A Recent SADD performance of a Shakespeare Classic
(Unfortunately I have been unable to find time to write a story this week, but found this article in the Parish Magazine for St. Georges’ Church, Stynton cum Studley which I have reproduced below.) … …
“Hamlet”, the Annual Production of SSAD (Stynton-cum-Studly Amateur Dramaticals). Performed in St George’s Parish Hall, 17th. March 2020. A Review by Rev. William Prince, Rector.
This year’s production made an interesting and thought provoking addition to the SADD repertoire, in marked contrast with last year’s rousing production of “Singin in the Rain” which unfortunately had to be abandoned due to flooding from the Gentlemen’s conveniences. This play, I always think, is one of the Bard’s finest, and with your permission, for the many of you who were otherwise engaged and unable to see this sterling effort by our local thespians, I will venture to discuss some of the central moral and psychological problems involved.
First of all I have to remind you that we are looking at a very different time here, and some allowances have to be made for the characters. They are after all foreign, possibly even Catholics, and therefore have different ideas of right and wrong from our own. It may have been perfectly acceptable for a woman to remarry within weeks of her beloved and revered husband’s death. A large concern of the play is how this hasty remarriage may have upset the young Hamlet. The effect of such a traumatic experience on a young and sensitive boy can be devastating, often leading to such nervous problems as shyness, stuttering and bedwetting, particularly if he has been packed off from his home to the hostile environment of a boarding school. Hamlet, however was older, and at University, but it is obvious from his first soliloquy that he is horrified and disgusted by his mother’s behaviour.
He cannot bear to imagine her enjoying a sexual union with his uncle “ere those shoes were old/ With which she followed my poor father’s body”. He thinks that “a beast that wants discourse of reason / Would have mourned longer”. I did feel that our own Hamlet, Dr. Westbrook, perhaps made too strong a point of the physical manifestations of Hamlet’s disgust, only to find later that he was manfully battling with a nasty bout of salmonella poisoning. (Hopefully, the donations collected at the end of the performance will more than cover the cost of the damage to his costume which was unfortunately, a hired one.)
Once Mr Simms had removed the slides of the choir outing to Torquay the appearance of Hamlet’s father’s ghost was admirably contrived by the use of back projection. Of course, the use of a ghost is a very useful theatrical device on the part of Mr. Shakespeare, but it does lend a somewhat controversial element to a play being produced in our own Parish Hall under the Auspices, after all, of the Church of England. Hamlet’s father’s soul is in purgatory, we are led to believe, and therefore still able to walk the earth and dominate his son. This is not a C of E concept. Heaven and Hell await us all as a result of our earthly lives. The idea of purgatory is not something we should tolerate. Hamlet is a “new man”, a student at a well known Protestant university. He should have no time for such foll-de- rolls as ghosts, and also might rightly resent interference from beyond the grave from a demanding father with whom he will always be compared, and for whom he could probably never achieve enough, even from his nursery days. No wonder Hamlet hesitated, he is being torn asunder by the conflict of the old standards of chivalry and revenge urged by his father and his own more up to date Christian beliefs. Why couldn’t he be left alone to lead his own life without this intolerable interference from beyond the grave? ( I also personally think Mr. Shakespeare might have given a little more thought to the possible effect of this apparition on his audience. I am reliably informed that Mrs. Gaynor is still sleeping with the light on, and that Constable Richards now has to be accompanied by Mrs Richards in his patrol car after dark.)
Many analyses of the personality of Hamlet have been made over the years by people much better qualified than myself. I would like to give my own humble opinion to which I believe we can all relate to some extent, whether young or old. We can all find examples, of characters who have been destroyed by the expectations of others. You young people may think the play is just old fashioned rubbish with no meaning for today, but spare a moment to think of some of the famous people of recent generations who have been pushed and pulled in so many directions, by riches, by fame, by the expectations of their fans, the media, their families. If you are Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, Madonna, Princess Diana or “Posh and Becks” or Harry and Megan, how do you cope with a world full of other people’s versions of you? There is also an example, within the memory of my older readers, of a Prince of Wales, who briefly reigned as Edward the Eighth but was not temperamentally able to deal with the demands of his family, his country, his church or his people. How are you supposed to know what you are and what you are to believe in when you are subjected to all this pressure. Hamlet’s mother and step father demand that he should play the part of a dutiful and loving son. Ophelia wants him to woo her and be her “Mr Right”, Polonius, the elderly statesman (A stroke of genius to cast Mr Price on his Zimmer frame, and thanks to “Ashdene” for letting him out for the evening), wants him to behave appropriately for a noble Prince. His dead father wants him to revenge his death by murdering his uncle. Everyone is making demands on him, thinking they know him, thinking they know what he wants, what sort of person he is.
It is a pity that Grant and Phil Makepiece, who should have played Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were helping the police with their enquiries on the night of the performance, which meant that all their lines had to be cut. In Act three, scene 2 there is a telling exchange between Hamlet and his two friends. He shows them a simple recorder and asks them to play, but they decline, explaining that they do not know thw stopsl. “But”, says Hamlet, “you think you can sound me out, you think you can play me, a complex living human being.” Hamlet is surrounded by people who think they know his tune,and can sound out his innermost harmonies. He is contemptuous of them all, but is not strong enough or does not hear his own tune clearly enough to be able to resist them.
( I am pleased to tell you that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not dead, to paraphrase the Bard, and also of course Mr Stoppard, but currently in Bristol Gaol awaiting trial. Also the stolen sheep show no signs of being traumatised in any way.)
Hamlet, like many young people is pushed to the extreme of considering suicide and is only kept from it by the fear that something worse lies beyond death. Is that really all that keeps us alive? Is that all that stops us giving up, keeps us trying? Surely there must be something more to it than that? As your clergyman I must stress that Hamlet’s view of the worth of humanity and of human life is a very dark one, and not to be recommended Where would the world be if we all gave up when our faith faltered under the onslaught of the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”.
Depending on your point of view you may think that the violent ending is fitting, that everyone gets his (or her) just deserts. Certainly this is true of Claudius, Laertes and possibly Gertrude, but somehow we feel sorry for Hamlet. Troubled and indecisive – did he deserve to die? I have to say that in my book Hamlet was one of the guilty. Little is ever made of the fact that he has murdered poor old Polonius, driven Ophelia to madness and death and pushed Laertes, formerly a good son and brother, loyal subject and general good egg, into becoming a devious assassin. For me the sadness is of what might have been. As Fortinbras says “For he was likely had he been put on to have proved most royal” The world was his oyster but he lacked the ability or the will to prise it open. So perhaps it would have been just too cruel an ending to force him to soldier on bearing all his guilt, his fears and anxiety on his back until a merciful God saw fit to release him. This is fiction after all.
Thanks once again are due to the Women’s Institute for the admirable refreshments served in the interval, the Women’s Guild who worked tirelessly on the costumes and Major Brigstock for the loan of the antique firearms. (Mr Davis who should have played Marcellus is I understand recovering well in the Burns Unit of St. Elizabeth’s, and is in all our prayers)
With Blessings
Your Rector, William Prince.