, the company’s Guildenstern, who has trimmed the text to an acceptable two and half hours which, by and large, succeeds in keeping in place all the main elements of the story, though not without some sacrifice to the shape. Original music by Mark Taylor has moments of dark grandeur, and on stage there are at least two outstanding performances. Unfortunately, the Prince is not one of them.
With a romantically gloomy look, Paul Breden has the physical requirements, but in the presentation and delivery of his huge part he lacks, at every stage, the firm guidance of a wise and experienced director. With such guidance, he could be a promising actor. But the lines are taken much too fast, smothering the verse’s meaning, and his ranting style is that of Rudolf Hess introducing the Fuehrer at a Nuremburg rally. Words are recklessly omitted or added, fracturing the lines and even making nonsense of them, as in his first soliloquy, where he gives us the sentence: “O most wicked speed, to post” but omits the following words “….with such dexterity to incestuous sheets”.
So it’s back to the drawing board for the Prince, who is given an object lesson in clarity of diction and creation of character by Richard Lloyd’s Claudius. Bold and king-like, he is supported by a strong Polonius in Chris Argles, who presents the remains of a shrewd counsellor now trembling on the brink of senility. Tanya Allison speaks well but is rather slow to react as Gertrude, “letting I dare not wait upon I will”. Amy Coates is a sweet, pliant Ophelia, distracted in her mad scene but having the amorphous character of an unwitting decoy. The cast in general discharge their roles with varying degrees of competence, Mark Taylor providing a welcome touch of comedy and an assured ease of style as the First Gravedigger.
Donald Madgwick for The Croydon Advertiser
Don’t be hard on the Bard
When I began as a theatre critic for this paper, one of the first precepts I was taught was to be helpful, not hurtful. My mentor was the redoubtable George Devine of the Royal Court Theatre, who certainly knew a hawk from an handsaw.
I wasn’t there to parade my own cleverness, bit to offer an informed opinion on what I saw. “As long as you know what you are talking about, they’ll respect you. But don’t bluff. Be honest. Tell the truth as you see it, and you won’t go far wrong.” Good advice. But I soon discovered two things: a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, and one man’s truth is another man’s gall and wormwood.
I had ventured a few mildly censorious remarks about a school production of Shakespeare. Not, I hope, in a carping spirit. But carping and harping are matters of opinion, and my review drew more than one aggrieved letter from parents. What did I expect from schoolboys: Laurence Olivier? No such thing. All I asked was that they work their way patiently through the minefield of the verse instead of making a cavalry charge through it. Look for the meaning in every word. Give the lines light and air. Let them breathe.
That I was not demanding the impossible soon became clear when saw a wonderful production of Richard II by the Beckenham and Penge Grammar School for Boys, directed by David Raeburn. It goes without saying that the director is the pivotal factor in a school production. And for Raeburn, later to be headmaster of Whitgift School, South Croydon, it was a sine qua non that his young actors should share his own understanding of the text. They were the vessels into which his store of wisdom was poured. They could only begin to deliver the verse properly when they knew what it was saying. both he and they proved that school Shakespeare need not be a penance bit is, at its best, a vibrant, exciting, living force.
I was reminded of that early experience when I recently saw a local amateur production of Hamlet by Theatre Workshop Coulsdon. Exactly the same principles apply here as for schoolboys. What is needed is a strong, thoroughly experienced director who, while giving his players ample latitude of interpretation, is prepared to beaver away at the text until it flows like a crystal stream. It hardly helped that the director was himself a member of the cast, working from inside instead of viewing the whole picture objectively from without. Much of the verse was taken at a headlong rush, Hamlet himself being among the worst offenders.
What chance was there for the pale heroine of meaning to show her head through verse which had become, not a path of enlightenment, but a dense thicket? And the more Hamlet ranted and the Ghost bellowed, strewing the path with rocks and boulders, the more did their excellent Claudius and Polonius pose the question we should all have been asking: not whether they were amateur or professional, but whether they were up to the job.
So don’t be so hard on the Bard. To see or not to see: that will always be the question, rough-hew it how you will.
Donald Madgwick for The Croydon Advertiser, April 6 2001 - Part of 'All The World's A Stage - Recollections from over 40 years of reviewing the theatre'
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