While memory holds a seat in this distracted globe

[sovay]

I wonder if anyone has ever done a production of Hamlet where the prince is genuinely driven mad by his experience of the Ghost.

I am watching the RSC production with David Tennant and Patrick Stewart currently being broadcast on PBS—I thought of it when I saw the armored Ghost reach for its son, pull him close and embrace him; he clutches on to his father's cold flesh and it was unexpected and poignant, but no more. It should be strange to be hugged by a dead thing. It should be disordering and profoundly wrong; it should leave you wrecked in all your certainties, not only that a civil mask has been ripped off the corruption of human life, but that heaven and earth are not even secure in their relations. Hauntings are one thing to speak of, another to feel. From that moment on, of course it's a tragedy. Hamlet belongs to the other world. It's put forth its hand and touched him. And how can you think about life the same way after that?

(Okay, John Woodvine rocks as the Player King.)

Comments

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

It should be strange to be hugged by a dead thing. It should be disordering and profoundly wrong; it should leave you wrecked in all your certainties, not only that a civil mask has been ripped off the corruption of human life, but that heaven and earth are not even secure in their relations.

That's good ghost. Story?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Or poem--another alternative Hamlet?

[sovay]

Or poem--another alternative Hamlet?

I'm not sure what it is about Hamlet. If you asked me for a favorite Shakespeare, I'd have said Much Ado About Nothing and then flipped a coin between Julius Caesar, The Tempest, and The Winter's Tale. But this one is full of the right kind of ambiguities. I'll let you know if anything comes of them.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

I'd change A Midsummer Night's Dream for Julius Caesar, not being so avid a classicist.

In Hamlet I love the Players. Quelle surprise.

Nine

[sovay]

I'd change A Midsummer Night's Dream for Julius Caesar, not being so avid a classicist.

I love A Midsummer Night's Dream, but no single character in it compels me as much as Brutus and Cassius.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Oh, that sounds marvellously eerie.

Nine

[sovay]

Oh, that sounds marvellously eerie.

Well, the filmed scene was not as eerie as I would have liked. But it was an excellent production.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

Can't wait.

Nine

[rushthatspeaks.livejournal.com]

In the Derek Jacoby version, I've always read Jacoby as playing it that the ghost does drive Hamlet mad, instantly, at first sight, and it gets worse the more they're around each other-- but Hamlet does not know it. He is mad and thinks he's shamming: his feigning brings him, in some ways, closer to sane.

[sovay]

He is mad and thinks he's shamming: his feigning brings him, in some ways, closer to sane.

I have wanted to see Derek Jacobi's Hamlet since high school and this really provides me with no excuse not to. Thanks.

[nineweaving.livejournal.com]

It's streaming on Netflix.

Nine

[teenybuffalo.livejournal.com]

The most important scenes in the play have always been the guards, Horatio and Hamlet confronting the Ghost, for me. Nothing else quite lives up, after that.

And now I have no excuse not to watch the David Tennant Hamlet, myself. Patrick Stewart? Sign me up!

[sovay]

And now I have no excuse not to watch the David Tennant Hamlet, myself. Patrick Stewart? Sign me up!

He's going to be my definitive Claudius for quite some time.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Fascinating. I suppose I'll have to see if I can locate this production on PBS.

Thank you for letting us know about it.

[sovay]

I suppose I'll have to see if I can locate this production on PBS.

According to PBS, it should be streaming somewhere on their website; if not, Netflix tells me it's already out on DVD.

[ap-aelfwine.livejournal.com]

Thanks! I've no Netflix subscription, but I'll see if I can find the time to watch it off the PBS website.

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Yes! It should be done. I wonder if it has been, to the extent you suggest. I too must watch the Jacoby version, as Rush speaks.

[sovay]

I wonder if it has been, to the extent you suggest.

I don't know how I'd find out—I'd remember if I'd seen it, but my personal familiarity with Hamlet's performance history is limited to a high school play, three movies, and Slings & Arrows. There must be studies of this sort of thing somewhere.

I too must watch the Jacoby version, as Rush speaks.

If you see it before I do, let me know what you think!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'd don't know what his performance was like, but the story goes that Daniel Day Lewis saw his own dead father on stage during one of the ghost scenes- and had to withdraw from the production.

[lauradi7.livejournal.com]

DDL was famous at one time for Method acting - that should have fed into his process ;-)

[sovay]

but the story goes that Daniel Day Lewis saw his own dead father on stage during one of the ghost scenes- and had to withdraw from the production.

That's the start of a great story . . .

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I've always thought it could be playable not just as that, but as the Ghost not actually being Hamlet's father but the Devil trying to bring the family down; it would put an interesting spin on the tension between non-Christian avenge-your-dead-father and Christian virtues in the text, which I see as the engine of the whole plot. (Cutting Claudius actually confessing to the murder would, alas, be going too far.)

[sovay]

the Ghost not actually being Hamlet's father but the Devil trying to bring the family down; it would put an interesting spin on the tension between non-Christian avenge-your-dead-father and Christian virtues in the text, which I see as the engine of the whole plot.

I am less interested in the Devil or a false Ghost, I think, but I agree that I would love to see a production which engages with the fact that while Hamlet's father couches his charge for revenge in Christian terms—confined to fast in fires, with all his imperfections still upon his head—what he's asking for is right out of a Norse saga. And it obliterates the royal family of Denmark. I mean, good for Norway, but I'd like to know how old Hamlet feels about it.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

I've only ever seen the Brannagh, but it left me wondering whether Horatio wasn't an agent provocateur for Norway, goading the rest of the court into killing each other off and leaving a convenient power vacuum.

Oh, and what I've heard about the original saga version is pretty interesting (IIRC, Hamlet does go to England and has a bunch of adventures there; marrys a Scottish warrior queen who comes back and helps him rescue Ophelia and burn down Elsinore; then the three off them go off and live happily ever after until the next revenge plot breaks out.)

[sovay]

(IIRC, Hamlet does go to England and has a bunch of adventures there; marrys a Scottish warrior queen who comes back and helps him rescue Ophelia and burn down Elsinore; then the three off them go off and live happily ever after until the next revenge plot breaks out.)

That's awesome!