Category: Hamlet

Shall we hear a play?

https://www.kpbs.org/news/2021/apr/22/bringing-sounds-and-drama-hamlet-radio/

Barry Edelstein and The Old Globe are producing Hamlet as a radio drama, April 23 + 24 (it’s in two parts, it’s not playing twice).

My first thought is, how’s this different from an audio book? I mean, I remember the fascination of “old time radio”, my parents grew up in that era. That idea that if you weren’t in front of the radio and paying attention when something happened, you’d miss it? An actual live performance where things might go wrong, rather than a highly produced final copy? It sounds very interesting.

I may have to put this one in my calendar and try to tune in. If this were a play you’d never seen before, you might be thinking, how can pure audio paint that picture? But … it’s Hamlet. We’ve all seen Hamlet, probably multiple versions. So how do you not just fill in the blanks with past experiential memories?

My kids think that I have something called aphantasia – where you basically have no “mind’s eye.” I’m amused that I get to use that expression in a Hamlet story, given where that quote comes from. But, yes, when people say things to me like “Imagine a young woman falling out of a willow tree into a river” I’ve got … nuthin. My brain says “oh, like that Olivier version you saw in high school 35 years ago?” and “how about that famous painting?” But I can’t create a new, original version of that image. When I read a book I rely heavily on dialogue. If you spend a lot of words painting a picture for me about where everybody is in the room? I may remember a lot of the words, but I am very much not making a visual image in my head.

So I wonder what it’d be like listening to a live Hamlet? Maybe I’ll find out!

I knew about the Nazis and Merchant of Venice. But I never knew about Stalin and Hamlet.

Apparently Stalin “disapproved” of Hamlet, he didn’t ban it. Which I’m gathering, though I’m not a student of this particular time in history, that Stalin was the kind of dude who, if you did something he disapproved of, you lived to regret it … but not very long.

The rest of the linked article, be warned, is about cancel culture – a very hot, very divisive topic these days. The Stalin story makes the point – you don’t have to enact a law to cancel something. Sometimes, just the right word from the right person can do the trick.

(*) How’s TS Eliot get dragged into this? The poet wrote an essay entitled, “Hamlet and his Problems“, where we get the infamous quote referring to the English language’s greatest play as “certainly an artistic failure.” Unlike Stalin, however, Eliot apparently did not have cancel powers – few people would say that they stopped producing Hamlet because TS Eliot said so.

I joke about the Ethan Hawke’s Hamlet (2000) because, honestly, I never finished it. Maybe I was going through a cynical phase at the time, but I remember listening to his rendition of “To be or not to be” in … was it a laundromat? And thinking, he’s just rambling through this, this isn’t any kind of delivery, I’m not enjoying this. I think Bill Murray was his Polonius, and honestly I don’t even remember anything about his performance. I heard it was actually good.

But I’m coming back around, and think I should give him another chance. The man’s clearly a fan of our favorite subject. He’s got a new novel out, A Bright Ray of Darkness, about an actor whose marriage fails just as he’s starting out a run in Henry IV on Broadway. Hawke himself was Hotspur in a Broadway Henry IV, and his marriage (to Uma Thurman) also failed, so this seems a bit autobiographical.

I love reading about people playing Shakespeare. That this one seems to hold a mirror up to nature so clearly makes me want to read it that much more. And maybe I’ll tune in to Hawke’s Hamlet again while I’m at it.

Hollywood may be all about “digitally de-aging” its stars these days, but that doesn’t leave live theatre much to work with. It’s a sad truth that even our greatest heroes age, and will eventually age out of their own greatest roles. I could watch Sir Patrick Stewart play Macbeth forever, but Sir Patrick Stewart can’t play Macbeth forever, you know what I’m trying to say?

Some years ago, Sir Derek Jacobi played Mercutio at the age of 77. That’s not quite the same thing as playing Romeo at that age, though.

And I wish I could find a link, but I remember an interview with Christopher Plummer, while he was playing Prospero, lamenting that there were no more roles left for him to play at his age.

“Hold my beer,” I imagine Sir Ian McKellen telling them all as he announces his “age-blind” production of Hamlet.

Yes, we’re talking about Sir Ian *as* Hamlet. For the love of God somebody make sure to record this!