Shakespeare

[Cato]

Concerning the comment by Poco Sforzando on why directors feel they need to modernize and "improve" Shakespeare: the answer in one word is "ego."

Rather than performing the play as written too many modern producers/directors etc. are compelled to compensate for their own lack of creativity by inserting such nonsense.  My favorite example of this was a production of Der Ring where Wotan and company were depicted as a motorcycle gang a la Stanley Kramer's Marlon Brando movie The Wild One.

A subordinate answer to the question is "fear."  Unless some new twist is offered - complete with the possibility of outrage and scandal - the modern producers/etc. fear the theater will stay empty with a traditional performance.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think Hamlet is a failure.   Shakespeare tried to turn the Elizabethan version of the action flick, the revenge play, into an intellectual investigation of Hamlet, and it did not work.

No, this is precisely the reason for its success. Shakespeare went beyond the cliché of the action hero, and choose instead to place a highly intellectual and reflection man - but also a hot-headed and impulsive one - in a situation that required dangerous action.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Actually, Hamlet would have been in danger, as the old king's son and the new king's stepson, no matter how Claudius came to the throne.  He was a logical alternative for anyone who did not like Claudius.  History is littered with the corpses of people who had the bad luck of being born too close to the throne.  English audiences would know that Henry VII and Henry VIII chopped off the heads of a few, that Lady Jane Grey was exactly such a case, and that Elizabeth, who took great care not to actually say who would succeed her, was relatively kind: she merely imprisoned and abused relatives who got married without her rathet hard to get consent.   Hamlet playing mad to make himself seem less capable of being king, thereby protecting himself from Claudius's suspicions, was a natural strategy.

Speaking of Claudius, or rather the name... Robert Graves used the same idea for I,Claudius, in which the protagonist pretends he is more stupid, weird, and overall goofy than he actually is to protect himself in a family in which almost everyone who is too close to the throne gets killed, usually by Livia directly or indirectly.  Perhaps Graves borrowed some from Shakespeare.

None of this can be used to support an argument about Hamlet unless it can be shown to relate to the plot and incidents of Hamlet. It does not, as I argue in my next post.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Somehow, despite years of instruction on Shakespeare and independent reading, I had never before realized that "Hamlet is in no danger until the play scene" - typical of the insight to be expected whenever you write a paragraph or more here.

Trace their interactions from the start of the play through the play scene (though actually Hamlet is not truly in danger until after he kills Polonius):

Act One Scene Two. Claudius wishes to make peace with his nephew and asks him not to return to school.

CLAUDIUS. We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.
GERTRUDE. Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.
HAMLET. I shall in all my best obey you, madam.
CLAUDIUS. Why, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet
Sits smiling to my heart.

Act Two Scene One. Polonius, having heard Ophelia's account of Hamlet's behavior when she suddenly stops seeing him, concludes he has been driven insane by love.

POLONIUS. Come, go with me: I will go seek the king.
This is the very ecstasy of love,
Whose violent property fordoes itself
And leads the will to desperate undertakings
As oft as any passion under heaven
That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.
What, have you given him any hard words of late?
OPHELIA. No, my good lord, but, as you did command,
I did repel his fetters and denied
His access to me.
POLONIUS. That hath made him mad.

Act Two Scene Two. Claudius notes that Hamlet has been even more moody than ever lately (something true since the beginning of the play), and sends for R+G to spy on him.

CLAUDIUS. Welcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern!
Moreover that we much did long to see you,
The need we have to use you did provoke
Our hasty sending. Something have you heard
Of Hamlet's transformation; so call it,
Sith nor the exterior nor the inward man
Resembles that it was.
Polonius has an audience with the king in which he proclaims Hamlet mad out of love.
CLAUDIUS. He tells me, my dear Gertrude, he hath found
The head and source of all your son's distemper.
GERTRUDE. I doubt it is no other but the main;
His father's death, and our o'erhasty marriage.
Having the murderer's guilty conscience, Claudius seeks reassurance for his misgivings.
CLAUDIUS. How may we try it further?
POLONIUS. You know, sometimes he walks four hours together
Here in the lobby.
GERTRUDE. So he does indeed.
POLONIUS. At such a time I'll loose my daughter to him:
Be you and I behind an arras then;
Mark the encounter: if he love her not
And be not from his reason fall'n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carters.
CLAUDIUS. We will try it.

Act Three Scene One. Claudius seems momentarily reassured that Hamlet is snapping out of it because of the players.

ROSENCRANTZ. Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.
POLONIUS. 'Tis most true:
And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.
CLAUDIUS. With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.

No sign so far that Hamlet is in any danger. But watch what happens after TBONTB and the confrontation with Ophelia. Now Claudius (who is neither convinced Hamlet that is mad nor in love) is starting to think something must be up - though he does not yet know what - beyond Polonius' fantasies, and therefore he is trying to find some means to get Hamlet out of the way:

CLAUDIUS. Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,
For the demand of our neglected tribute.

There is no way of knowing what would have happened were it not for subsequent events (Shakespeare's characters don't usually take banishment lying down; consider Kent, or Bolingbroke in Richard II, or Romeo when banished to Mantua, or of course Hamlet when he battles the pirates and returns home). But next in rapid succession we have the great play scene, where Hamlet verifies the ghost's story and Claudius learns that somehow Hamlet has found him out; and then Hamlet's making the critical mistake of killing Polonius, which now gives Claudius the justification he needs for sending an insane criminal out of the country (and presumably to his death).

[(poco) Sforzando]

That was another production where a legitimate actor who has somehow become an improbable sex icon for the teenage female set got saddled by a lot of curious choices. (Even Patrick Stewart shrugs like "sure, why not?" before drinking the poison.)

He may shrug all he likes, but Shakespeare's Claudius says, "Oh yet defend me, friends! I am but hurt!" Not exactly the tone of someone who's giving up without a fight.

Followed by Hamlet forcing the drink down the bastard's throat:

Here, thou incestuous, murderous, damned Dane,
Drink off this potion. Is thy union here?
Follow my mother.

[SimonNZ]

The camera thing seems to have become popular. I just watched the Blu-Ray of the David Tennant & Patrick Stewart Hamlet, where the whole castle is outfitted with NSA-style security cameras. The director's sad idea of how to exploit the cinematic medium is to exploit obviously digitally "enhanced" security camera views with corny red boxes and gigantic-type-size "Recording" messages. You know, the kind real security cameras haven't had in ages. Then, of course, Hamlet feigns madness by destroying one of the cameras.

That was another production where a legitimate actor who has somehow become an improbable sex icon for the teenage female set got saddled by a lot of curious choices. (Even Patrick Stewart shrugs like "sure, why not?" before drinking the poison.)

I liked the Tennant Hamlet more than I was expecting to (though it does have a few missteps), particularly the way they added emphasis to everything in the text about the unbridgable gulf separating royalty and mere mortals, lingering on lines that I'd only previously heard sped by. I also liked Patrick Stewart playing both Claudius and the Ghost, adding strength to all the incest talk, and making the "look on this picture and this" bit more than mere superficial appearance. Surprised that isn't done more often.


Thanks for the Cumberbotch review, poco. Most seem to agree that the set was interesting but the staging overwhelming. I've heard there was some interesting things done with slow-motion in the background and with Ophelia's death. how did you feel about those?

[kishnevi]

None of this can be used to support an argument about Hamlet unless it can be shown to relate to the plot and incidents of Hamlet. It does not, as I argue in my next post.

I am pretty sure it was described as his motive in the Saxo Grammaticus verdion that was the original appearance of the story.  But Saxo ≠ Shakespeare, and I await your post with interest.

But playwright and playgoers would have certainly known of the problems which heirs and near heirs, and fear of them, caused.  Among other things, it was the main dynamic in the life and death of Mary Queen of Scots.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I'm pretty sure I understand your thesis here, but the phrasing of the last sentence leaves me a little bit confused. Hamlet is making his friends swear to keep the secret that he is really sane, no? Or do you simply mean that, the way most directors instruct Hamlets to behave, his lunacy is so ridiculous and over-the-top that any reasonable character in Elsinore would think he was faking it?

Hamlet is making his friends swear not to reveal anything they have seen.

HAMLET
Touching this vision here,
It is an honest ghost, that let me tell you:
For your desire to know what is between us,
O'ermaster 't as you may. And now, good friends,
As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,
Give me one poor request.

HORATIO
What is't, my lord? we will.

HAMLET
Never make known what you have seen to-night.

HORATIO MARCELLUS
My lord, we will not.

HAMLET
Nay, but swear't.

HORATIO
In faith,
My lord, not I.

MARCELLUS
Nor I, my lord, in faith.

HAMLET
Upon my sword.

MARCELLUS
We have sworn, my lord, already.

HAMLET
Indeed, upon my sword, indeed.

Ghost
[Beneath] Swear.

HAMLET
Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there,
truepenny?
Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage--
Consent to swear.

HORATIO
Propose the oath, my lord.

HAMLET
Never to speak of this that you have seen,
Swear by my sword.

Ghost
[Beneath] Swear.

HAMLET
Hic et ubique? then we'll shift our ground.
Come hither, gentlemen,
And lay your hands again upon my sword:
Never to speak of this that you have heard,
Swear by my sword.

Ghost
[Beneath] Swear.

Horatio, Bernardo, and Marcellus have seen the ghost, though they have not heard its revelation to Hamlet concerning the murder, and my point is that it hardly makes sense for someone to swear others to secrecy and then decide he'll start deliberately acting in a way that causes suspicion (such as leading brass bands or building miniature castles). His goal is to keep what he knows to himself, and he reveals the entire truth only to Horatio afterwards as his most trusted friend.

Then when watching the play, both Hamlet and Horatio are convinced the ghost was an honest spirit (that is, not a "goblin damned," or "may be the devil," etc.). The need to ensure the ghost was truthful is essential to the first half of the play, and is the reason Hamlet puts on his own little play. (The possibility of spirits tempting melancholics towards their own destruction is part of Elizabethan folklore: compare Edgar telling Gloucester that "poor Tom" was really a demon: "As I stood here below, methought his eyes / Were two full moons; he had a thousand noses, / Horns whelk'd and waved like the enridged sea: / It was some fiend. . . ." )

[kishnevi]

Trace their interactions from the start of the play through the play scene (though actually Hamlet is not truly in danger until after he kills Polonius):

Act One Scene Two. Claudius wishes to make peace with his nephew and asks him not to return to school.
Act Two Scene One. Polonius, having heard Ophelia's account of Hamlet's behavior when she suddenly stops seeing him, concludes he has been driven insane by love.
Act Two Scene Two. Claudius notes that Hamlet has been even more moody than ever lately (something true since the beginning of the play), and sends for R+G to spy on him.
Act Three Scene One. Claudius seems momentarily reassured that Hamlet is snapping out of it because of the players.
No sign so far that Hamlet is in any danger. But watch what happens after TBONTB and the confrontation with Ophelia. Now Claudius (who is neither convinced Hamlet that is mad nor in love) is starting to think something must be up - though he does not yet know what - beyond Polonius' fantasies, and therefore he is trying to find some means to get Hamlet out of the way:
There is no way of knowing what would have happened were it not for subsequent events (Shakespeare's characters don't usually take banishment lying down; consider Kent, or Bolingbroke in Richard II, or Romeo when banished to Mantua, or of course Hamlet when he battles the pirates and returns home). But next in rapid succession we have the great play scene, where Hamlet verifies the ghost's story and Claudius learns that somehow Hamlet has found him out; and then Hamlet's making the critical mistake of killing Polonius, which now gives Claudius the justification he needs for sending an insane criminal out of the country (and presumably to his death).

Claudius wanting Hamlet to stay would be a classic case of keep your enemies near, and Hamlet would have a reason to stay in Denmark if he wanted the throne, either to kill Claudius and seize it or if Claudius died a sudden natural death. After all, had he not been out of the country, he would have had the best claim to the throne when his father died.

And with Claudius able to keep tabs on him, Claudius merely waits until Hamlet gives him an excuse by killing Polonius. The danger for Hamlet existed from the very first scene of the play.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I am pretty sure it was described as his motive in the Saxo Grammaticus verdion that was the original appearance of the story.  But Saxo ≠ Shakespeare, and I await your post with interest.

But playwright and playgoers would have certainly known of the problems which heirs and near heirs, and fear of them, caused.  Among other things, it was the main dynamic in the life and death of Mary Queen of Scots.

Of course there was great anxiety over the succession, especially after the death of Elizabeth, and Shakespeare's Richard II - which is about the usurpation of the weak Richard by Henry Bolingbroke, whom he banished - caused her much concern: "I am Richard II, know ye not that?"

Prince Hamlet himself, however, shows little interest in running the kingdom, and in fact there is only one line very late in the play where he speaks of Claudius having "popped in between the election and my hopes."

There are a couple of sources for Hamlet, Saxo among them, and Belleforest another. I'm more familiar with Belleforest, but the critical point there is that in that source the Claudius character murders Hamlet's father openly, and since Hamlet fears he'll meet the same fate, he pretends madness to protect himself. (As I remember "I Claudius," a parallel situation applies.)

But in Shakespeare, the murder is secret. And that changes everything.

[kishnevi]

Of course there was great anxiety over the succession, especially after the death of Elizabeth, and Shakespeare's Richard II - which is about the usurpation of the weak Richard by Henry Bolingbroke, whom he banished - caused her much concern: "I am Richard II, know ye not that?"

Prince Hamlet himself, however, shows little interest in running the kingdom, and in fact there is only one line very late in the play where he speaks of Claudius having "popped in between the election and my hopes."

There are a couple of sources for Hamlet, Saxo among them, and Belleforest another. I'm more familiar with Belleforest, but the critical point there is that in that source the Claudius character murders Hamlet's father openly, and since Hamlet fears he'll meet the same fate, he pretends madness to protect himself. (As I remember "I Claudius," a parallel situation applies.)

But in Shakespeare, the murder is secret. And that changes everything.

The secrecy of the murder is not that important.  Hamlet as main rival and potential focus of discontent would be the same even if his father died naturally and Claudius came to the throne by entirely innocent metrhods.   Claudius had good reason to want Hamlet dead even without the murder.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Claudius wanting Hamlet to stay would be a classic case of keep your enemies near, and Hamlet would have a reason to stay in Denmark if he wanted the throne, either to kill Claudius and seize it or if Claudius died a sudden natural death. After all, had he not been out of the country, he would have had the best claim to the throne when his father died.

And with Claudius able to keep tabs on him, Claudius merely waits until Hamlet gives him an excuse by killing Polonius. The danger for Hamlet existed from the very first scene of the play.

As I said previously, Hamlet does not show the slightest interest in succeeding to the throne. His primary agitation, until he hears from the ghost, is over his mother's hasty and incestuous remarriage. Even when he learns of the murder, he never expresses any interest in becoming king himself, only in avenging his father's murder. (There is one character who does challenge Claudius' rule, and that is Laertes on his return from France.)

It might be argued in fact that Gertrude, as old Hamlet's widow, rightly inherits the crown - "the imperial jointress to this warlike state" - and that Claudius as her consort reigns equally.

But it seems to me the scenario you describe is not supported by the play.

[(poco) Sforzando]

The secrecy of the murder is not that important.  Hamlet as main rival and potential focus of discontent would be the same even if his father died naturally and Claudius came to the throne by entirely innocent metrhods.   Claudius had good reason to want Hamlet dead even without the murder.

The secrecy of the murder is critical to the story. It is the reason the Ghost appears and enjoins Hamlet to revenge. In the play Shakespeare wrote, old Hamlet was thought to have died by a snakebite while sleeping in his orchard. No one (except possibly Polonius, who is hinted may have been an accomplice) is aware that an act of regicide took place, and if that were known, it's highly unlikely Claudius would have been elected to the throne. Further, Hamlet is not a rival to Claudius and shows no discontent over not ruling Denmark, and Claudius at least at first shows no sign of wanting Hamlet dead. I'm not going to keep arguing this, as it's abundantly clear from the text.

[kishnevi]

As I said previously, Hamlet does not show the slightest interest in succeeding to the throne. His primary agitation, until he hears from the ghost, is over his mother's hasty and incestuous remarriage. Even when he learns of the murder, he never expresses any interest in becoming king himself, only in avenging his father's murder. (There is one character who does challenge Claudius' rule, and that is Laertes on his return from France.)

It might be argued in fact that Gertrude, as old Hamlet's widow, rightly inherits the crown - "the imperial jointress to this warlike state" - and that Claudius as her consort reigns equally.

But it seems to me the scenario you describe is not supported by the play.

I think it is amply supported.  And remember, even if Hamlet was not interested in the throne, everyone else would have seen him as Claudius's rival outfoxed for the throne, and therefore a danger to Claudius.

[kishnevi]

It is said Sydney Smith saw two women shouting at each other from windows across the street from each other and commented, "They will never agree.  They are arguing from different premises."

I suspect that is the case here.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I think it is amply supported.  And remember, even if Hamlet was not interested in the throne, everyone else would have seen him as Claudius's rival outfoxed for the throne, and therefore a danger to Claudius.

No one in the play mentions this in any way, or even alludes to Hamlet as a potential rival for the throne. All the subordinate characters - Voltimand, Cornelius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern - express their allegiance to Claudius as the rightful ruler of Denmark. Hamlet's motives for wanting to kill Claudius are to revenge the death of a beloved father, pure and simple. Over and out.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I liked the Tennant Hamlet more than I was expecting to (though it does have a few missteps), particularly the way they added emphasis to everything in the text about the unbridgable gulf separating royalty and mere mortals, lingering on lines that I'd only previously heard sped by. I also liked Patrick Stewart playing both Claudius and the Ghost, adding strength to all the incest talk, and making the "look on this picture and this" bit more than mere superficial appearance. Surprised that isn't done more often.


Thanks for the Cumberbotch review, poco. Most seem to agree that the set was interesting but the staging overwhelming. I've heard there was some interesting things done with slow-motion in the background and with Ophelia's death. how did you feel about those?

I thought the Ophelia thing was silly. She mounted the stairs as if walking into a halo (and as if she were a deliberate suicide, not an accidental drowning as the play makes clear.) Hamlet delivered his first soliloquy in a spot with some slo-mo in the background as you say; I guess that was OK, but after three more hours of Cumberbotch I didn't much care any more.

Haven't seen the Tennant. I should.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Concerning the comment by Poco Sforzando on why directors feel they need to modernize and "improve" Shakespeare: the answer in one word is "ego."

Rather than performing the play as written too many modern producers/directors etc. are compelled to compensate for their own lack of creativity by inserting such nonsense.  My favorite example of this was a production of Der Ring where Wotan and company were depicted as a motorcycle gang a la Stanley Kramer's Marlon Brando movie The Wild One.

A subordinate answer to the question is "fear."  Unless some new twist is offered - complete with the possibility of outrage and scandal - the modern producers/etc. fear the theater will stay empty with a traditional performance.

I have always thought that the most original approach to Shakespeare would be to present his characters and situations honestly and without gimmicks, rewriting, translations, transpositions, and so forth.

[kishnevi]

No one in the play mentions this in any way, or even alludes to Hamlet as a potential rival for the throne. All the subordinate characters - Voltimand, Cornelius, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern - express their allegiance to Claudius as the rightful ruler of Denmark. Hamlet's motives for wanting to kill Claudius are to revenge the death of a beloved father, pure and simple. Over and out.

No one would need to.  Everyone in the audience would have placed it in the context of how monarchial politics worked.
It is like a play about the President of the US in our day.  Even if no one mentioned the briefcase with the nuclear codes in the play, we would know it was there.

The secondary characters are another feature of 16th century politics...the guys who shift with the wind and try to make sure they are in the winning camp.  That is the whole point to Hamlet's rant about R and G: men who played the game for high stakes, and knew they might die for it.  Laertes is the one who is different: that is why Claudius must win him over.

Out and over.

I have always thought that the most original approach to Shakespeare would be to present his characters and situations honestly and without gimmicks, rewriting, translations, transpositions, and so forth.

In full agreement with you there.

[Cato]

I have always thought that the most original approach to Shakespeare would be to present his characters and situations honestly and without gimmicks, rewriting, translations, transpositions, and so forth.

"Why, it's so crazy, it might just work!"