Saw this
on the LFPL website, and there was a show at the St. Matthews library Saturday afternoon that I could make if Jacqueline and Joe wanted to do it, so I checked with them (yes) and we made the trip.
It was in a smallish room, and there was an SRO crowd, but we are early for everything, so we sat in the front row (Jacqueline's choice
--shy she's not) and settled in.
And it was good. Seriously truncated, of course, to fit the less than one hour (probably only about 35 minutes, I'd guess--they started late, ended early, and had a few pauses along the way) and two actors parameters. The two actors were supplemented with masks representing Claudius and Gertrude, a puppet for Polonius, and occasional brief moments of audience participation. It was obviously geared towards kids...which I didn't get from the advert...but that was no problem, as neither the Js nor I are prejudiced against such things. (Matter of fact, I just finished reading a YA novel--Ransom Riggs's Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children--and enjoyed it most thoroughly.)
But there was one scene that bothered me. It's when Ophelia comes upon Hamlet, ostensibly reading, and breaks it off with him (on orders from her father, who is watching this encounter from a hiding place). In the original, it goes like this:
The actors actually did at least most of those lines...which is surprising in that they had seriously limited stage minutes. I think the reason is clear in retrospect. All that HAS to happen here is that Hamlet breaks it off with Ophelia. They could have done that in a couple of lines...and that's precisely what they did with many of the other major plot points of the play. But by allowing most of these 500 plus words to be uttered, they allowed Hamlet's growing anger to be made obvious. And yes indeed, the lines do show that he is very angry with Ophelia. But there are two things that are different between this version and the actual play: first, Ophelia's father, Polonius, is not looking on. That means that one of the key reasons for Hamlet's anger--the knowledge that he is being spied on and that Ophelia, who knows this, is lying to him about it ("Where is your father?")--is left out of the equation. Which makes it seem like he is just being entirely unreasonable...or crazy...which is not actually the case at all. Second, somewhere near the end of this exchange, the actor playing Hamlet grabs Ophelia and then throws her to the floor. There is no indication that this happens in the text of the play, of course.
And then, just to exacerbate the divergences, the actors pause to discuss Hamlet's inappropriate behavior. They spent at least five of their precious minutes discussing what bad behaviors Hamlet had exhibited, what he could have done that would have been more appropriate, and what Ophelia could have done instead of sticking around for the violence.
It was pretty obviously a #MeToo moment.
And I think that it, in a nutshell, shows a big problem with #MeToo.
There are lots of woman who have been treated badly...and even worse...by men. There's no grey area there. Men who commit acts of sexual violence against women...men who brutalize or intimidate women...are wrong, and they should pay for what they've done. In many cases, they should go to jail.
But there's also such a thing as going too far in the other direction. I've heard women invoke #MeToo because a man asked them out repeatedly or even looked at them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. That kind of stuff seriously harms the #MeToo movement.
And this Hamlet thing. I mean...they've invented a moment so that they could criticize a character's "behavior." That is some serious bullshit, man.
I'm trying not to let that spoil my enjoyment of this presentation of Hamlet...but it's not working so well. Come on, Kentucky Shakespeare. You can do better than this.
But there was one scene that bothered me. It's when Ophelia comes upon Hamlet, ostensibly reading, and breaks it off with him (on orders from her father, who is watching this encounter from a hiding place). In the original, it goes like this:
OPHELIA
Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
HAMLET
I humbly thank you; well, well, well.
OPHELIA
My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
HAMLET
No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA
My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
HAMLET
Ha, ha! are you honest?
OPHELIA
My lord?
HAMLET
Are you fair?
OPHELIA
What means your lordship?
HAMLET
That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should
admit no discourse to your beauty.
OPHELIA
Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than
with honesty?
HAMLET
Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner
transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the
force of honesty can translate beauty into his
likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the
time gives it proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA
Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET
You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot
so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of
it: I loved you not.
OPHELIA
I was the more deceived.
HAMLET
Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a
breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest;
but yet I could accuse me of such things that it
were better my mother had not borne me: I am very
proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at
my beck than I have thoughts to put them in,
imagination to give them shape, or time to act them
in. What should such fellows as I do crawling
between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves,
all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery.
Where's your father?
OPHELIA
At home, my lord.
HAMLET
Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the
fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA
O, help him, you sweet heavens!
HAMLET
If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for
thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as
snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a
nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs
marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough
what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go,
and quickly too. Farewell.
OPHELIA
O heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET
I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God
has given you one face, and you make yourselves
another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and
nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness
your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath
made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages:
those that are married already, all but one, shall
live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a
nunnery, go.
Exit
The actors actually did at least most of those lines...which is surprising in that they had seriously limited stage minutes. I think the reason is clear in retrospect. All that HAS to happen here is that Hamlet breaks it off with Ophelia. They could have done that in a couple of lines...and that's precisely what they did with many of the other major plot points of the play. But by allowing most of these 500 plus words to be uttered, they allowed Hamlet's growing anger to be made obvious. And yes indeed, the lines do show that he is very angry with Ophelia. But there are two things that are different between this version and the actual play: first, Ophelia's father, Polonius, is not looking on. That means that one of the key reasons for Hamlet's anger--the knowledge that he is being spied on and that Ophelia, who knows this, is lying to him about it ("Where is your father?")--is left out of the equation. Which makes it seem like he is just being entirely unreasonable...or crazy...which is not actually the case at all. Second, somewhere near the end of this exchange, the actor playing Hamlet grabs Ophelia and then throws her to the floor. There is no indication that this happens in the text of the play, of course.
And then, just to exacerbate the divergences, the actors pause to discuss Hamlet's inappropriate behavior. They spent at least five of their precious minutes discussing what bad behaviors Hamlet had exhibited, what he could have done that would have been more appropriate, and what Ophelia could have done instead of sticking around for the violence.
It was pretty obviously a #MeToo moment.
And I think that it, in a nutshell, shows a big problem with #MeToo.
There are lots of woman who have been treated badly...and even worse...by men. There's no grey area there. Men who commit acts of sexual violence against women...men who brutalize or intimidate women...are wrong, and they should pay for what they've done. In many cases, they should go to jail.
But there's also such a thing as going too far in the other direction. I've heard women invoke #MeToo because a man asked them out repeatedly or even looked at them in a way that made them feel uncomfortable. That kind of stuff seriously harms the #MeToo movement.
And this Hamlet thing. I mean...they've invented a moment so that they could criticize a character's "behavior." That is some serious bullshit, man.
I'm trying not to let that spoil my enjoyment of this presentation of Hamlet...but it's not working so well. Come on, Kentucky Shakespeare. You can do better than this.
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