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Hamlet 1963

by William Shakespeare (1601/02)

First National Theatre production at the Old Vic Theatre
Opened 22 Oct 1963
Closed 4 Dec 1963
Total 27 Performances

Notes on the production by Laurence Olivier from the programme for Hamlet, 1963:

'There are two principal ways of approaching a production of Hamlet. One is to regard the play as an opportunity for the director's special interpretation - in which case a young or little-known player is required to follow obediently and faithfully the instructions of the director's vision. The other is to believe that the study of the play must start from the Prince himself. This plan requires a leading player of rare quality and experience, and forces a collaborative attitude in which the director must be content with the role of the conductor of a concerto, rather than a symphony.

I believe that, by the very nature of its first presentation, Shakespeare never imagined any other way than this. I do not see the play as a study of a doomed family, like the House of Atreus, nor of a decadent régime, as in Akimov's famous Soviet production some thirty years ago. It deals with a man who says no to official obligations and feudal oaths - in fact, to anything outside himself, any external force that tries to tell him how he should behave. He is the permanent rebel and nay-sayer, and would be the same in any society or period of history. He works out his morality as he goes along, taking nothing on trust; and this is what makes him different from all the tragic heroes before him.

It also makes him something of a crank, a sore thumb, and a source of nagging embarrassment to those around him; and here he joins hands with such latter-day rebels as Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger. He abhors the world in which he lives, and is forever doubting its values, testing its honesty, deriding its pretensions. In short, he is not a good social animal but a dangerous outsider, a nuisance and a threat, often unpleasant and downright offensive; and it is thus that we should regard him, not as a romantic weakling or a paragon of charm.

His isolation leads him into erratic swings of temperament. Having nothing certain to cling to, no positive idea of his role in society, he reacts to each new situation with total spontaneity, inventing new aspects of himself as one scene succeeds another. A great self-dramatist, he creates his own character before our eyes. Recognising no absolutes outside himself, he acknowledges none within himself, and approaches life like an actor, always trying on new characterisations to see if they fit. Ophelia remembers him in a lyrical 'nymph-and-shepherd' phase, while the Hamlet cherished by Horatio is an open-hearted fellow student. By the time the play begins, both of these characterisations have been discarded.

Why is he so sharply alienated, both from his real identity and the country in which he lives? I don't think one can answer that without referring to the Oedipus complex. This element need not be unduly emphasised, but the royal family of Denmark cannot be wholly understood without it. The play is rife with talk of incest, and 'Lucianus, nephew to the King', brings a hideously dark threat with him on to the stage. The wrench of Gertrude's remarriage has thrown Hamlet's whole life out of focus. At the opening of the play, he has been doubly shattered - first, as an only child; and second, as the heir to the throne. He is forced to rebuild himself from zero, and wanders in indulgent exploration of the cavern of melancholy. His affair with Ophelia becomes a weapon to spite his mother; and to underline the point I have imagined that Ophelia is a royal lady-in-waiting.

Textually, I have used the Second Quarto, and, at Peter O'Toole's suggestion, borrowed from the 'bad' First Quarto one illuminating change in the order of scenes. In the latter text, 'To be or not to be' and the nunnery scene precede Hamlet's first encounter with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and the arrival of the players. This means that after the end of Act 1 ('The time is out of joint - O cursed spite/That ever I was born to set it right'), we next see Hamlet in the thrall of his antic disposition, contemplating suicide and casting off Ophelia, a more fluid and actable sequence of events than the 'good' texts provide.'

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