HAMLET

HAMLETfrom SHAKESPEARE: Script, Stage, Screen (Chapter 15)Edited by David Bevington, Anne Marie Welsh and Michael L. Greenwald, Pearson Longman, 2006.

Context and dating

After Julius Caesar (1599) and Twelfth Night (1601)The first of four great tragedies (Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear)More than 40 films exitsMany women have played the role including women like Sara Bernhardt and Judith AndersonUniversally noted for the human-ness of its protagonistIt is memorable both as superb storytelling and spectacular theater

Plots and Counterplots

Relies on three interlinked stories about fathers and sons

Hamlet and his fatherPolonius and LaertesFortinbras and his father

Laertes is too passionate in his revengeHamlet is too deliberateFortinbras is methodical and successful

HAMLET represents a new type of storytelling as he writes about a character “suspended” between impulse and action.

--Stephen Greenblatt

The play is more than a murder story: it is an examination of the kind of response provoked by murder.

--Peter Alexander

Harold BloomThe phenomenon of Hamlet, the prince without the play, is unsurpassed in the West’s imaginative literature.Hamlet the character transcends his play

Hamlet is the theatre’s most enigmatic hero…Laurence Olivier begins his award-winning film with a voice-over “the tragedy of a man who cannot make up his mind”He is a character fraught with inconsistencies

Is he feigning madness or indeed mad?He seems tender, yet he has his friends murderedShakespeare’s only tragic character with an enviable sense of humorUnlike Ophelia’s depiction, he is cruel to both her and GertrudeHe will not kill himself and deliberately refuses to kill his uncle

7 Soliloquies

Soliloquies mark Hamlet’s movement from paralysis to action

O that this too, too sullied flesh would melt (I.2)O all you host of heaven! (I.5) O what a rogue and peasant slave am I (II.2)To be, or not to be (III. 2)Tis now the very witching time of night (III.3)Now might I do it pat (III.3)How all occasions do inform against me (IV.4)

Oedipal implicationsThese have been explored in several films including the adaptations with Laurence Olivier and Mel Gibson

Laurence Olivier and Eileen Herlie Glenn Close and Mel Gibson

Other notable characters

CLAUDIUS, the wicked uncle-kingPOLONIUS, a garrulous and meddling counselorOPHELIA, an innocent ingenueLAERTES, her fiery brotherHORATIO, Hamlet’s faithful friendManipulative and manipulated schoolmates ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

Even Minor Characters are memorable

Fortinbras, future King of DenmarkThe clowns

OsricThe Gravediggers

Sources and Inspirations

The Spanish Tragedy by Thomas Kyd (1588)Ur-Hamlet (Kyd? in 1589)Saxo Grammaticus Historia Danica 1180-1208

Francois de Belleforest Histories Tragiques (1576)

1601

It was written in 1601 at the height of a vogue for children’s companies.That same year is the death of Shakespeare’s father.Could it be a meditation on the death of a father?

Language and music

Several images dominate notably those describing corruption and decay“Something is rotten in the State of Denmark” (1.4.90)A sterile promontory - unweeded garden - ulcerous placeAn evil act (fratricide, the primal sin) soils everyone

Language and musicPlay seems to move from beautiful to harrowingMarcellus description of rising son (1.1.72) to appearance of ghostShakespeare’s most ambitious attempt to create a psychologically complex character through languageThe play has a preponderance of theatre language“Drama holds the mirror up to nature”

Language and musicContains three songs

1. Hamlet sings a jaunty tune to celebrate the success of “The Mousetrap”

2. Ophelia’s song is one of the bawdiest in all of Shakespeare

3. Gravedigger’s sing a nonsense song as they dig Ophelia’s grave

QUEEN How now, Ophelia!  OPHELIA   [She sings.]  "How should I your true love know From another one?   By his cockle hat and staff,   And his sandal shoon." QUEEN  Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song? OPHELIA Say you? nay, pray you, mark.           Song.  "He is dead and gone, lady,     He is dead and gone;   At his head a grass-green turf,      At his heels a stone."

ThemesNo play in history has generated more commentary than HAMLET

Hamlet as religious treatiseHamlet as a cry of despairHamlet as interrogation into the human conditionHamlet as existentialist tractHamlet as political documentHamlet as feminist discourse

Staging ChallengesWHICH TEXT--and how do we cut it?1. Unauthorized quarto or “bad quarto” (1603)2. Authorized quarto performed by King’s Men (1604)3. 1623 Folio is compatible with Q2, about 100 lines shorter

The longest of the plays and modern versions are longer than any acted in Shakespeare’s dayPlay was undoubtedly trimmed in Shakespeare’s time and subsequently modern productions must deal with the length

Staging ChallengesHamlet’s Ghost has been used in various ways in different productions including one in which Gertrude was allowed to see the GhostThe dumb show (play within the play) exposes the kingHamlet’s treatment of women is problematicThe graveyard scene, if not handled properly can seem absurd and foolish

HAMLET onstage

Richard BurbageRichard Burbage was the first Hamlet. Was Shakespeare the ghost?Many of the best performances have been documented in print and film beginning with Thomas Betterton in 1661

Richard Burbage Thomas Betterton

The Elizabethan EraBurbage was the first Hamlet, followed by Joseph Taylor.The Globe theatre seems perfectly designed for the play.

17th and 18th

centuriesBetterton played the role into his 70s and played it in “modern” dress

Garrick was the most noted Hamlet of the 18th century...but, unlike his other Shakespeare’s edited the text to conform with tastes of Neoclassicism. For example, after killing Claudius, he exonerated Laertes and cut the return of Fortinbras

19th century – romantic hero

Coleridge was a great commentator upon the playJohn Philip Kemble (1783) the first “melancholic” princeEdmund Kean first played the role in 1814 to great acclaimEdwin Booth played the role for 100 performances in NY, a first Henry Irving (1864) played opposite Ellen Terry as Ophelia and was lavish, set in the 6th centuryWilliam Poel’s Elizabethan Stage Society production (1881)John Forbes-Robertsoin (1897) restored the Fortinbras subplot

Early 20th centuryJohn Barrymore triumphed in London and NY (1925)Barry Jackson staged a revolutionary “modern dress” Hamlet (1925)Guthrie Theatre opened in 1964 with a Hamlet in tuxedos and gowns. The titlerole was played byGeorge Grizzard.Jessica Tandy wasGertrude with HumeCronyn as Polonius

Early 20th century

In the 1930s and 40s...Gielgud played role five times as an aristocratic and delicate prince

Olivier’s Hamlet, in contrast, was athletic, masculine and passionate

Late 20th CenturyRSC’s first Hamlet staged in 1965 by Peter Hall. In it, David Warner was very clearly anti-heroic...very much a symbol of his timeNicol Williamson played the role as an outsider on stage and on filmIn 1975, the RSC cast Ben Kingsley in the role

Derek Jacobi (1977) at the Old Vic became basis for 1980 BBC productionMichael Pennington (1980) at RSC seemed tame compared to earlier ones

Postmodern Hamlets

1965 Theatre of Cruelty (Marowitz) presented Collage Hamlet

Joseph Papp’s Naked Hamlet deconstructed the play in 1967German director Peter Zadek staged the play in an empty factory in 1977German H. Hayme offered an electronic Hamlet in 1979Robert Wilson’s Hamlet Monologue (1995) was a one man performance

Inspired in part by the Gielgud/Burton, Kevin Klein played Hamlet at the Public Theatre in 1990. It was broadcast on public television.

Ralph Feinnes and Jude Law both played Hamlet on

Broadway

Feinnes played the role in 1995 and Law in 2009.

Non-western HamletsEspecially popular in Germany from end of 19th century

Performed in Japan since 1880

South Africa productions have been memorable since 1947. Pictured at right, aSouth African productionfrom 1977.

2014 – Benedict Cumberbatch plays Hamlet

at Shakespeare’s Globe

On Film and Television

Silent filmMost notably a 1920 Danish film with a female lead, Hamlet, the Drama of Vengance directed by Svend Gade and starring Asta Nielsen is said to have influenced Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich

19481948 (Starring and directed by Laurence Olivier)Oscar-winner for best pictureBlack and whiteHighly Freudian and Oedipal

1964 - GAMLET

A Russian film directed by Grigori Kozintsev with an adaptation by Boris Pasternak

1964 – Gielgud directs Burton

Director John Gielgud made a film of the NY stage production starringRichard Burton and using minimal staging

1967

Director Tony Richardson directed Nicol Williamson as Hamlet and Marianne Faithfull as Ophelia

1990

Directed by Franco Zeffirelli and starring Mel Gibson, Alan Bates, Julie Christie, Helena Bonham-Carter

1996Kenneth Branagh was the star and director. He used Blenheim Palace (near Stratford) as Elsinore. It was set in the 19th century with an international cast of stars.

1996Trevor Nunn discusses the title role featuring excerpts by Olivier, Gielgud, Burton, Schell, Williamson, Kingsley and others in a documentary called THE GREAT HAMLETS

2000Director Michael Almereyda directed Ethan Hawke in a film which sets Denmark as a modern corporation in NYC

On television1960--Maximilian Schell played Hamlet on West German television1970--Peter Wood directed a BBC television production with Richard Chamberlain as Hamlet1980--Director Rodney Bennett directed for the BBC with Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, Patrick Stewart as Claudius and Claire Bloom as Gertrude

2010 –RSC/PBSPatrick Stewart was once again Claudius in the 2010 RSC production starring David Tennant as Hamlet.

Adaptations and spin-offs

1868--Ballet by Ambroise Thomas1976 pop opera by Cliff Jones called Rockabye Hamlet

Many other ballet versions have been staged with music by Berlioz, Liszt, Copland and Tchaikovsky2000--Choreographer Stephen Mills used music by Philip Glass...action was seen as a flashback by Hamlet as he died

Tom Stoppard1966 – Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead1977 – Dogg’s Hamlet

Other stageplaysPoor Murderer (1977) by Czech playwright Pavel KohoutHamletmachine (1977) by Heiner Muller (Germany)I Hate Hamlet (1993) comedy by Paul Rudnick features ghost of BarrymoreFortinbras (2002) is Lee Blessing’s continuation of the storyGertrude--The Cry (2003) by English “shock” playwright Howard Barker centers on the sexual life of Gertrude

Film adaptationsTo Be Or Not To Be (1942) Ernst Labitsch use a performance of Hamlet by a Polish acting troupe to dupe the Nazis...remade in 1983 by Mel BrooksThe Bad Sleep Well (1960) Akira Kurosawa’s version set in modern JapanJohnny Hamlet (1972) an American westernA Midwinter’s Tale (1995) a comedy by Kenneth Branagh about an out of work film actor playing Hamlet in a small town church

Others…Strange Illusion (1945) an expressionistic film by Edgar UlmerBlue City (1986) a film noir starring Judd NelsonLet the Devil Wear Black (1999) a film by Michael Almereyda

Also…Strange Brew (1983) a comedy with Rich Moranis and Dave Thomas where the foolish protagonists end up at Elsinore Castle, a breweryOutrageous Fortune (1987) a feminist perspective on the play with Bette Midler and Shelley LongThe Renaissance Man (1994) uses the play against the background of a group of soldiers in training