AT THE THEATRE - HAMLET

Saturday afternoon in Rome, at the theatre, with students, colleagues and friends. Not my first Hamlet, of course, but I’m always happy to see a Shakespearean play on stage.

In this staging Hamlet (Alessandro Preziosi) is an intellectual on a crisis. The troubled indecisive Prince becomes really modern. Nowadays, the role of the intellectual has lost its strength, he is incapable of “feeling”   hence of “provoking” a reaction in his interlocutors.

The direction of Armando Pugliese underlines the cultural gap which separates Hamlet and his Wittenberg mates (Horatio, Rosencratz, Guildestern) – all dressed in white simple clothes - from a corrupt Danish court (Polonius, Claudius, Gertrude) wearing black/gold rich Renaissance costumes . Hamlet’s doubt is not only an oscillation of the soul but the necessity to make vengeance and justice coincide. His initial troubled reaction to the unusual situation of his mother's prompt re-marrying after his father’s death is lived in a dark claustrophobic bedchamber hinting at a mental asylum. The voice of his father’s ghost haunts Hamlet from the very beginning.

Lights and scenes(minimalist) and music (modern) and costumes were well chosen, they really worked at underlining the pathos of the situations. But ... though ... I am sorry to say it but ... the acting was plain, or too academic at times, monotonous, uninvolving, cold. No passion, little emotion. Alessandro Preziosi/Hamlet has a great stage presence, he was moved by the best intentions, anyhow I wished for something more: not only strength but energy, not only sensations but emotions.

I had already seen - and liked - Preziosi on stage as Edmund in King Lear as well as in  some TV or film productions. He became popular with  the Tv costume series "Elisa di Rivombrosa" but has never stopped working on stage.  I can't really say he was the worst in the cast, no, sincerely he was the best... I only was there wishing for "something more" all the time.

A CLIP

 
I saw Hamlet at the theatre last year too. Here are my impressions of that version:  A SHAKESPEAREAN SATURDAY AFTERNOON.

P.S. Italian most important national channel has recenlty broadcast a drama starring Alessandro Preziosi as St. Augustine that I couldn't watch but recorded for better times. I'm going to see it as soon as possible. I'm really curious of seeing his performance in that role too. St. Augustine is also a Hamletic character.You'll see.

A SHAKESPEAREAN SATURDAY AFTERNOON

Imagine you are a young university student ... Imagine you love Philosophy and Poetry ... You've got friends as well as a beautiful girl you start fancying about...But your happy ordinary world is suddenly turned upside down by the news of your father's death. You grieve and mourn and you can cope with it ...What you really can't stand is ... your mother's behaviour... After just few weeks (4!), she gets married again, with your uncle, your father's brother...You find it unbearable but nobody else seems to notice that unacceptable exhibition of joy and love. Then something even worse happens: your father's ghost comes back from hell, reveals you the tragic truth of his death and orders you to avenge him! Your uncle Claudius has murdered him and now he is your mother's new husband!
What would you do? Would you respect your father's will?
This is what happens in the first act of Shakespeare's "Hamlet", one of the most popular tragedies of all times.

I'm just back from Rome where I saw this play performed at Teatro Eliseo. Rome is wonderful in spring and we ( some of my students, some of my colleagues, the female part of my family and I ) enjoyed the warm afternoon. But let's say something about the performance. First of all, I especially appreciated Luca Lazzareschi as Hamlet and Nello Mascia as Polonius. Then I loved the wonderful lights and the impressive music that, with a minimal, very dark set design, have underlined the tragedy of Hamlet, the symbol of the crisis of modern man before his destiny and his responsibilities.
Shakespeare' s Hamlet is also a metaphor of the theatre as a vision of the world. One of the best moments in the play was "the theatre within the theatre", that is when Hamlet, who has been pretending to be mad for a while, asks a company of actors to perform "The Murder of Gonzago" at court. It resembles the story of the terrible murder of his father. So the actors became audience on the stage of a second play, and the actors of the latter were wearing masks - recalling ancient Greek theatre - which amplified the voices.

The show lasted four hours but we were all so involved in the dark atmosphere and waiting for the frantic bloody finale that ... we hardly realized.

If you want to know more about the play and its adaptations for the screen or its links and connections to other literary works....

CLICK HERE

And now I'll leave you with two lines from Hamlet:

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go. (Hamlet, 3. 3 )