A Chat with Text

Perhaps one of the most exceptional qualities of a Shakespeare play is its malleability. It is a though the characters of the play are just the framework of a performance involving the player’s circumstance.  This quality makes the character and the actor inseparable, hence making each performance intentionally unique (unlike plays like “Waiting for Godot” where it is crucial that the actor sticks faithfully to the script).

This American Life’s “218: Act V” podcast spoke about the powerful bilateral relationship between actor and character in Hamlet performed by individuals whose lives are alone worthy of a playwright.  It seemed as though the personal stories of each actor fed the character played. The actor, instead of disembodying from its own circumstance, utilized its personal experience to deliver his performance. The prisoners needed not to pretend, and instead they spoke to themselves. In turn resulted a performance separated only from real life by the unnatural Shakespearean language.

After experiencing this kind of catharsis (perhaps the most genuine ever to be experienced) I wonder about the rest of “Hamlet” performances, and about acting itself. When staging a play, the actors have the daunting task of making their performance feel as veracious as possible. At any given time, if the task is delivered successfully, the audience might lose their sense of circumstance and become lost in the play. However, in the end, the closed curtains remind us of the inevitable falseness of it all.  Written words have not that problem. Literature embraces the lie as part of its nature. However, in the case of the prisoners staging Hamlet there is a rupture between the lie and the truth. The lie, pretending to be true, is actually true.

In the case of one prisoner playing Laertes, he fully embraces the role in his personal life. Even before becoming familiar with the character, he was already carrying out the role of Laertes. The opportunity of performing gave him the chance to repeat his actions, which now are redundant, as he is just acting like himself. “I am Laertes.” He said repeatedly.

I have never encountered such a powerful relationship with a text. It makes me think that there is a possibility of us feeding on the character and the character feeding on us. Literature is only what we choose to make of it. Its meaning depending only in the individual reading it. The prisoners performing “Hamlet” are the best example of conversation with the text, something we must procure if interested in the valuable interpretation of literature. 

A Pair of Ragged Claws

What if Hamlet hadn’t died or killed? What if Hamlet- old and alive- made by thought one part wise yet three parts coward, had instead sat to watch the yellow fog fall asleep every soft October night of his life, with the excuse that there will be time? Had Shakespeare not chosen to make the final scene of his play resemble more a works day at a slaughterhouse more than anything else, Hamlet could have well turned out to be J. Alfred Prufrock.

It is true that both characters are eternally conflicted by thought.  Both verbalize their concern: Hamlet by the way of soliloquies and Prufrock in an afflicted stream of consciousness. Perhaps they are unaware of the ruthless irony found in their prolonged consideration of prolonged consideration.  Perhaps not. “Whether it be Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple Of thinking too precisely on the event” (Act 4 Sc.4) or “a perfume from a dress that makes me [him] so digress” it is thought which they hold responsible for their inactivity.

Hamlet is young, Prufrock old. This marks a big difference in their stances, for Hamlet reprimands himself for his passivity, while Prufrock has let go hope and does not look back with anger, rather with gloom. Fear, nevertheless, is a shared cause of their stasis. J. Alfred asks himself “Do I dare disturb the universe?”  and Hamlet “To be or not to be?” The thought of trouble, life, action, is too intimidating. They both ask themselves if it (to take arms against a sea of troubles) is worthy after all. Life is too painful, disappointments too abundant. Hamlet desires relief from decisions (to die, to sleep) because he dares not to think of the consequences. Prufrock, as an eventual Hamlet, simply surrenders. Both men see their shameful figures as shadows in a wall, and they regret.

 But in short, they were afraid.