Emo, Prince of Darkness
Okay. This entry is going to get harder to write the longer I leave it, and after I dropped such a big blog-tease I have to come up with the goods, ne?
For those of you who have missed the squee way back on October 16, PLB and I bought tickets for the Royal Shakespeare Company's current production of Hamlet, starring none other than David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart (reprising his role of Claudius for the second time for the RSC - the last time was 1978 and had Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, of all people).
We took the train to Stratford-Upon-Avon in the morning, wandered the town for a bit, found the theatre, giggled at the people *camping* outside hoping for return tickets, bought baguettes and had lunch on the bank of the Avon and fed the swans, ducks and geese before we caught the matinee.
The lunchtime view.
The closest we got to taking photos at the theatre.
Staged in the Courtyard Theatre, the first thing that impressed itself on me was that the space is intimate, and seats less people than I had expected. Even had we not got our fab seats, we would have been able to feel close to the action. Except maybe up with the gods - that top row didn't look that great. The majority of the audience were pensioners and school groups, the school groups having some mighty fine seating of their own to the sides of the stage - and were major providers of Tennant-squee.
I was a little distracted by actors thumping around behind the audience while lines were being delivered on-stage by other members of the ensemble, but that was the price for having them utilise all three aisles as well as the thrust stage, and definitely worth it. Using so much of the theatre really freed up the movement and made it a lot more dynamic.
Anyways, our seats were great (although, I got the seat numbers wrong when I last talked about them - we were actually in G10 G11 - so yay!, to the point where it often felt like the actors were using me as a mark, actually addressing their lines to me. I was getting a tiny bit of reflected light and sat in a natural 'v' between the people sitting in the rows below me, so I don't think it's wishful thinking. I wouldn't let PLB steal my seat (G11) post interval at any rate.
So the staging. A very simple stage, with big mirrors that could be opened sideways as the back drop. Used very effectively in a number of scenes. Lighting was a big thing, with the opening scenes using dry ice and torches. These bounced off the mirrors, the smoke, crossed beams with each other, and set the ominous tone very quickly, yet the actors delivered the lines slow enough that the transition to using the Shakespeare language hat was achieved with very few lost lines.
So - on to the players and interpretation!
Emo. Emo. Emo. And wonderfully so. This prince truly was a late teen/early twenty-something (we'll ignore Tennant's physical age - it didn't seem incongruous with the character played), sporting the over-analytical and cynical world view of the typical alienated teen. Missing the jaded outlook and ennui of slightly older folk who've gotten used to "life", Tennant's Hamlet's angst and passion in finding out 'the world sux and isn't fair' breathed fresh purpose into Hamlet's feigned madness, bleak wit and general introverted navel gazing and reactions. The script resonated in a way that it wouldn't have, had we been supposed to believe that the Prince had maturity and experience to temper his emo ways.
And the passion, energy - untempered (which allowed Tennant his full repertoire of silly faces and larger than life energy - which I must admit, I had a few problems with, because I felt like I was watching Tennant as the Doctor, or Tennant as the manic kid from Taking Over the Asylum...putting the Ham into Hamlet), which worked far better than Hamlet's played older. Also, whilst never played up in this version, the fact that Gertrude really could not see the ghost (rather than lying about it as she has done in other productions) the younger age of Hamlet does hint at the possible onset of schizophrenia, which is also aptly bolstered by Tennant's Hamlet seeing justification and silent messages from the staging of the play, which are never, ever confirmed by the people around him. Also, this version never had any character agree with Hamlet's assessment that Claudius and Gertrude's marriage was improper. Hasty, yes, but never a point hissed in disgust. Gertrude and Stewart's Claudius are perfect in their roles as leaders of state - these rulers are not weak as leaders, nor tyrannical (and reading the script as Claudius being a bit crap with names - getting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern mixed up, injected some nice levity).
I am glad that this version downplayed the Oedipal possibilities between Hamlet and Gertrude. Hamlet's motivations, particularly on stalling to kill his uncle, are justified well enough with this interpretation not to need such extra Freudian motivation. Also, using such interpretations tend to ignore the agency of the female characters, which this version did not.
Both Gertrude and pre-madness Ophelia were great to watch. Much maligned by Hamlet through no fault of their own (ha, can we read misogyny, and also Hamlet/Horatio slash? Yes we can!), both Penny Downie and Mariah Gale turned their characters into believable people; Gertrude is a giving Queen, able to adeptly fill the roles of state, whilst still having the slight 'flaw' of allowing her heart, her feelings for both Claudius and her son, undo her. Ophelia comes across with the arrogance of youth, a lightness and fun spirit, but also with an air of being spoilt, over-protected and coddled by her father. It is unsurprising she fell to pieces when confronted with a double whammy of heartache for the first time - her support network had completely collapsed, with Laertes returning too late to prop her up.
But Mariah Gale should not have played Ophelia's madness as she did. She played Ophelia as big-mad, not little-mad - a mistake when you are up against the huge gestures of Tennant. Playing it in a similar way is bound to make Ophelia feel weaker. Plus the singing. Oh god, her singing. If they were going to expurgate any more of the script, this should have gone - it really mucked up the pacing of the second half, and dropped me back into the real world.
But for all the Tennant and Stewart squee, they were not the highlight actors of the play for me. That goes to Oliver Ford Davies for his portrayal of Polonius. The well-meaning official, warm of heart, suffered by all around him because of his waffle, was a lovely old man. Not once did we side with Hamlet in his treatment and dismissal of Polonius as a fool, even though he clearly was. We see Hamlet as nasty, self-absorbed, and Polonius as undeserving of such scorn. Davies made the script amusing, and Polonius a major force in the action of the play, rather than an unwitting tool of the upper class shennanigans.
I also want to mention Edward Bennett. He played Laertes, and made an excellent foil for Tennant's emo Hamlet. His Laertes was the school jock. Good at sports, popular with the laydeez - where the two were pushed into similar roles of dispair, Hamlet turned to angst, Laertes to action. Yet Laertes was still sympathetic - he was never 'the bad guy', which serves to make his demise and reconciliation with Hamlet more poignant than justified.
Lots of bowing and re-entering the stage for applause, as you can imagine.
After the play, around the side of the theatre, at least Tennant, came out for autograph signing. PLB and I didn't participate. I probably would have, had we bought a program, but no texta scrawl and no photos, sorry!
Any way, the hotel we were staying in:
Not that we got to stay in this particular building. Our rooms were very nice though. Between the play and eating food, we went for our first wander of the town. These gardens, just behind where Shakespeare's main house stood, were probably our favourite:
Still too early for food, but too late to do much else, we wandered through a second hand book store on Church Street, then down along the river front once more, before ending up at the Dirty Duck for a drink and watch the river. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, Horatio, Ophelia and Laertes were all having a drink there too. It is just down from the theatre, and very pleasant outside, so this is unsurprising.
Dinner was nice, we drank a bottle of vino, which seemed to total us both, so we were in bed, and I listened to the night life outside and did sudoku before sleeping.
The following day we did the 'buildings somewhat related to Shakespeare' tours, visited the church he is buried in, went across the Avon on the chain ferry, and by about 4pm we were ready to head back to London.
For those of you who have missed the squee way back on October 16, PLB and I bought tickets for the Royal Shakespeare Company's current production of Hamlet, starring none other than David Tennant as Hamlet and Patrick Stewart (reprising his role of Claudius for the second time for the RSC - the last time was 1978 and had Derek Jacobi as Hamlet, of all people).
We took the train to Stratford-Upon-Avon in the morning, wandered the town for a bit, found the theatre, giggled at the people *camping* outside hoping for return tickets, bought baguettes and had lunch on the bank of the Avon and fed the swans, ducks and geese before we caught the matinee.
The lunchtime view.
The closest we got to taking photos at the theatre.
Staged in the Courtyard Theatre, the first thing that impressed itself on me was that the space is intimate, and seats less people than I had expected. Even had we not got our fab seats, we would have been able to feel close to the action. Except maybe up with the gods - that top row didn't look that great. The majority of the audience were pensioners and school groups, the school groups having some mighty fine seating of their own to the sides of the stage - and were major providers of Tennant-squee.
I was a little distracted by actors thumping around behind the audience while lines were being delivered on-stage by other members of the ensemble, but that was the price for having them utilise all three aisles as well as the thrust stage, and definitely worth it. Using so much of the theatre really freed up the movement and made it a lot more dynamic.
Anyways, our seats were great (although, I got the seat numbers wrong when I last talked about them - we were actually in G10 G11 - so yay!, to the point where it often felt like the actors were using me as a mark, actually addressing their lines to me. I was getting a tiny bit of reflected light and sat in a natural 'v' between the people sitting in the rows below me, so I don't think it's wishful thinking. I wouldn't let PLB steal my seat (G11) post interval at any rate.
So the staging. A very simple stage, with big mirrors that could be opened sideways as the back drop. Used very effectively in a number of scenes. Lighting was a big thing, with the opening scenes using dry ice and torches. These bounced off the mirrors, the smoke, crossed beams with each other, and set the ominous tone very quickly, yet the actors delivered the lines slow enough that the transition to using the Shakespeare language hat was achieved with very few lost lines.
So - on to the players and interpretation!
Emo. Emo. Emo. And wonderfully so. This prince truly was a late teen/early twenty-something (we'll ignore Tennant's physical age - it didn't seem incongruous with the character played), sporting the over-analytical and cynical world view of the typical alienated teen. Missing the jaded outlook and ennui of slightly older folk who've gotten used to "life", Tennant's Hamlet's angst and passion in finding out 'the world sux and isn't fair' breathed fresh purpose into Hamlet's feigned madness, bleak wit and general introverted navel gazing and reactions. The script resonated in a way that it wouldn't have, had we been supposed to believe that the Prince had maturity and experience to temper his emo ways.
And the passion, energy - untempered (which allowed Tennant his full repertoire of silly faces and larger than life energy - which I must admit, I had a few problems with, because I felt like I was watching Tennant as the Doctor, or Tennant as the manic kid from Taking Over the Asylum...putting the Ham into Hamlet), which worked far better than Hamlet's played older. Also, whilst never played up in this version, the fact that Gertrude really could not see the ghost (rather than lying about it as she has done in other productions) the younger age of Hamlet does hint at the possible onset of schizophrenia, which is also aptly bolstered by Tennant's Hamlet seeing justification and silent messages from the staging of the play, which are never, ever confirmed by the people around him. Also, this version never had any character agree with Hamlet's assessment that Claudius and Gertrude's marriage was improper. Hasty, yes, but never a point hissed in disgust. Gertrude and Stewart's Claudius are perfect in their roles as leaders of state - these rulers are not weak as leaders, nor tyrannical (and reading the script as Claudius being a bit crap with names - getting Rosencrantz and Guildenstern mixed up, injected some nice levity).
I am glad that this version downplayed the Oedipal possibilities between Hamlet and Gertrude. Hamlet's motivations, particularly on stalling to kill his uncle, are justified well enough with this interpretation not to need such extra Freudian motivation. Also, using such interpretations tend to ignore the agency of the female characters, which this version did not.
Both Gertrude and pre-madness Ophelia were great to watch. Much maligned by Hamlet through no fault of their own (ha, can we read misogyny, and also Hamlet/Horatio slash? Yes we can!), both Penny Downie and Mariah Gale turned their characters into believable people; Gertrude is a giving Queen, able to adeptly fill the roles of state, whilst still having the slight 'flaw' of allowing her heart, her feelings for both Claudius and her son, undo her. Ophelia comes across with the arrogance of youth, a lightness and fun spirit, but also with an air of being spoilt, over-protected and coddled by her father. It is unsurprising she fell to pieces when confronted with a double whammy of heartache for the first time - her support network had completely collapsed, with Laertes returning too late to prop her up.
But Mariah Gale should not have played Ophelia's madness as she did. She played Ophelia as big-mad, not little-mad - a mistake when you are up against the huge gestures of Tennant. Playing it in a similar way is bound to make Ophelia feel weaker. Plus the singing. Oh god, her singing. If they were going to expurgate any more of the script, this should have gone - it really mucked up the pacing of the second half, and dropped me back into the real world.
But for all the Tennant and Stewart squee, they were not the highlight actors of the play for me. That goes to Oliver Ford Davies for his portrayal of Polonius. The well-meaning official, warm of heart, suffered by all around him because of his waffle, was a lovely old man. Not once did we side with Hamlet in his treatment and dismissal of Polonius as a fool, even though he clearly was. We see Hamlet as nasty, self-absorbed, and Polonius as undeserving of such scorn. Davies made the script amusing, and Polonius a major force in the action of the play, rather than an unwitting tool of the upper class shennanigans.
I also want to mention Edward Bennett. He played Laertes, and made an excellent foil for Tennant's emo Hamlet. His Laertes was the school jock. Good at sports, popular with the laydeez - where the two were pushed into similar roles of dispair, Hamlet turned to angst, Laertes to action. Yet Laertes was still sympathetic - he was never 'the bad guy', which serves to make his demise and reconciliation with Hamlet more poignant than justified.
Lots of bowing and re-entering the stage for applause, as you can imagine.
After the play, around the side of the theatre, at least Tennant, came out for autograph signing. PLB and I didn't participate. I probably would have, had we bought a program, but no texta scrawl and no photos, sorry!
Any way, the hotel we were staying in:
Not that we got to stay in this particular building. Our rooms were very nice though. Between the play and eating food, we went for our first wander of the town. These gardens, just behind where Shakespeare's main house stood, were probably our favourite:
Still too early for food, but too late to do much else, we wandered through a second hand book store on Church Street, then down along the river front once more, before ending up at the Dirty Duck for a drink and watch the river. Guildenstern and Rosencrantz, Horatio, Ophelia and Laertes were all having a drink there too. It is just down from the theatre, and very pleasant outside, so this is unsurprising.
Dinner was nice, we drank a bottle of vino, which seemed to total us both, so we were in bed, and I listened to the night life outside and did sudoku before sleeping.
The following day we did the 'buildings somewhat related to Shakespeare' tours, visited the church he is buried in, went across the Avon on the chain ferry, and by about 4pm we were ready to head back to London.