Thanks to reader Christopher S for this fascinating video from the Jewish TV Network where top atheism advocates – including Christopher Hitchens – debate the existence of an afterlife with several top rabbis.
At 1:28 (that’s one hour, twenty-eight minutes – it’s a long video), they break out the Hamlet. Which side, exactly, brings up Hamlet? *Both*. That’s cool. They both try to argue that Hamlet supports their case. And apparently, though I don’t have time to find every reference, Chris tells me that “Several times throughout the evening they bring up Shakespeare’s canon as a foil to the religious canons, arguing about whether we should read both in the same way or whether they need to be approached in different ways.” This is a topic that we’ve covered as well.
What do you think about the atheism question? Does Hamlet fear the undiscovered country because he doesn’t know what comes next … or because he’s wondering if *anything* comes next? I wouldn’t go so far as to extend the discussion to “Is Hamlet atheist? Therefore, was Shakespeare atheist?” I know that’s been argued elsewhere on the net. I think the odds are against it. I’m referring to this particular case. Even if Hamlet is a devoutly religious chap with a firm belief in the afterlife, is this speech a moment of weakness where he wonders “What if I’m wrong?”

Yesterday we had a gender-reversed Hamlet, so today how about a one-man show?

In describing his one-man version of Hamlet, Bhaneja said: “For many of us, our most powerful experience with the play Hamlet occurred on our first reading of it — outside of the theatre ­— where we, alone, had to conjure up the setting, characters and drama. With this production, the audience is guided through the actual text, almost in the way an ancient storyteller might do, where the actor/storyteller provides an outline of a character upon which the viewer extrapolates.”

With the firm understanding that this is pretty far-afield from going to see a Shakespeare show, I think it would be quite interesting. When I tell my kids one of the plays, I’m basically the one-man storyteller. And isn’t a teacher doing the same thing, for a larger audience? So why not put the storyteller on the stage and have him speak to as many people as will sit for the show?

Helen Mirren just did it for Prospera in Taymor’s Tempest, so why can’t Yvonne Flack do the same with The Suffragette Hamlet, her own “truly new play” that gives her a chance to take on what she considers to be “every classical actor’s dream, and secretly, every actress’s.”

I just never seriously thought I would be able to take on the role until [director Darcie Flansburg] approached me with the idea of a reverse-gender Hamlet.

What boggles my mind is that these students of their art – Ms. Flack’s “entire dissertation is based around non-Western adaptations of the play” – seem not at all interested in mentioning Sarah Bernhardt, the legendary actress who portrayed Hamlet 100 years ago. Does this woman truly believe that a woman can’t play a man’s role?
NOTE – Do NOT miss that Sarah Bernhardt link, where we actually dug up some extraordinarily rare footage of Ms Bernhardt’s fight scene with Laertes, in 1899! How often do you get to see THAT?