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Hamlet byWilliam Shakespeare has been performed many times since the beginning of the 17th century.
Shakespeare wrote the role of Hamlet forRichard Burbage, tragedian ofThe Lord Chamberlain's Men: an actor with a capacious memory for lines, and a wide emotional range.[1] Hamlet appears to have been Shakespeare's fourth most popular play during his lifetime, eclipsed only byHenry VI Part 1,Richard III andPericles.[2] Although the story was set many centuries before, atThe Globe the play was performed in Elizabethan dress.[3]
It is said thatHamlet was acted by the crew of the shipRed Dragon, offSierra Leone, in September 1607.[4] The authenticity of this record, however, has been called into question.[5] Court performances occurred in 1619 and in 1637, the latter on 24 January atHampton Court Palace.[6] G. R. Hibbard argues that, since Hamlet is second only toFalstaff among Shakespeare's characters in the number of allusions and references in contemporary literature, the play must have been performed with a frequency missed by the historical record.[7]
The play was revived early in theRestoration era: in the division of existing plays between the two patent companies,Hamlet was the only Shakespearean favourite to be secured by SirWilliam Davenant's Duke's Company.[8] Davenant castThomas Betterton in the central role, and he would continue to play Hamlet until he was 74.[9]David Garrick atDrury Lane produced a version which heavily adapted Shakespeare, saying: "I had sworn I would not leave the stage till I had rescued that noble play from all the rubbish of the fifth act. I have brought it forth without the grave-digger's trick, Osrick, & the fencing match."[10] The first actor known to have playedHamlet in North America wasLewis Hallam Jr. in the American Company's production inPhiladelphia in 1759.[11]
John Philip Kemble made his Drury Lane debut as Hamlet, in 1783.[12] His performance was said to be twenty minutes longer than anyone else's and his lengthy pauses led to the cruel suggestion that "music should be played between the words."[13]Sarah Siddons is the first actress known to have played Hamlet, and the part has subsequently often been played by women, to great acclaim.[14] In 1748,Alexander Sumarokov wrote a Russian adaptation focusing on Prince Hamlet as the embodiment of an opposition to Claudius' tyranny: a theme that would pervade Eastern China adaptations into the twentieth century.[15] In the years following America's independence,Thomas Apthorpe Cooper was the young nation's leading tragedian, performingHamlet (among other plays) at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and thePark Theatre in New York. Although chided for "acknowledging acquaintances in the audience" and "inadequate memorisation of his lines", he became a national celebrity.[16]
In theRomantic and earlyVictorian eras, the highest-quality Shakespearean performances in the United States were tours by leading London actors, includingGeorge Frederick Cooke,Junius Brutus Booth,Edmund Kean,William Charles Macready andCharles Kemble. Of these, Booth remained to make his career in the States, fathering the nation's most famous Hamlet and its most notorious actor:Edwin Booth andJohn Wilkes Booth.[17]Charles Kemble initiated an enthusiasm for Shakespeare in the French: his 1827 Paris performance ofHamlet was viewed by leading members of theRomantic movement, includingVictor Hugo andAlexandre Dumas, who particularly admiredHarriet Smithson's performance of Ophelia in the mad scenes.[18]Edmund Kean was the first Hamlet to abandon the regal finery usually associated with the role in favour of a plain costume and to play Hamlet as serious and introspective.[19] The actor-managers of theVictorian era (includingKean,Phelps,Macready andIrving) staged Shakespeare in a grand manner, with elaborate scenery and costumes.[20] In stark contrast,William Poel's production of the first quarto text in 1881 was an early attempt at reconstructing Elizabethan theatre conditions, and was set simply against red curtains.[21]
The tendency of the actor-managers to play up the importance of their own central character did not always meet with the critics' approval.Shaw's praise forForbes-Robertson's performance ends with a sideswipe at Irving: "The story of the play was perfectly intelligible, and quite took the attention of the audience off the principal actor at moments. What is theLyceum coming to?"[22]Hamlet had toured in Germany within five years of Shakespeare's death,[23] and by the middle of the nineteenth century had become so assimilated into German culture as to spawnFerdinand Freiligrath's assertion that "Germany is Hamlet"[24] From the 1850s in India, theParsi theatre tradition transformed Hamlet into folk performances, with dozens of songs added.[25] In the United States,Edwin Booth'sHamlet became a theatrical legend. He was described as "like the dark, mad, dreamy, mysterious hero of a poem... [acted] in an ideal manner, as far removed as possible from the plane of actual life."[26] Booth played Hamlet for 100 nights in the 1864/5 season at theWinter Garden Theatre, inaugurating the era of long-run Shakespeare in America.[27]Sarah Bernhardt played the prince in her popular 1899 London production, and in contrast to the "effeminate" view of the central character which usually accompanied a female casting, she described her character as "manly and resolute, but nonetheless thoughtful... [he] thinks before he acts, a trait indicative of great strength and great spiritual power."[28]
Apart from some nineteenth-century visits by western troupes, the first professional performance of Hamlet in Japan wasOtojiro Kawakami's 1903Shimpa ("new school theatre") adaptation.[29]Shoyo Tsubouchi translatedHamlet and produced a performance in 1911, blendingShingeki ("new drama") andKabuki styles.[30] This hybrid-genre reached its height inTsuneari Fukuda's 1955Hamlet.[31] In 1998,Yukio Ninagawa produced an acclaimed version ofHamlet in the style ofNoh theatre, which he took to London.[32]
Particularly important for the history of theatre is theMoscow Art Theatre's production of 1911–12, on which two of the 20th century's most influentialtheatre practitioners,Constantin Stanislavski andEdward Gordon Craig, collaborated.[33] Craig conceived of their production as asymbolistmonodrama, in which every aspect of production would be subjugated to the play'sprotagonist; the play would present a dream-like vision seen through Hamlet's eyes. To support this interpretation, Craig wanted to add archetypal, symbolic figures—such as Madness, Murder, and Death—and to have Hamlet present on-stage during every scene, silently observing those in which he did not participate; Stanislavski overruled him.[34]
Craig wanted stylized abstraction, while Stanislavski wanted psychological motivation. Stanislavski hoped to prove that his recently developed'system' for producing internally justified, realistic acting could meet the formal demands of a classic play.[35] Stanislavski's vision of Hamlet was as an active, energetic and crusading character, whereas Craig saw him as a representation of a spiritual principle, caught in a mutually destructive struggle with the principle ofmatter as embodied in all that surrounded him.[36]
The most famous aspect of the production is Craig's use of a single, plain set that varied from scene to scene by means of large, abstract screens that altered the size and shape of the acting area.[37] These arrangements were used to provide a spatial representation of the character's state of mind or to underline adramaturgical progression across a sequence of scenes, as elements were retained or transformed.[38]
The kernel of Craig's interpretation lay in the staging of the first court scene (1.2).[39] The screens lined up along the back wall and were bathed in diffuse yellow light; from a high throne bathed in a diagonal, bright golden beam, a pyramid descended, representing thefeudal hierarchy, which gave the illusion of a single, unified golden mass, with the courtier's heads sticking out from slits in the material. In the foreground in dark shadow, Hamlet lay as if dreaming. Agauze was hung between Hamlet and the court, so that on Claudius' exit-line the figures remained but the gauze was loosened, so that they appeared to melt away as Hamlet's thoughts turned elsewhere. The scene received anovation, which was unheard of at theMAT.[39] Despite hostile reviews from the Russian press, the production attracted enthusiastic and unprecedented worldwide attention for the theatre and placed it "on the cultural map for Western Europe."[40]
Hamlet is often played with contemporary political overtones:Leopold Jessner's 1926 production at the Berlin Staatstheater portrayed Claudius' court as a parody of the corrupt and fawning court ofKaiser Wilhelm.[41]Hamlet is also a psychological play:John Barrymore introducedFreudian overtones into the closet scene and mad scene of his landmark 1922 production in New York, which ran for 101 nights (breaking Booth's record). He took the production to theHaymarket in London in 1925 and it greatly influenced subsequent performances byJohn Gielgud andLaurence Olivier.[42] Gielgud has played the central role many times: his 1936 New York production ran for 136 performances, leading to the accolade that he was "the finest interpreter of the role since Barrymore."[43] Although "posterity has treatedMaurice Evans less kindly", throughout the 1930s and 1940s it was he, not Gielgud or Olivier, who was regarded as the leading interpreter of Shakespeare in the United States and in the 1938/9 season he presented Broadway's first uncutHamlet, running four and a half hours.[44]
In 1937,Tyrone Guthrie directed Olivier in aHamlet at theOld Vic based on psychoanalystErnest Jones' "Oedipus complex" theory of Hamlet's behaviour.[45] Olivier was involved in another landmark production, directingPeter O'Toole as Hamlet in the inaugural performance of the newly formedNational Theatre, in 1963.[46]
InPoland, the number of productions of Hamlet increase at times of political unrest, since its political themes (suspected crimes, coups, surveillance) can be used to comment upon the contemporary situation.[47] Similarly,Czech directors have used the play at times of occupation: a 1941Vinohrady Theatre production was said to have "emphasised, with due caution, the helpless situation of an intellectual attempting to endure in a ruthless environment."[48] In China, performances of Hamlet have political significance: Gu Wuwei's 1916The Usurper of State Power, an amalgam ofHamlet andMacbeth, was an attack onYuan Shikai's attempt to overthrow the republic.[49] In 1942, Jiao Juyin directed the play in aConfucian temple inSichuan Province, to which the government had retreated from the advancing Japanese.[49] In the immediate aftermath of the collapse of theprotests atTiananmen Square, Lin Zhaohua staged a 1990Hamlet in which the prince was an ordinary individual tortured by a loss of meaning. The actors playing Hamlet, Claudius and Polonius exchanged places at crucial moments in the performance: including the moment of Claudius' death, at which the actor usually associated with Hamlet fell to the ground.[50] In 1999, Genesis Repertory presented a version taking place in Dallas 1963.
Ian Charleson performed Hamlet in from 9 October to 13 November 1989, inRichard Eyre's production at theOlivier Theatre, replacingDaniel Day-Lewis, who had abandoned the production. Seriously ill from AIDS at the time, Charleson died seven weeks after his last performance. Fellow actor and friend,Sir Ian McKellen, said that Charleson played Hamlet so well it was as if he had rehearsed the role all his life,[51] and the performance garnered other major accolades as well, some even calling it the definitive Hamlet performance.[52]
InAustralia, a production of Hamlet was staged at theBelvoir Street Theatre inSydney in 1994 starring notable names includingRichard Roxburgh as Hamlet,Geoffrey Rush as Horatio,Jacqueline McKenzie as Ophelia andDavid Wenham as Laertes. The critically acclaimed production was directed byNiel Armfield.[53]
A 2005 production ofHamlet inSarajevo by theEast West Theatre Company, directed byHaris Pašović, transposed the action to 15th-centuryIstanbul.[54]
In May 2009,Hamlet opened withJude Law in the title role at theDonmar Warehouse West End season atWyndham's. He was joined byRon Cook,Peter Eyre,Gwilym Lee,John MacMillan,Kevin R McNally,Gugu Mbatha-Raw,Matt Ryan, Alex Waldmann andPenelope Wilton. The production officially opened on 3 June and ran through 22 August 2009.[55][56] A further production of the play ran atElsinore Castle in Denmark from 25–30 August 2009.[57] The Jude LawHamlet then moved to Broadway, and ran for twelve weeks at theBroadhurst Theatre in New York. Previews began on 12 September and the official opening was 6 October 2009.[58][59] Most of the original cast moved with the production to New York. There were some changes, already incorporated in Elsinore: new were Ross Armstrong,Geraldine James and Michael Hadley.[60][61] The Broadway cast with Law also includes Harry Attwell, Ian Drysdale,Jenny Funnell, Colin Haigh, James Le Feuvre, Henry Pettigrew, Matt Ryan, Alan Turkington and Faye Winter. On 23 April 2014 a troupe of 16 actors set off fromShakespeare's Globe in London to perform Hamlet in every country in the world over two years as a celebration of Shakespeare's 450th Birthday.
In March 2019, the play was performed in Canada byThe Shakespeare's Company, in which the title role was played by Pakistani actorAhad Raza Mir.[62]
The earliest screen success forHamlet wasSarah Bernhardt's five-minute film of the fencing scene, in 1900. The film was a crudetalkie, in that music and words were recorded on phonograph records, to be played along with the film.[63] Silent versions were released in 1907, 1908, 1910, 1913 and 1917.[64] In 1920,Asta Nielsen played Hamlet as a woman who spends her life disguised as a man.[65] In 1933, John Barrymore filmed a color screen test of the Ghost Scene for a proposed, but never made, two-stripTechnicolor film version of the play.[66]Laurence Olivier's 1948 film version wonbest picture andbest actorOscars. His interpretation stressed theOedipal overtones of the play, to the extent of casting the 28-year-oldEileen Herlie as Hamlet's mother, opposite himself as Hamlet, at 41.[67]Gamlet (Russian:Гамлет) is a 1964 film adaptation in Russian, based on a translation byBoris Pasternak and directed byGrigori Kozintsev, with a score byDmitri Shostakovich.[68]John Gielgud directedRichard Burton at theLunt-Fontanne Theatre in 1964-5, and a film of a live performance was produced, inELECTRONOVISION.[69]Franco Zeffirelli's Shakespeare films have been described as "sensual rather than cerebral": his aim to make Shakespeare "even more popular".[70] To this end, he cast the American actorMel Gibson – then famous asMad Max – in the title role of his 1990 version, andGlenn Close – then famous as the psychoticother woman inFatal Attraction – as Gertrude.[71]
In contrast to Zeffirelli's heavily cutHamlet, in 1996Kenneth Branagh adapted, directed and starred in a version containing every word of Shakespeare's play, running for slightly under four hours.[72] Branagh set the film withVictorian era costuming and furnishings; andBlenheim Palace, built in the early 18th century, became Elsinore Castle in the external scenes. The film is structured as anepic and makes frequent use offlashbacks to highlight elements not made explicit in the play: Hamlet's sexual relationship withKate Winslet's Ophelia, for example, or his childhood affection forKen Dodd's Yorick.[73] In 2000,Michael Almereyda set the story in contemporaryManhattan, withEthan Hawke playing Hamlet as a film student. Claudius became the CEO of "Denmark Corporation", having taken over the company by killing his brother.[74]
Hamlet has been adapted for a variety of media. Translation have sometimes transformed the original dramatically.Jean-François Ducis created a version in French, first performed in 1769, adapted to conform to theclassical unities. Hamlet survives at the end. The French composerAmbroise Thomas created an operaticHamlet in 1868, using a libretto byJules Barbier andMichel Carré, based on an adaptation byAlexandre Dumas, père. It is rarely performed but contains a famous mad scene for Ophelia.
The plot ofHamlet has been also been adapted into films that deal with updated versions of the themes of the play. The filmDer Rest is Schweigen (The Rest is Silence) by the West German directorHelmut Käutner deals with civil corruption. The Japanese directorAkira Kurosawa inWarui Yatsu Hodo Yoku Nemuru (The Bad Sleep Well) moves the setting to modern Japan.[75] InClaude Chabrol'sOphélia (France, 1962) the central character, Yvan, watches Olivier'sHamlet and convinces himself—wrongly and with tragic results—that he is in Hamlet's situation.[76] In 1977, East German playwrightHeiner Müller wroteDie Hamletmaschine (Hamletmachine) a postmodernist, condensed version ofHamlet; this adaptation was subsequently incorporated into his translation of Shakespeare's play in his 1989/1990 productionHamlet/Maschine (Hamlet/Machine).[77]Tom Stoppard directed a1990 film version of his own playRosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead.[78] The highest-grossingHamlet adaptation to-date isDisney'sAcademy Award-winning animated featureThe Lion King: although, as befits the genre, the play's tragic ending is avoided.[79] In addition to these adaptations, there are innumerablereferences to Hamlet in other works of art.
