'To be or not to be':

Hamlet changed the course of my life

by Gwen Herat

The most powerful, high-profile character of Shakespeare, Hamlet leaves even Romeo trailing behind in leaps and bounds. I never knew it would have such an impact on me later in life. I was 15 going on 16 and all I wanted to be when I grew up, was to be a concert violinist; not a boring literati at any given time. Came the all-island school drama competition and I found Ophelia breathing down my neck.

To begin with I did not know how I found the spot with hundreds of beautiful teenagers from various schools. All I had was a long pair of strong legs acquired from the track and field. As rehearsals progressed and I sank into my role, I took a longer look at myself in the mirror. I had changed overnight. I was no longer carefree but a serious teenager.

I disliked Shakespeare in class. I thought he was scruffy with cranky dialogues (now I can read them backwards). Hamlet opposite me was by a student from the overseas exchange programme.

He was tall, strapping, handsome and at 18, looked a younger Hamlet. He was Terry Smith. He looked at me as though I was something the cat brought in. I think we both disliked each other from the beginning. When dialogue time came, he snarled at me, 'Get thee to a nunnery. Why shouldst thou be a breeder of sinners.

I started giggling and was joined by my classmates. It annoyed him as he turned red with rage. He turned sharply and said, 'that is where you should be!' 'You mean a nunnery' I asked him and we all laughed again. With that nasty start, we became inseparable with time, sitting on a bench under a tree, helping each other with our dialogue. We had emerged as Hamlet and Ophelia. This changed the course in my life. I became engrossed in English literature and the Bard.

The Prince of Denmark

The play Hamlet, is the Bard's favourite tragedy. He considered it above all his plays; put in his best, uplifted every character, down to the grave digger as in no other play. It was said that Shakespeare was going through a traumatic period in his life, weighed down by emotion and a disappointing marriage, which perhaps reflected on the play. But Shakespeare has the capacity to rise to any occasion that left no dent in his work.

He is the Dane that actors challenge on stage or at debate because he has to be stricken to the heart with no superficial sorrow. He is strong and willed to do anything to avenge his father's death and in the process drives Ophelia to death and have no qualms about her feelings. None of Shakespeare's heroine's has been so much heartbroken over love and in her innocence, no one to turn to for help.

She has no mother and father dies too early in the play and she has known only two men in her secluded life. She falls in love with Hamlet. That is if she knew what love was. Her character is so complex that thespians around the world found it difficult to portray and imagine someone like me at 15, suddenly pushed over to dramatise Ophelia.

The study of Hamlet's mind varies at different points but is predominated by the urge of revenge. Firstly, he takes it upon Ophelia before moving over to his uncle (presently the King and his step-father).

There are a thousand subtle influences both physiological and pathological but we do not find the philosophy of Shakespeare in his divided mind. This happens to be the most famous occurrence in the world of drama. It is deemed that Shakespeare based the tragedy among other sources, on a lost play called Ur-Hamlet by an unknown author.

Dictionary

No play has been so often acted or dialogued or more stringently analysed. In fact, there is a standard dictionary containing over 210 references to Hamlet that covers over 800 lines, most in quotation form. It is believed that the full length production of Hamlet in the theatre if acted, will run over five hours which makes the play Shakespeare's longest one. But there have been cuts and more cuts, thus reducing the tragedy to still a painful three and half hours.

The beginning is always a sad choice of the Hamlet/Horatio soliloquy and one of the least expected cuts is the opening in battlement of Elsinor with the challenge and counter challenge in the midnight shiver and the sudden and same figure like the dead King. If the play was written without any emphasis on the ghost of King Hamlet, the drama would have been a dead duck. The tragedy moves fast, gathering momentum in sequences of astonishment some of which are unfailing and familiar. The plays' endurance is not for its wisdom or for acting excitement because Hamlet is by no means Everyman.

We have come to learn that every actor sees him differently as I experienced as a novice teenager, but none of us must forget that Hamlet should not be separated in essence from what Prince Ophelia remembers. This too I learnt when playing Ophelia.

Ophelia - My Lord, I have remembrances of yours, that I have longed to re-deliver. I pray you, now receive them. Hamlet - No, not I; I never gave you aught... (Act III, Sce.1)

Intelligence

Hamlet at times, is over-subtitled and now it is a pleasure to find an actor who has the voice, bearings and intelligence and who is not afraid to simplify.

In all their variations and presentations, Hamlet defies pigeonholing. From many myriad English Hamlets, so many rose to the occasion and the most remembered is Laurence Olivier with his physical grace and stature at the Old Vic and he was followed by other great thespians such as Alec Guinnes, Michael Redgrave, Albert Finney and Roger Reeves who were able to uphold the classical tradition.

Apart from a great deal of productions and revivals on stage, a film in black and white featured Laurence Olivier in elaborate settings. A much awaited film by Franco Zefferelli with mega stars such as Mel Gibson and Glen Close in 1990, failed to rise to the occasion even with colossal spending.

Hamlet's uncut text is the longest part in Shakespeare soliloquies. The Bard gradually built the character from a young prince in love to a revenge-seeking inferno bent at avenging his father's assassin.

His character sharply contrasted with the young trusting Ophelia, best acted simply with no superfluously embarrassing development of her madness. She is the 'Rose of May' and everyone's dream of a perfect maid.

Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, was written in 1601-2 and sited in Denmark. I wish the Bard had sited the play in England, titled it Hamlet, the Prince of Wales with the Tower of London, replacing all what took place in Elsinor on the battlements of the castle. There would have been more clout to the identity of the play.