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Reviews

Shakespeare set shocks

World Records' "Hamlet" reviewed.

World Records recently embarked upon a series optimistically called The Living Shakespeare. The first release purports to be Hamlet; and it contains a fine reading by Sir Michael Redgrave of some lines from that play.

The sleeve of the record praises this performance: the "beautiful voice does justice to the world's greatest poet"—we can only regret that Sir Michael does not do justice also to the world's greatest dramatist. The sad fact of the matter is that, by disordering and decapitating Shakespeare, the editors have produced a record that is dishonest to the original play, and often incoherent in its present effect.

Our objection is not so much a cry from offended purists. It is an objection in the strongest terms to counterfeit and vulgarity. The distributors claim to be giving us Shakespeare, and they are giving us nothing of the sort; they claim to be enhancing the play by sound effects, but more often than not these obtrude, to obscure what little of the play remains. Our objection is two-fold: both that this recording should not have been made, and that it has been made badly.

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The recording should not have been made in this form, first of all, perhaps, because it is such a waste of acting talent. None of the players is anything but competent; and Sir Michael Redgrave's Hamlet is particularly convincing. But all of the actors are crippled: some are obliterated, others might as well be. Miss Rawling's Gertrude has little life before death; Claudius, Ophelia, and Laertes disintegrate into bit parts. The fault is not in the acting, it is in the play—or in the bones of it which the editors have left. It is a loss of no mean extent that a combination of actors, perhaps better than that used for the Marlowe Society productions, should have been wasted on such a fruitless and useless task.

The recording should not have been made, also, because, like all greatly abridged versions, it distorts the play almost beyond recognition. This objection was made by many people to Sir Lawrence Olivier's film of Hamlet; it may be applied with even greater justification to this recording. A typical example of the dangers in such a presentation may be seen on the record's sleeve; Bernard Grebanier writes, among other nonsense: "I am particularly interested in the fact that the omission of the "antic disposition" speech … does nothing to alter the essential meaning of Hamlet's behaviour in the play. When one listens, it is obvious that nowhere is Hamlet feigning insanity …" It is incredible that such absurdity can pass as criticism even on a record cover. We can only say we are not surprised that once the "antic disposition" and a hundred other speeches are omitted, the play looks rather different—even to the extent of clarifying the ambiguities of Hamlet's madness. Clearly a play so altered is a different play—could we too cut at will, we too might find "criticism" easy.

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The record itself is bad, not through any real fault of the acting (although we have our reservations about some of that), but through a lack of control and understanding in the use of auditory effects. The production is at its lowest in the ridiculous echoes of so-called key words in the scene with the Ghost: we could accept a sea-cave, but not one with resonance so crassly fortuitous .

There are sundry other examples of bad taste or judgment, but none as obvious and pointless as this. The subdued wailing during the sililoquies is also incongruous and distracting—Sir Michael Redgrave was making the most of his abbreviated script, without any external assistance. Certainly the musique concrete is an excellent touch, when it is appropriate: it blends remarkably well with snatches of music in the Elizabethan manner, and for that matter might be used more frequently in dramatic productions in general. But when it is inappropriate, musique concrete is devastating: it pervades the scene, and destroys the patterns and meanings of the words.

Other effects of staging become increasingly annoying. The crowd reactions are too prolonged and obvious. Some of the remarks which come through the murmurs are enlivening but hardly appropriate—we are unlikely to forget that hearty voice shouting "cast orf" during Laertes' departure (included for some unknown reason) The production displays supreme unconcern about fundamentals of drama. The tone is set with the removal of the jumpy challenges of the watch in the opening scene; they are replaced by the polite voice of the narrator: "The King of Denmark has died mysteriously." It reminds us of nothing so much as the children's session: Very little is rotten everything is rather gentlemanly and nice in the State of Denmark. And as the opening is jettisoned by calm explanation, so the climax is to be sabotaged by an inept footnote about the changing of swords.

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Shakespeare is not such bad theatre that he cannot be made palatable to modern audiences. Surely we are not so hurried today that we cannot spare the time to listen to a reasonable acting version of Hamlet. Could it be that the World Record Club is anxious that a somewhat more expensive price would limit sales? There may be a case in the production of drama for the clarification of sense if no damage is done to the rhythm or sound: there cannot be any excuse for cutting a play by more than two-thirds—except, of course, a commercial excuse. True, the lower forms of some of our schools might be able to meet Shakespeare in this way—but there would be little point in such an introduction. Such pupils would be better off dealing with works they can understand and enjoy, rather than with a sham whose original is beyond their grasp. Other readers will surely be quite uninterested in such a dramatisation.

We hope that as few people as possible will be mislead by World Records' emasculation of Hamlet: we have discussed the matter at some length to protect those students and others who might well be prospective buyers of such records. Our chief regret is that the Club has not directed its energies towards reasonably-priced but complete editions of Shakespeare. For the fact remains, despite some most creditable acting, and some interesting music, that this record of Hamlet does not live, and is not Shakespeare.

—P.G.R.