Excerpts from the Travel Journal, Day Five: Hamlet
The next day was our Charlecote (pronounced Charle-cut) day. We woke in the morning and went down to the little shop. A house tour came with our stay, and we were able to do a little pre-tour that took us through the house while it was still shut up, so they could tell us about the preservation efforts. It was actually really interesting. When you think of exactly how many of these old houses are scattered throughout the country, you cannot imagine how much effort and expense must go into their upkeep.
After the pre-tour, we went out to the front garden
to learn about the history of the house.
Basically, it’s been owned by the Lucy family for some ridiculous number like 900 years. The house where we stayed was about 450 years old, and Queen Elizabeth I once slept in it. The first baronet is actually parodied as Justice Shallow in The Merry Wives of Windsor, because he once caught William Shakespeare poaching a deer from his forest. The house was given to the National Trust about 50 years ago, with the Lucy family allowed to remain there 200 years. The current baronet lives in one wing of the house with his wife and two sons, who we saw every once in a while. Our little flat was on the top floor of the other wing, over the public rooms. We were relieved to learn this, as we-I-can be loud at night sometimes…
The nice weather had broken. It was freezing standing in the front garden for the lecture, so we went inside eagerly, although the house is always kept within five degrees of the temperature outside, to protect the interiors. Upon entering the front hall, we kind of got roped into a talk on Elizabethan costumes that lasted roughly five hours. When that was finally done, we walked through the first floor, which has some well-proportioned room frequently dotted over with white pikes, which is a type of fish also known as luce, making it the coat of arms of the Lucy family.
The staircase to our flat is actually accessible from the public rooms, which is very cool, so we ducked around the velvet rope to go upstairs to get ready for our journey into Stratford for Hamlet.
We drove into Stratford and had high tea at Crabtree & Evelyn. Yes. Weird, right? It was very cute, though, even if I did it wrong by starting with a ham and cheese sandwich, which made me too full for my scone. (Yes, it was not really a proper tea with tiny sandwiches. Boo.) While we were at tea, jlrpuck got a call from T, who sadly could not make Hamlet, either.
After tea, we stopped off at the library for an Internet check and then headed to the jester statue to take photos, including some mini!photos. arctacuda was complaining that something was ridiculous, then turned around to see jlrpuck lining three mini!Doctors up on the statue. “And that is ridiculous,” said arctacuda.
After that, it was time to move the car, which we’d foolishly parked at a garage that was going to close before we would get out of Hamlet. And lo, we found another one of the world’s best parking spaces. Really amazing luck.
We were booked on a tour of the theater, which was really kind of fabulous and interesting. It turns out that the Courtyard Theatre is only temporary while the RSC’s main theater is being renovated, so it’s really awesome to think we saw plays someplace that theoretically won’t exist in a few years. Because of the impending performance, we couldn’t spend much time in the actual theater. “Just long enough to say you trod the same boards as David Tennant,” said our tour guide. “If I had a penny for every question about DT…”
On Saturday we had already fooled around taking pictures with all the DT promotional photos up around the theater, so we killed time by sitting around outside the theater. I went to retrieve cups of tea for us, promptly falling over almost as soon as I got them. Without spilling a drop! (“Good to see you’re okay,” said the woman behind us when we took our seats for the performance. “I was so impressed you didn’t spill any tea!” “Lots of practice,” I replied, dryly. “DT has an amazing stage presence,” said T when I told her I’d fallen at the RSC. “Oh, I was nowhere near DT at the time,” I responded. “I have no excuse.”)
It was while hanging out in front of the theater waiting for Hamlet that arctacuda and I decided we were going to write a musical. First, she and jlrpuck would sing this lovely counterpoint about which of our parking spaces was best. “’Tis this one!” “No, it’s not!” “Yes, it is!” “No, it’s not!” “Yes, it is!” “No, it is!” “Yes, it’s not!” And then the traffic marshal would come in. “I think that either one is preferable/They are both pretty good.” He would then drift into The Traffic Marshal’s Lament, which is the best tune we developed: “Woe is me/When will this DT run be over?/I’m sick of squeeing fangirls/I don’t even get to have my name on the back of my traffic marshal vest.” And then I would come skipping in, scattering daisies. “Cheer up!/Have some flowers!” It’s going to be a huge hit.
So. Hamlet. First let me say that we had fabulous seats: first row balcony. If you’re going to see two plays, do it our way: one where you’re close enough to see the cut of the individual strands of his hair, one where you can see the actual, you know, play.
The play itself was fabulous. I think I preferred LLL because I like comedies, but it was an excellent Hamlet. Patrick Stewart was an excellent Claudius. We know this because I noticed he was on stage. My favorite of the other players was Gertrude, though. She was a fabulous Gertrude, the best I’ve ever seen, seeming so lost in the machinations all around her. I’ve always thought that promo pictures of DT with his head in her lap looked vaguely incestuous but the scene in Gertrude’s bedroom was actually my favorite of the play. DT enters flinging his tuxedo coat toward his mother’s bed and drawling, “What’s the matter, Mother?,” his voice dripping sarcasm. And by the time he finishes berating his mother, he suddenly cuddles his way into her lap, snuffling like a little boy, complaining about being sent away to England, and she strokes his hair, and never have I read or seen that scene played so tenderly, so gently.
And what of David as Hamlet? Well, that was his great achievement in the role: You actually believed he was a kid, out of his depth. He’s so mournfully morose at the very beginning, holding it together on the edge of the action, clearly desperate to just get back to school and try to get things back to normal. When he acquiesces to the request to stay at Elsinore, you can see the tension in his stance, and as soon as the stage clears he’s sobbing for his lost father. They moved the “To be or not to be” speech closer to the start of the play, and you can feel how weary and depressed Tennant’s Hamlet is, how much he wants out of this labyrinth he’s trapped in. Tennant’s Hamlet grows up in front of your eyes, flinging himself into hi play at insanity with Tennant’s typical exuberance. After all, isn’t Tennant’s specialty the darkness under the manic, and oh, but he does it well. He dances about the stage, jesting and witty and poking fun, until abruptly he turns scathing. You feel Hamlet grow more dangerous, until you totally get why Claudius decides he must be killed. Hamlet, by this time in Western literature, can be more of an idea than a character. Tennant gives him life, makes him an appealing young man with a keen intelligent and a sharp sense of humor and enough fun in his essence, in his initial reaction to running into old school friends that you believe he’d be awesome to attend university with. And you watch the path of his own destruction with fresh horror. You watch an older, sadder Hamlet leap fencing about the stage to his death with a fresh understanding of the tragedy and what more can you ask from such a well-known story? He’s a kid who could have been great and doesn’t get the chance.
Ophelia is the weak point in the play, a weirdly unengaging performance that rings untrue. Tennant is playing Hamlet as the sort of dream prince Ophelia sould have been smitten with, and yet you don’t feel any affection from her, just a blank coolness. Maybe part of this is the solid brilliance of Tennant’s portrayal of Hamlet’s youth. Clearly Hamlet is upset Ophelia dies but you also get the strong impression that it was just puppy love for him. His love letter to her reads very adolescently.
Tennant plays well with the rest of the cast, though. He brilliantly tempers his suspicion of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern with flashes of Hamlet letting down his guard and just being the college kid you could see he was. There’s this great part where R&G show up with champagne and three glasses, and there’s a moment before Hamlet dismisses them, a moment of pain you feel. Watching Tennant’s Hamlet mock this production’s brilliant Polonious is a total highlight. Other highlights: Tennant’s costuming in a pair of jeans slung low on his hips and a T-shirt that kept riding delightfully up as DT gestured about; the increasingly disheveled tuxedo; DT whistling and playing the recorder, all with the crown tipped jauntily on his head; DT tucking his shirt in on stage; the way they use DT’s hair, which starts the play slicked back and gets messier as the play goes on; the ease with which DT makes legendary lines-like “to the manner born”-seem like words instead of aphorisms; his absolutely brilliant Yorrick scene, in which you really feel how far away Hamlet’s childhood has gotten to be. There was a moment or two where Hamlet felt Doctor-ish-mostly where DT drawled out his “welllllll”-but major points must be given to Mr. Tennant for playing a romantic hero in the same basic tragic vein as the role that made him famous and making them feel so startlingly different, so much two separate characters. (Also, mention must be made of how bloody quickly DT talks. I gave up on trying to catch every word he was saying.) The play did gather some standing ovations, and DT just had the most adorable embarrassedly grateful reaction to all the squees. Because of the all the squees, we decided against running to the stage door with all of the teenagers and instead went home. I had the same horrible feeling you get when Christmas is over. I had been looking forward to this trip for a full year. I think it literally saved my life over the past month. And now it’s over. Luckily, we made nachos and watched this terrifying documentary on beauty pageants to get us down off the high. And arctacuda composed the following Ode to jlrpuck for use in our musical:
Poor jlrpuck
I knew her well
She carried me on her back
Something about infinite jest
Tra-la-la
O jlrpuck