|
|
It is visible that the
'performativity' [1]
of Hamlet assaults the observer from the inside of
the play. Actually, the first production ever of this
special revenge drama can be viewed at the play's ending,
with Horatio as a director and Fortinbras calling in the
noblest of the "audience" (5.2.331). Horatio instructs that
the bodies be placed 'High on a stage' (5.2.322)
[2],
warning the spectators of being about to hear tales of
bloody events. Horatio looks back on a trail of intrigue and
violence that gives an accurate description of an entire
genre named revenge tragedy. He emphasizes the educational
and morally corrective effect of the events being
"performed" (5.2.337), which would prevent others from being
in error again. In fact, Horatio's story is a silent one and
it involves 'showing' and 'viewing' rather than 'telling.'
[3]
The audience
[4]
is expected to redress and make amends only by seeing the
mute gory picture on stage. In Shakespeare's agile hands,
the revenge play tradition
[5]
becomes a marker of Hamlet's metatheatricality. In
discussing the soliloquies in Hamlet, Alex Newell
addresses the question of Shakespeare's ambivalent handling
of the revenge issue. He argues that "the play's view of
revenge is rendered not by explicit reflections on the
ethics of revenge by Hamlet the thinker but rather by what
happens to him, what he undergoes in becoming a revenger."
[6]
This theater achieves a delicate balance between 'showing'
and 'telling,' with a clear propensity towards the dramatic
effect. Although we are dealing with Shakespeare's most
'wordy' play, containing the largest number of soliloquies,
action comes first.
With matters like these in mind, I concur with Maurice
Charney's critical position, when he points out the
theatrical effectiveness of violence in Elizabethan drama
[7]
and Hamlet's particular location in the revenge
dramatic tradition:
Hamlet is
strikingly original. It is a revenge play with a
difference. Although it is strongly grounded in the
popular dramatic tradition, it is unusual in its
intellectuality and its constant play of speculation and
displacement." [8]
In mapping out briefly the
numerous theatrical rewritings of Hamlet
[9]
on the Romanian stage, I intend to address a number of
questions: was the dramatization of revenge a central
concern for Romanian directors and actors interpreting
Hamlet? Did they consider this aspect as being more
relevant than other ramifications of the play to Romanian
audiences? During the century and a half of successfully
staging the play, did Romanian directors have an eye for the
meta-theatrical and parodic implications of violence within
the generic discourse on the ideological legitimation of
revenge? Or was the issue of theatrical violence a rather
marginal component of various productions, an ingredient
that came with the packaging but was to be discarded as
minimal in comparison to more crucial directions? If
Elizabethan misconceptions about Italy and Spain account for
the usual setting of the revenge play in a Mediterranean
milieu by Shakespeare's contemporaries
[10],
does the Northern location in Denmark change anything in the
production of Hamlet by Romanian directors? Is the
reception by Romanian audiences altered through the
collision with the play's integration in the revenge
heritage?
A traditionally Christian Orthodox nation in the nineteenth
century, when Shakespeare penetrated effectively on stage,
the Romanian cultural order incorporated the same general
tension between two conflicting attitudes centered on the
notion of revenge. On the one hand, the law and Christianity
were unequivocal in condemning private revenge as an attempt
by man to usurp the prerogatives of God. On the other hand,
the tradition of private revenge, dating from an earlier and
more turbulent time, was still very much alive. However, the
stage did not cogently reflect this conflict in the public
consciousness. The German, Italian and Viennese theatrical
troupes mounted the first productions of Hamlet
during the late eighteenth- and early nineteenth centuries
[11].
They filtered the vision of the play according to their
age's expectations, in general tributary to the Romantic
image of Shakespeare created by Lessing, Herder, and Goethe,
but also by Coleridge and Keats, Hugo, Taine, or Pushkin.
Apart from the distorted conceptual interpolation, these
foreign companies staged the play in their respective
languages. They effected serious changes in the text by
dropping entire scenes or Germanizing character names. When
a Romanian translation was available, it was often heavily
tributary to these foreign implants.
The first local productions of Hamlet were rather
timid and sporadic, no less influenced by the paradigm of
romantic drama and the eccentricities of heavily germanized
prose translations. Mihai Pascally was the first actor who
interpreted Hamlet in Romanian during 1861-62
[12].
The text follows the romanticized French translation by
Alexandre Dumas-father and Paul Meurice. An equally famous
performance by Grigore Manolescu is staged in 1884 at the
Bucharest National Theater
[13]
Figure
1
This complete actor translates the French version of
Hamlet by Montégut and Letourneur, being the
sole director, translator and leading-role performer of
Hamlet. As Odette Blumenfeld points out, "… the
1884 production established a lasting tradition in the
Romanian theater: any performance of Hamlet should
display a rich style of acting, usually the classic one,
… it should considerably reveal the greatness of the
tragic actor." [14]
The actor and director of a theatrical company, Constantin
Nottara, offers a similar theatrical perspective on
Hamlet in 1895 at the Bucharest National Theater. In
the same year, the Iasi National Theater features the actor
State Dragomir as the leading hero in Hamlet. This
actor-centered and romantically biased concert of
productions typifies the territory of Romanian productions
of Hamlet during the entire latter-half of the
nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth. A
host of highly talented Romanian actors, such as Constantin
Nottara, Tony Bulandra, Aristide Demetriade,
(Figure
2)
interpreted the role of Hamlet on the Bucharest stage in the
pre-World War I period, followed by C. Marculescu, Zaharia
Bârsan, and Ion Manolescu on the Cluj and Craiova
stages between 1922-1925[15].
They contributed to constructing a tradition of "lead-role"
theater history of Hamlet, a canon of exemplary
Romanian productions against which subsequent attempts at
re-constructing the play must give us pause.
The 1925 production at the Craiova National Theater, with
Ion Manolescu impersonating Hamlet, is the first Romanian
full-text representation. Another remarkable series of
productions is recorded in 1941. Liviu Rebreanu, a prominent
Romanian writer, was the director of the Bucharest National
Theater at that time. He initiated what was called "the
battle of the three Hamlets," three competitive productions
introducing George Vraca, George Calboreanu, and Valeriu
Valentineanu in the role of Hamlet
[16].
In the first half of the twentieth century, Romanian
productions of Hamlet adjusted the play to suit a
leading actor, usually an outstanding theatrical figure.
This protagonist styled the Shakespearean hero according to
his histrionic exigencies, generally fostered at the French
and German declamatory schools. The play's revenge dimension
was tributary to the need of creating an essentially noble
hero, in accordance with the period's romanticized
perception of Shakespeare.
An unusual production of Hamlet took place, not on
the professional stage, but in a Romanian court martial
political prison during 1942-1943. Records of this version
are very volatile. There are only some sketches by a
talented prisoner and the testimonies of certain members of
the audience to vouch for it. During the war, classical
texts were produced in prison with a view to raising the
morale of the inmates and in order to give them confidence
in the end of the war. This unique production of
Hamlet was mounted in a political court-martial
prison in Timisoara, and later in Arad. A parody of the "To
be or not to be…" soliloquy paraphrased one of Hitler's
discourses, in an intertextual fusion where levels of
significance were suspended above the ideological void and
around the censorship functioning in a wartime political
penitentiary. Nowhere could the relevance of Denmark's
prison be more actual and politically responsive to an
audience. There was a pun on "to be" and the German people,
and "not to be" and the fascist regime. The scene where
Polonius and Hamlet discuss the cloud as a camel satirized
allegorically Hitler's acolytes. The play was used
subversively against the Nazi regime and the theme of
revenge could be altered significantly to suit the
expectations of political anti-Nazi prisoners. An inmate
designed the sketches in
Figure 3, and
there are no reviews of this amateur production, just the
actors' testimonies and these sketches
[17].
In the communist period that followed immediately after the
war, the theater increasingly capitalized on Shakespeare as
a subversive weapon to undermine the unwanted but much
feared Russian cultural domination and the alien ideology
the communist officials wanted to impose. The repressed fear
of being imprisoned for the only motive of existing in this
country, or having more property than others, or having an
enemy who could denounce one to the authorities at any time
made people see the frailty of existence and understand
Hamlet's dilemma or the veiled and ambivalent hope for
revenge. In those depressing years, Shakespeare was a
shelter and a communal place of refuge from the grim
adversities of life and politics. The theater responded to
the nation's need for the truth being told, even if
covertly, in a Hamlet-like manner. The first post-World War
II Hamlet in Romania, directed by Vlad Mugur at the
Craiova National Theater, offers the young actor Gheorghe
Cozorici the chance to display a Danish prince who "needs to
know the fault of those who must be punished and who intends
to secure good and strict
justice."[18]
The perception of revenge as an act of justice, within the
Christian boundaries, might provide a clandestine allusion
to the unwelcome Russian military, political, and cultural
influence. In 1960 the actor Fory Etterlé plays
Hamlet in a production directed by Ion Olteanu at the
Bucharest Municipal Theater. Constantin Anatol acts under
the direction of Miron Nicolescu at the Cluj National
Theater, where his version of Hamlet persisted on
stage for three years consecutively. A year later, Dan Nasta
plays Hamlet at the National Theater of Timisoara. Thus,
theaters from four major cities in Romania produce
Hamlet successfully between 1958-1961. Moreover, the
radio, the most popular of all media at the time, makes
Hamlet known and appreciated throughout the country,
accessible to all social groups, in a production directed by
Mihai Zirra, with Constantin Codrescu in the leading role.
It is as if directors thought that the sequence of dramatic
events in this play could have some bearing on Romania's
political situation. This subversive undercurrent is visible
in the directors' choice of authors (mostly Shakespeare) and
plays (preferably Hamlet). My statement cannot be
backed by material evidence drawing on the theatrical
reviews of the time because the theaters, directors, and
critics executed a complicated form of diplomatic ballet in
order to avoid censorship.
By the seventies and the early eighties, the repressive
regime had eased its grip on individuals by means of direct
and persistent political persecution. The control became
subtler, in the form of thought dominance and watchful
insinuation. The audience's relation to Shakespeare in this
period was one of secret complicity. Shakespeare gave a
local habitation and a name to all the hidden fears,
political apprehensions, and motivations. The stage was the
focal point where the audience's expectations of hearing the
truth clearly stated met the actors' and directors' secret
wish of saying things that would elude the political
censorship. Thus, a Shakespeare play became a unique
location where many wishes converged. The 1974 production of
Hamlet directed by Dinu Cernescu at the Nottara
Theater in Bucharest (Figures
4, 5, 6)
took the theatrical world by storm. It is for the first time
when the directorial focus shifted visibly from the capable
actor interpreting the prince's pale cast of thought to the
Denmark arena, where politics was the big game. As a theater
critic pointed out, "Hamlet is a cultural and
political production… It is political because an entire
system of directorial conception is built on firm political
attitude towards the truths in the text…"
[20]
It is for the first time in the stage history of Romanian
productions of Hamlet when the play is seen as a tragedy of
the fight for power - obtained by bloodshed, maintained as
such, and lost in the same way.
Dinu Cernescu's Hamlet is a sequence of crimes, like
in the royal tragedies. The right to rule is obtained
through violence, cunning, intrigues, and it is lost in a
similar manner. Claudius (Alexandru Repan) murders his elder
brother for political reasons. Nothing entitles us to
believe he did it only for love of Gertrude. The royal
couple's complicity to murder increases their passion
pathologically, in a Freud-like mode. This emotion connects
them and makes them extremely cautious. The Danish king's
court swarms with guards and spies. A perfectly coordinated
repressive system protects the king, who knows he can have
the same end as his brother at any time. Moreover, in the
secret chambers of the castle there is another plot:
Marcellus, Bernardo, and Horatio devise Claudius's murder.
Horatio is not Hamlet's friend; he is the current king's
enemy. Horatio sees in Hamlet the scourge of revenge and,
for a time, Claudius's successor. Horatio unveils the secret
of Claudius's murder to Hamlet by pretending to be the ghost
of the murdered king. He might act in accordance with the
text, if we accept that King Hamlet's ghost is the scenic
image of the rumors about the king's unnatural death.
Horatio wants to make Hamlet rebel against Claudius and to
help the young prince become king himself. When they
understand that Hamlet cannot act, the conspirators look for
another solution. They abandon Hamlet. One night, another
name presents itself: Fortinbras. The king of Norway will be
Claudius's successor. The power struggle goes on. Some are
plotting, others are watching, protecting themselves.
The conspiracy gains ground gradually. Yet, is it the only
one? Polonius (Stefan Radoff), the king's counselor, sends
his son to France, in order to remove him from the
surveillance at court. To what end? And why is Polonius so
much against Hamlet? Is it because the prince is the legal
successor to a throne he wanted for his own son? We are
reminded that, after Polonius's death, Laertes comes back to
Elsinore leading the rebel Danes, who are determined to take
over the power. He refrains from doing it for the moment
because Hamlet is still alive. Laertes accepts deceitfully
the game proposed by Claudius. And so on. Why not? This
hard-hearted strife for power attains gigantic proportions
under Cernescu's directorial guidance. Hamlet
acquires a new and unexpected profile. Fortinbras, the
possible successor, comes to the front. Hamlet is removed.
Why? Because Hamlet does not want to get the throne, he only
wants to avenge his father's death. Hamlet knows the time is
out of joint and he cannot set it right. His coming to power
would not change anything. The Great Mechanism would go on
grinding and the world distribution of power will remain the
same. This is not a time for the moral order to be
installed. Hamlet is merely an insignificant gear in the
mechanism of power.
Cernescu's Hamlet (Stefan Iordache) is not mad. He does not
even feign madness. He is no longer taken for one. Hamlet
has seen too much, understood too many secrets, and tells
too many unpleasant truths. Unpleasant, that is, for the
king and his followers. It is convened that Hamlet is mad,
that he has to be thoroughly guarded, so that he cannot
leave the court or the kingdom. Then, Hamlet ceases to
exist. Fortinbras takes the throne and, for a while, there
is an ominous silence in Denmark. Only the flute is allowed
to sound faintly. Dinu Cernescu selects just a part of the
complexity of the play. He gave the performance a reasonable
duration. However, did he achieve the necessary amplitude?
By clearing its meaning, did he not oversimplify the
tragedy? Denmark is an authentic political prison, with iron
bars and heavy metal doors slammed brutally, but is it also
a nutshell from where Hamlet can contemplate infinity? The
stage designer, Helmut Stürmer, translates the prison
metaphor into an actual penitentiary with black iron bars at
the windows and the leaden atmosphere of such a place. The
audience sees clearly that the phrase "Denmark is a prison"
is a tautology: the lateral walls are long and dark, and
there are crooked corridors full of whispers ending in iron
doors. The stage is like the inner court of a prison, with
many dark galleries whose walls are covered with blurred
foggy mirrors, multiplying the guardian, the spy, imminent
danger. The arrangement of the hall-stage has been designed
mainly for the whispers of those in the shadows, rather than
for the dramatic exchange in the text. Consequently, the
setting is not meant to express what has already been said,
or is being said by Hamlet, but it is meant to visualize
what no one in Cernescu's Denmark dares to voice. Nobody
ventures to say that the new king's throne is placed on his
subjects' dead bodies, even if these subjects, as in
Polonius's case, have been fanatical partisans of the
regime. The throne, a permanently moving object, is in turn
a deathbed, wedding-feast table, wedding-bed. Cernescu's
production is definitely political and director-centered. It
impresses the audience with the effective images of the
throne-casket-tomb-bed-table, of the crimson capes in the
color of old crimes, of the leaden-shining mirrors, and the
sharp glisten of daggers, the tools of blood revenge.
In 1975 there is a production of an original opera,
Hamlet, by the Romanian composer Pascal Bentoiu at the
National Opera House. The reviews of the time
[21]
mention the importance accorded by the director, George
Teodorescu, to pantomime and body language, combined with
suggestive lighting. One can imagine what significant
gesture and the interplay of light and darkness may do to an
audience who expects more than the naked eye is able to see
from a certain Shakespeare production. This lyrical
rewriting of Shakespeare's tragedy focuses on the conceptual
framework of Hamlet rather than the dramatic action.
There are ten scenes representing ten key moments of the
tragedy. The immobility of the setting suggests a still-life
painting or the suspended movement of the film camera. This
symbolic paralysis on stage reflects the undercurrent of
speculative thought, where Hamlet's mind reigns supreme.
Action and movement are expressed only in pantomime and body
language, at times stylized in ballet scenes, like in the
mousetrap section. Pantomime suggests powerful images and
expert lighting intensifies it expressively. The play on
light and colour is the chief merit of the production
because it emphasizes the abstract ideational process. The
director intends to separate the truth from errors and lies
by allotting them symbolic status: all the lie-conducing
actions will be depicted in cold, somber shades, while what
is taken to be the truth will be flooded in warm, natural
colors. The setting gives Pascal Bentoiu's music the status
of an absolute abstraction in relation to Shakespeare's
tragedy. Revenge, murder, power and politics are marginal
issues in this Romanian musical Hamlet. The opera
becomes primarily a drama of knowledge, conscience, and of
candidly confronting the mutations of Providence. As a
theater critic concludes, "Shakespeare's personality emerges
more potently than Bentoiu's, who tries to rise at the level
of the model by non-specific means."
[22]
The result is an abstraction, which questions marginally the
absolute directives of the predominant communist ideology of
the time.
In 1983 the director Nicolae Scarlat proposes the Romanian
audiences a minor stage version of Hamlet
[23],
when compared to Cernescu's interpretation. It is no less
director-centered, in the sense that Scarlat tried to
explore too many of the play's dimensions and, at times, the
audience got confused. He wanted to show the demonic
conscience and he actually made devils and imps walk on
stage. When he wanted to reveal the troubles of this too
solid flesh, a feathered Ophelia would fly to Hamlet's arms.
In trying to emphasize the play's metatheatrical component,
the director extended the theater-within-theater scene too
much. However, this production is inscribed in a consistent
series of Romanian theatrical rewritings of Hamlet.
The directors intended to voice truths about contemporary
issues through Hamlet, as they saw it, in a period
when truth was tongue-tied. This disruptive component of the
theater in the communist period might be interpreted as a
form of camouflaged revenge against the unpopular
regime.
A remarkable 1985 production of Hamlet at the
Bulandra Theater (Bucharest), directed by Alexandru
Tocilescu, (Figure
7) has
kept the Romanian public's interest for more than five
years, and provided appreciated material for theatrical
export, with excellent reviews, through the entire latter
half of the eighties and especially in 1990. Critics have
sanctioned Tocilescu's ambitious and rather confusing design
to say "everything about Hamlet."
[25]
In the precarious contemporary circumstances, when every
member of the audience may have a different opinion about
this play, and it may not be coherent with the directors'
intentions or the actors' interpretation, such an attempt at
saying it all could seem hazardous. During the almost five
hours, with only one intermission, Tocilescu bombarded the
spectators with complex issues of power and the political
theater, the moral condition, thought and action,
conscience, revenge, life as theater, life and death, love
and hatred, or the ambivalence of "to be" and "to have."
Tocilescu enters Elsinore through three important gates:
Philosophy (Ethics), Politics, and Art. Hamlet's dilemma of
action and revenge is given a tangible resolution through
the suggestion that the hero was in no doubt as to Claudius
being the perpetrator of the crime. The father's immaterial
Ghost is just a disembodied voice. A complex play of
lighting obscures the specter, suggesting that it might be
the hero's inner consciousness. In the truest Bakhtinian
spirit, two clowns precede the ghostly apparition and
intensify the carnivalesque image of life as theater, or art
holding the mirror up to nature.
In Tocilescu's translation of Hamlet, Art reflects
life's confusion and comes in opposition with Power through
its divergent tendencies. While power tends to subject
reality and impose an ideological monologue that would
reduce life to being subservient to the despotic order, art
invites to dialogue contradiction and diversity. This
production is an assertion of the theater's subversive
potentiality, in a period when only subtle allusions could
suggest dialogical action as an alternative to the
totalitarian opacity and self-assertiveness. Apart from the
theater-within-theater aspect, the production suggests other
forms of art as viable dissident forms of action. The play
begins with a pantomime of the final fencing scene, on a
black-mirror stage designed as a chessboard. The fight is
interrupted by a silhouette in black, which takes a seat at
the piano and provides the musical background during the key
scenes of the play. The pianist (Dan Grigore) is a silent
figure who intervenes in the encounters with the Ghost, and
at times becomes an unnatural apparition himself. Hamlet
(Ion Caramitru) joins this form in playing the piano while
he receives Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. On other occasions
the hero is playing the flute. Besides music, the play on
mirrors and the clowns prompt related allusions to the
seditious power of art.
Politics and power give a third dimension to Tocilescu's
interpretation of Hamlet. The abstract attributes of
the relations within the corridors of power admit material
representations through the director's description of the
characters having it. Claudius is a vulgar and aggressive
tyrant, capable of primitive hatred and conniving action. He
is the image of the political opportunist, whose only assets
are cunning and venality. The King wears a military uniform,
a signal of the zealous need for dominance and power
represented by martial rule. He is short and
insignificant-looking, but he has the grand taste for
ceremony, descending majestic stairs, usually in the
accompaniment of patriotic music. The veiled allusion to the
contemporary Romanian counterpart of such a figure, the
uneducated but scheming and power-driven president of the
communist party, Ceaucescu, could not escape an audience
that was eager to read topical meanings in complex plays
such as Hamlet. His wife's personality lies behind
the scene of the contest for power, but she is represented
as a vain and jealous woman. The director creates an entire
scene in which he presents the Queen's dressing room, the
vanity of her mirrors, and her jealousy towards a younger
and a prettier lady in waiting. The Romanian audience knew
that Ceaucescu's wife was just as vain, and she used all the
power she could wield to adorn herself with unearned
academic titles. Polonius is the militia representative in a
police state. He is limited and suspicious, but very proud
of his knowledge and life experience. He thinks he can
achieve the position next to the summit of power by
flattery, deception, and psychological torture. The
audience's reading invests him with all the characteristics
of a member of the collective instrument of repression
represented by the secret police in the communist state. His
modern black suit designates the uniform of the obscure
individuals who are the instruments of the repressive
system. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the plain and
analogous instruments of power, the ordinary party members
of the communist regime, while Laertes becomes involved in
the mechanism of authority without being aware of it.
Fortinbras is not a redeeming figure of hope. He is the
rapacious harvester of the disastrous consequences of evil
and tyranny. The Norse king rushes on stage wearing a long
red robe, attacks everyone and murders Horatio, signaling
the cyclical continuity of terror and blood revenge.
Tocilescu's elaborate production has been considered the
"heaviest" [26]
Romanian Hamlet in the last quarter of century. Its
successful staging had anticipated the historic events of
1989, the disintegration of communism in Romania. In an
interview with Richard Eyre, the director of the London
National Theater, taken in early1990 when he came to
Bucharest to see the play, the British man of theater
indicated the relevance of this political play to Romanian
audiences. According to him, the public could read the end
of the Romanian oppressive communist regime in the play
about Elsinore, even before the events in real life started.
As Richard Eyre said, "A play like Hamlet could speak
distinctly to people, and the authorities were unable to
prohibit mounting this play just because it was
Shakespeare's." [27] Tocilescu's
Hamlet becomes a subtle form of revenge that the
theater takes over life. Like a theater-within-life play, it
was the "thing" which activated the Romanians' moral sense
and rectitude, helping them to take decisive action and pull
apart the fifty-year communist rule. In 1990 the memorable
production went on tour through Britain, where it enjoyed
many favorable reviews. Analysts mentioned the specifically
Romanian connotations of this particular Hamlet. As
Michael Billington says in The Guardian, "This is, in
fact, Romania's Hamlet, fashioned according to this
country's political circumstances" and "this version is
impregnated with the atmosphere and politics of Ceaucescu's
Romania." [28]
We have reasons to believe that there is more to various
theatrical rewritings of Hamlet than actually meets
the eye, and this particular Romanian production is here to
prove it.
The democratic mutation of the nineties in Romania brought
an increased interest in the production of Shakespeare's
plays by the theatrical companies. As the more or less
obvious hazard of political censorship is there no more,
directorial expectations come to govern the productions
entirely, and the theatrum mundi metaphor is regarded
as a viable cultural response to the inadequacies of
everyday life. Theaters in Romania see the Shakespearean
canon as a form of theatrical collaboration that transcends
cultural and linguistic barriers. The theater creates a new
kind of cultural space in which the act of "playing"
replaces the everyday uncertainties of the social order and
the disappointment of doctrinal abstractions by representing
the truth through dramatic fictions. Romanian theater
becomes more self-conscious of its own medium and the magic
of its illusions, making the carnivalesque and the
theatrical representation a thematic matter. Directors
develop a spectrum of self-reflexive techniques to insist
upon the theater's powers of pretense and make-believe.
Therefore, the productions of Hamlet in the nineties
and in the year 2000 insist upon the play's
theatricality.
Two Romanian theaters staged Hamlet during 1997-98.
The lesser variant at the "Mihai Eminescu" Theater in
Botosani, directed by Ion Sapdaru
[29],
offers a directorial reading based on the
theater-within-theater scheme. The mise en abyme effect
establishes the priorities of the spectacle, and the tale of
the making of a play by William Shakespeare takes precedence
over the revenge story. The major themes of life as a stage
and men and women as merely actors, the theater as holding
the mirror up to nature, and the actor as the chronicler of
times come to the forefront of this production. After the
final fencing scene, when the audience expects the end of
the spectacle, the actors come back on stage and sit down to
talk with the audience. Only then does Hamlet slowly light a
cigarette and raises the question of to be or not to be.
This staging is clearly inscribed in the present-day trend
of Romanian productions of Hamlet in which the
director and his spectacle are all that counts.
The 1997 production of Hamlet directed by Tompa
Gábor [30]
at the Craiova National Theater (Figure
8)
focuses on the director's belief in the values of the
spectacle and in Hamlet as a man of theater. This is the
first production of Hamlet ten years after the same
director's attempt with this play at the Cluj Hungarian
Theater. In an interview the director says, "In producing
Hamlet I saw the possibility of meditating on the
meaning of theater, of asking ourselves why we are involved
in the theater. Why do we need the theater?"
[31]
The play begins with two clowns coming on stage. While they
are playing for the audience, an iron curtain descends
behind them. The clowns try in vain to go under, above or
beside the blind wall. Finally, they seek refuge behind the
theater curtain, because this is a play after all. The iron
curtain of reality, or a heavy prison door, rises to uncover
the main setting of Tompa's production. In the middle of the
main stage there is a smaller stage. Its reflective surface
and lateral walls mirror the actors and the audience. In the
director's vision, the theater is not a single reflecting
looking glass but a system of parallel mirroring surfaces.
Significant doubling becomes a major technique in this
confusing combination of images. Hamlet's identification
with The Mousetrap scenes is subtly paralleled in the
casting of the same actor as both the Player King and King
Hamlet's ghost [32],
a figure made up to look like the Droeshout portrait of
Shakespeare. The author is writing his play and sees his
characters in action. Meanwhile, he is a character-actor,
guided by Hamlet-character-director. Hamlet shows off
the black outfit and long scarf that have come to be
associated with the modern director's garb. He is not only
the director of the players on the stage within the stage,
but also a director of conscience. Hamlet's presence defines
the author's condition. He tries to enclose his meanings
within determined boundaries, in order to protect his work
from ulterior political manipulation.
Tompa Gábor's Hamlet is a production organized
around concentric circles, or concentric spectacles, whose
starting point and end of game is the theater, its
protagonist, the author, and the audience. Hamlet embodies
the three basic dimensions of theatricality: director,
actor, and audience. The actor and his theater emerge as the
only viable ways of telling the truth as Hamlet, or
Shakespeare, or Tompa, or the audience sees it. As a critic
resumes, "The performance is a homage to the theater as
'mirror of the world,' and to the actor who … places
his soul into the director's capable hands."[33]
Hamlet (Adrian Pintea) and the other characters play in a
dramatic key, over-emphasizing the theatricality of the
interpretation, in order to indicate that they are only
characters of drama, interpreting a part that has been
played many times before. Moreover, this particular
protagonist shows he is a reflection of all the past
dramatic illustrations of this role, emerging from all the
romanticized, cynical, melancholy, or idealized performances
of the Shakespearean hero. His costume reminds us of the
known pictures showing Grigore Manolescu as Hamlet in the
renowned 1884 production. What is the place of the
revenge-play tradition in this complicated entanglement of
self-reflexivity and meta-theatricality? Has the Romanian
theater become so self-absorbed within its own artistic
boundaries that it has come to neglect this Elizabethan
convention? The evidence of the spectacle shows us this is
the case. And it is the show that counts, after all. The
wise and knowledgeable directors draw forceful guiding lines
for the audience and the critics to follow and decipher. As
a theater critic points out, Tompa Gábor "wants to
display not so much a tragedy of revenge as one of
exposing the mechanism that moves political and
individual destinies in times of
transition."[34]
The stage director of Hamlet has become the magician
Prospero, in apparent control of his spectacle.
In June 2000, the "Bulandra" Theater in Bucharest stages the
seventh Hamlet in its history, directed by the
Prospero of the Romanian stage, Liviu Ciulei
[35].
(Figure
9) The
director can boast notable versions of A Midsummer
Night's Dream and The Tempest. The play's focus
is once more on the actor and his stage, the theater-as-life
paradigm, and Hamlet as an active hero-actor. Marcel Iures
creates an everyday-life character, who thinks, speaks, and
dies naturally. He voices the "to be" soliloquy sitting on a
bench in different locations on the stage. The right side is
the part of reason, the left is the seat of emotion. The
middle-stage visualizes inner doubt. The director draws
clearly on recent psychological and medical research
concerning the physiological processes related to the two
halves of the human brain, just as Shakespeare did in his
time by staging melancholy according to popular Elizabethan
studies. The production is 'classical' in the sense that the
director resorts sparingly to postmodern theatrical
techniques. His aim is to uncover the essential
meta-theatricality of the Hamlet text. Seen from this
direction, Hamlet's problem becomes personal rather than
philosophical. What happens in Denmark is primarily a
personal drama, which has come to attain universal
dimensions through recurrent use and often misuse. By this
artifice the director tries to recover the original
relevance of the play's themes, including the revenge
dimension. Before being a common Elizabethan theatrical
convention and an ethical concern, revenge was a personal
problem certain individuals had to deal with as part of
their lives. Ciulei's anti-rhetorical eloquence aims at
showing his audience the simplicity of truth.
In the mousetrap scene, however, the director shows us the
usual play upon mirrors, but his Hamlet cuts a
different figure. Unlike the ubiquitous and all-powerful
producer of previous variants of the play, Ciulei's Hamlet
suits the action to his word, he is happy with being a
simple actor in the play he intended to direct. This latest
Romanian production centers neither on the hero as an
epitome of romantic ideals or histrionic rhetorical skills,
as was the case in very early Romanian Hamlets, nor
on the director as the omnipotent maker on stage, such as
many of the post-war and more recent productions have
indicated. Nor is it concerned with the ethical problems of
revenge, or its complex refashioning by Shakespeare. Critics
have noticed a certain lack of dramatic focus in this
production, which is surprising when coming from a director
who has come back to the Romanian stage after a long period
abroad, directing Shakespeare and other plays on foreign
shores. As Magdalena Boiangiu points out, "the production at
the Bulandra Theater must confront one of the most terrible
ghosts that can haunt a theater: the ghost of youth, of
beauty, of success. In the year 2000, Liviu Ciulei could not
find the theater he had left in the seventies, not even the
theater revisited in the nineties. For the young generation,
the legend was stronger than the man was. And maybe Prospero
is getting tired of showing, as Hamlet requires, the form of
the very age and body of the time."
[36]
Liviu Ciulei, however, is much more satisfied with this
version of Hamlet than with those he produced in 1977
in Washington, or in 1984 in New York.
A memorable comment by a Romanian critic helps us admit the
idea that it is next to impossible for any stage production,
however exhaustive its director may want it to be, to
encompass the complexity of Hamlet. As Cristina
Modreanu says, "Liviu Ciulei's re-visitation of Hamlet on
the Romanian stage looks like a family doctor's visit to a
patient whom nobody can diagnose
correctly."[37]
Could Shakespeare have envisaged such an effect of his
theater? We know what we are, but we cannot know what we
might become, or what may become of our actions. In a
lecture on Hamlet published in Romania, Stephen
Greenblatt argues that the play's 'corrosive interiority'
resides in the movement from revenge to remembrance. He
infers that Shakespeare was influenced by the dispute
between Catholics and Protestants regarding the burial of
the dead and life after death. The revenge theme became a
play of remembrance in Shakespeare's hands as a result of
the Catholic rites concerning the memorial of the dead and
the Purgatory, challenged in the writings of Simon Fish and
abolished by later Protestant practices. Finally, Greenblatt
concludes (with John Gee) that "the space of the Purgatory
becomes the stage space, which Old Hamlet's ghost will
continue to haunt." [38]
It is precisely this repeated remembrance on stage, I would
argue, that has transformed the ghosts of old and young
Hamlet into perpetual haunters of consciences. It is said
that every actor's dream is to interpret Hamlet and
producing it suits every director's wish. It is not my
intention here to construct a series of "greatests" - from
Shakespeare as greatest playwright through Hamlet as
the greatest play to Hamlet as the greatest acting
challenge. However, my belief is that our fascination with
this play sustains a form of revenge that the ubiquitous
ghost of Hamlet takes on us all. We cannot escape
being haunted by its remembrance and we try to revisit it in
every possible artistic configuration. However, by
re-playing the sanguinary scenes in "accents yet unknown" we
carry out exactly what Shakespeare may have wanted us to do:
we show more than we can tell.
|
|
|
Footnotes:
[1] Terence Hawkes, in the SHAKSPER
posting of January 3, 2001 (SHK 12.0002 Re: Literary vs.
Theatrical Shakespeare) emphasizes the performative meaning
of the term 'playing:' "It seems to me that 'playing' in the
early modern sense was a much more complex business than we
allow, involving a far broader range of 'performative'
activity than that implied by the term 'acting'."
[back]
[2] All the Hamlet quotations are
keyed to the Norton Shakespeare, Stephen Greenblatt
(Gen. Ed) (New York: Norton, 1997). [back]
[3] Stanley Cavell warns that "you
always tell more and tell less than you know." In Quest
of the Ordinary. Lines of Skepticism and Romanticism
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988):
83.[back]
[4] For the effect of the revenge
motif in Hamlet on Elizabethan audiences see Michael Cameron
Andrews, "Hamlet, Revenge and the Critical Mirror."
English Literary Renaissance 8 (1978): 9-23; "Hamlet
and the Satisfactions of Revenge." Hamlet Studies 3
(1981): 83-102; Richard T. Brucher, "Fantasies of Violence:
Hamlet and The Revenger`s Tragedy." Studies in English
Literature 1500-1900 21 (1981): 257-70; Peter Mercer,
Hamlet and the Acting of Revenge (London: Macmillan;
Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1987); Michael Neill,
"Remembrance and Revenge: Hamlet, Macbeth and The
Tempest ." Donaldson, Ian, editor, Jonson and
Shakespeare (Canberra: Australian National University;
Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1983): 35-56;
Martha Rozett, "Aristotle, the Revenger, and the Elizabethan
Audience." Studies in Philology 76 (1979): 239-61;
Molly Smith, The Darker World Within: Evil in the
Tragedies of Shakespeare and His Successors. (Newark:
University of Delaware Press; London and Toronto: Associated
University Presses, 1991). [back]
[5] For studies on Hamlet and
the meta-theatrical implications of revenge see Millicent
Bell, "Hamlet, Revenge!" Hudson Review 51 (1998-99):
310-28; Phyllis Gorfain, "Toward a Theory of Play and the
Carnivalesque in Hamlet." Hamlet Studies 13 (1991):
25-49; Douglas E. Green, "Staging the Evidence:
Shakespeare's Theatrical Revengers." The Upstart Crow
12 (1992): 29-40; Joan Lord Hall, The Dynamics of
Role-Playing in Jacobean Tragedy (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1991); Charles A. Hallett and Elaine S. Hallett,
The Revenger`s Madness: A Study of Revenge Tragedy
Motifs (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska
Press, 1980); David Scott Kastan, "'His semblable is his
mirror': Hamlet and the Imitation of Revenge."
Shakespeare Studies 19 (1987): 111-24; John Kerrigan,
Revenge Tragedy: Aeschylus to Armageddon (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1996); Arthur Lindley, "'A crafty madness':
Carnival and the Politics of Revenge," in Hyperion and
the Hobbyhorse: Studies in Carnivalesque Subversion
(Newark: University of Delaware Press; London: Associated
University Presses, 1996):112-36; Jean-Marie Maguin, "Hamlet
and Revenge: Religious, Moral, Legal, and Dramatic Codes."
Iselin, Pierre, editor. William Shakespeare: Hamlet
(Collection CNED-Didier Concours CAPES/Agrégation
d'anglais.) (Paris: Didier Erudition, 1997): 51-66; Sudhakar
Marathe, "Hamlet and Revenge Once Again." Hamlet Studies
12 (1990): 94-102; Francesco Minetti, "Retori, attori e
poeti: La scena della violenza in Hamlet e Titus
Andronicus." Annali Instituto Universitario Orientale:
Anglistica 38, nos. 1-2 (1995): 137-49; Lois Potter,
"Shakespeare and the Art of Revenge." Shakespeare
Studies (Shakespeare Society of Japan) 32 (1994): 29-54;
Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (eds.) William Shakespeare:
Hamlet. (Writers and their Work). (Plymouth, England:
Northcote House in Association with the British Council,
1996); Jean-Pierre Villaquin, "Hamlet, tragédie de la
vengeance?" in Suhamy, Henri (ed.). Hamlet
(CAPES/Agrégation d'anglais) (Paris: Ellipses, 1997):
8-20.[back]
[6] Alex Newell, The Soliloquies in
Hamlet. The Structural Design (Rutheford: Farleigh
Dickinson University Press, London and Toronto: Associated
University Presses, 1991): 49. [back]
[7] Maurice Charney, "The
Persuasiveness of Violence in Elizabethan Plays,"
Renaissance Drama, ed. S. Schoenbaum (Evanston:
Northwestern University Press, 1969): 59-70. [back]
[8] Maurice Charney, Hamlet's
Fictions (New York: Routledge, 1988): ix. [back]
[9] For extensive studies tracing the
reception of Hamlet in Romania see: Marcu Beza,
Shakespeare in Rumania (London: J.M. Dent&Sons,
1931); Aurel Curtui, Hamlet în România
(Bucuresti: Minerva, 1977), which covers the areas of
translations, criticism, and productions of Hamlet on the
Romanian stage up to the mid-seventies; Alexandru Dusu,
Shakespeare in Rumania. A Bibliographical Essay with
an Introduction by Mihnea Gheorghiu (Bucharest: Meridiane
Publishing House, 1964). Among the large number of Romanian
critical studies of interest about Hamlet I mention
only a few: Ion Botez, "Hamlet în tragedia
shakespeariana," Viata româneasca (Iasi:
Institut de arte grafice si editura , 1925): 15-29;
"Sentimentul razbunarii si supranaturalului în
Hamlet," (Iasi: Institut de arte grafice si editura , 1928):
47; Ana Cartianu, "William Shakespeare (1564-1964),"
Viata româneasca 11 (1964): 76-78; "Ecou
shakespearian," Eseuri de literatura engleza si
americana(Cluj: Editura Dacia, 1973): 23-37; "William
Shakespeare în veacul sau si peste veacuri," Eseuri
de literatura engleza si americana(Cluj: Editura Dacia,
1973): 5-22; Didi Cenuser, Hamlet, altfel? (Sibiu: Editura
Universitatii din Sibiu, 1995); Al. Davila, "Hamlet,"
Literatura si arta româna (Bucuresti, 1898):
401; Mihail Dragomirescu, "Hamlet," Critica dramatica
(Bucuresti, 1904): 9-18; "Hamlet," Critica (Bucuresti:
Editura Casei Scoalelor, 1928): 79; Al Dutu, "Problematica
hamletiana si unele studii recente," Revista de filologie
romanica si germanica 2 (Bucuresti, 1963): 341-351; B.
Fundoianu, "Hamlet si Electra," Rampa (17 aprilie
1916): 1; Mihnea Gheorghiu, "Un Shakespeare al erei
moderne," Orientari în literatura straina
(E.S.P.L.A., 1958): 5-67; Dan Grigorescu, Shakespeare
în cultura româna moderna (Bucuresti:
Minerva, 1971; Leon Levitchi and Dan Dutescu, "Limba si
stilul lui Shakespeare," Introduction to W. Shakespeare,
Antologie Bilingva (Bucuresti: Editura stiintifica,
1964): 16-52; Lovinescu, E. "Hamletiana," Rampa I, 54
(28 oct. 1915): 15; Cornel Moldovanu, "Hamlet," Autori si
actori (Bucuresti: Editura Casa Scoalelor, 1944); Dragos
Protopopescu, "Hamlet sau între istorie literara si
estetica," Universul literar 3 (1926): 89; Raul
Theodorescu, "Hamlet de Shakespeare," Ritmul vermii 8-9
(sept. 1926): 209; Florin Tornea, "Shakespeare pe
scenele românesti de-a lungul vremii", Flacara 15
(1964); Tudor Vianu, "Shakespeare ca poet al
Renasterii," Studii de literatura universala si comparata
(Bucuresti: Editura Academiei, 1963): 57-71;
"Shakespeare si antropologia Renasterii," Ibidem: 71-79;
"Etapele bataliei shakespeariene," Ibidem: 405-413;
"Umanitatea lui Shakespeare," Steaua 10 (Cluj, 1956):
85-93. [back]
[10] See Three Jacobean
Tragedies. Edited with an Introduction by Gamini Salgado
(London: Penguin, 1965, rpr. 1969): 17-19. [back]
[11] See Aurel Curtui, Hamlet
în România: 12-19. The foreign theatrical
companies producing Hamlet in Romania are: Kristoph Ludwig
Seipp, Sibiu, 1788; Franz Xavier Felder, Sibiu, Timisoara,
1794-1795; Johan Gerger, Bucuresti, 1825; Ferenc Kazinczy,
Cluj 1814-1829 and Târgu-Mures 1841; Ludwig Lowe,
Sibiu, 1850; Ernesto Rossi, "National Theater," Bucuresti,
1877-1879; "Teatrul mare," Bucuresti,1861. For reviews of
these productions see Mihai Eminescu "Spectacolele lui
Rossi," Timpul (Bucuresti, 28 ian.1878): 3; P.
Gradisteanu. "Teatrul national," Proprietarul
român (Bucuresti, 7 apr. 1861): 96; Ion Slavici.
"Rossi," Timpul (Bucuresti, 16 febr.1879): 2-3.
[back]
[12] Mihail Pascally, Hamlet, Teatrul
mare, Bucuresti, 1862. For reviews of this production see
Se-Pu-Ki (B. P. Hasdeu), "Compania dramatica. Hamlet
principele Danemarcei, tragedie în cinci acte
de W. Shakespeare." Satyrul, 3 aprilie 1866, pp. 2-3.
[back]
[13] Grigore Manolescu,
Hamlet. Teatrul National, Bucuresti, 1884. For
reviews of this production see Fra Dolce, "Hamlet la
Teatrul National." România Libera, Oct. 7,
1884; "Hamlet la Teatrul National."
Românul, Oct. 16, 1884; I.L. Caragiale,
"Cronica teatrala." Vointa Nationala, 1885: 254.
Grigore Manolescu, "Hamlet, amintiri de pe scena,"
Fântâna Blanduziei 1 (Bucuresti, 1888):
2; 14 (1889): 2; Petre Liciu."Grigore Manolescu în
Hamlet," Gazeta artelor 23 (Bucuresti, 1903):
1; S.R Mihailescu-Stemi."Hamlet: Teatrul national,"
Revista societatii "Tinerimea româna"
(Bucuresti, 1884): 371-376; Petrascu, N. "G. Manolescu,"
Literatura si arta româna (Bucuresti, 1898):
562-564. [back]
[14] Odette Blumenfeld, "Hamlet at
the Craiova National Theater." Krystyna Kujawinska Courtney
(ed), On Page and Stage: Shakespeare in Polish and World
Culture (Kraków: Universitas): 198.
[back]
[15] The chronological order of
Romanian productions of Hamlet in this period is the
following: Dragomir State, Hamlet, Iasi, 1902-1903;
Constantin Nottara, Hamlet, Teatrul National,
Bucuresti, 1912-13; Aristide Demetriade, Hamlet,
Teatrul national, Bucuresti, 1912-13; Tony Bulandra,
Hamlet, Teatrul national, Bucuresti, 1912-13; C.
Marculescu, Hamlet, Teatrul National, Craiova,
1922-1923; Zaharia Bârsan, Hamlet, Teatrul
national, Cluj, 1922-1923; Ion Manolescu, Hamlet,
Teatrul national, Craiova, 1925. For reviews of these
productions see Simion. Alterescu. "Nottara, un actor
romantic - Nottara, un actor realist," Studii si
cercetari de istoria artei 2 (Bucuresti, 1959): 175-181;
I. C. Aslan. "Un triumf si o rasplata, Hamlet, cu
Aristide Demetriade," Universul literar 1 (Bucuresti,
1913): 7; D. I. Anastasiu. "Scrisori din Craiova.
Hamlet în prima seara. I. Manolescu
interpreteaza Hamlet prima data," Rampa
(Bucuresti, 1 feb. 1925): 2; Ioan Breazu. "Teatrul national
clujean," Boabe de grâu (Bucuresti, 1932):
23-38; A. Calin. "Teatrul National. Hamlet,"
Rampa (Bucuresti, 24 ian. 1921): 5; "Hamlet cu
Tony Bulandra si Almajan Buzescu," Rampa (Bucuresti,
18 nov. 1923): 5; E. D. Fagure. "Productiile scolii
declamatoare - cronica dramatica," Adevarul
(Bucuresti, 1 iul. 1901): 1; Rantea. "Teatrul national:
Hamlet," Flacara (Bucuresti, 1922): 253-254;
"Teatrul national, Hamlet cu Nottara," Rampa 23
(Bucuresti, 1922): 5; Serban, D. "Hamlet într-o noua
montare scenica," Revista scriitoarelor si scriitorilor
români 3 (Bucuresti, 1929): 44; Florica
Simionescu. "Personalitatea lui Hamlet: Aristide Demetriade
în acest rol," Revista idealista (Bucuresti,
1912): 284-292; Sandu Teleajen. "Teatrul national din Iasi,"
Boabe de grâu (Bucuresti, 1932): 521-565; D.
Teodorescu. "Ciclul shakespearian," Rampa (Bucuresti,
25 ian.1925): 1. [back]
[16] George Calboreanu.
Hamlet, Teatrul National, Bucuresti, 1941-1942;
George Vraca. Hamlet, Teatrul National, Bucuresti,
1941-1942; V. Valentineanu. Hamlet, Teatrul National,
Bucuresti, 1941-1942. For reviews of these productions see
Traian Lalescu "Trei interpreti ai lui Hamlet,"
Universul literar 5 (Bucuresti, 1942): 2.
[back]
[17] Theodor Manescu. "Manifestari
artistice în detentie" [Art Forms in
Detention], Teatrul 11 (1973): 41-43.
[back]
[18] Marcela Ilnitchi. "Hamlet
pe scena româneasca," Teatrul azi 7-8-9 (2000):
54 (my translation). George Cozorici. Hamlet,
directed by Vlad Mugur, Teatrul National, Craiova,
1957-1958. For reviews of this production see Mircea
Alessandrescu. "Un spectacol nuantat al unei piese de idei,"
Contemporanul 9 (1958): 81-84; Valentin Silvestru.
"Curajul tineretii pe scena," Contemporanul 28
(Bucuresti, 1958): 4; "Shakespeare în România,
1944-1964, spectacole si interpreti," Contemporanul
17 (1964): 3; Florin Tornea. "Spre o imagine teatrala ,"
Tribuna 3 (1958): 9-12 [back]
[19] For an account of Hamlet's
opposition of Christian Providence to pagan augury see
Fredson Bowers, Hamlet as Minister and Scourge
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989):
118-121. [back]
[20] Virgil Munteanu. "Hamlet de
William Shakespeare," Teatrul 3 (1974): 41-3. See
also Paul Cornel Chitic. "Decorul pentru Hamlet în
spectacolul lui Dinu Cernescu" [The Sets for Hamlet in
Dinu Cernescu's Production], Teatrul 4 (1974):
66-7; Richard Watkins. "Întâlnire cu Hamlet la
Bucuresti," Contemporanul 12 (1974): 9.
[back]
[21] For reviews of this opera see
Luminita Vartolomei. "Introducere la Hamlet de Pascal
Bentoiu," Teatru 9 (1975): 20-22; "Opera Româna
din Bucuresti. Hamlet de Pascal Bentoiu," Teatru
10 (1975): 62-64. [back]
[22] Florian Potra, "Interferente .
Fuziune de arte" [Interferences. Art fusion],
Teatru 10 (1975): 65 [back]
[23] Scarlat, Nicolae, director.
Hamlet. Translated into Romanian by Ion Vinea. Sets
by Octavian Dibrov; costumes by Anca Pîslaru. Produced
at the Tîrgu-Mures National Theater, May 5, 1983.
[With Cornel Popescu (Hamlet), Valentina Iancu
(Gertrude), Constantin Doljan (Claudius), Ana Maria Pislaru
(Ophelia), Stefan Sileanu (Ghost), Constantin Sasareanu
(Polonius), Cornel Raileanu (Laertes), Vlad Radescu
(Horatio), Alexandru Fagarasan (Voltemand), Marius Oltean
(Cornelius), Ion Ritiu (Rosencrantz), Dan Ciobanu
(Guildenstern), Aurel Stefanescu (Osric), Radu Cazan
(Francisco), Dan Glasu (Bernardo), Adrian Mazarache
(Marcellus), Ion Costea (Fortinbras).]
For reviews of this production see Constantin Radu-Maria.
Teatrul (Bucharest) 6 (1983): 23-26; Constantin
Doljan. Teatrul (Bucharest) 4 (1983): 73.
[back]
[24] Tocilescu, Alexandru, director.
Hamlet. Translated into Romanian by Nina Cassian.
Sets by Dan Jitianu, costumes by Uliana Mantoc and Nicolae
Ularu, lighting by Laurence Clayton, and music by Dan
Grigore. Produced at the Bulandra Theater, Bucharest,
1985-86; and on tour through 1990. [With
Ion Caramitru (Hamlet), Valentin Uritescu and Ion Chelaru
(Gravediggers), Florian Pitis (Laertes), Constantin
Draganescu (Osric), Ion Lemnaru (Guildenstern), Gelu Colceag
(Rosencrantz), Razvan Ionescu (Marcellus), Constantin
Florescu (Claudius), Ion Cocieru (Barnardo), Florin Chiriac
(Francisco), Claudiu Stanescu (Fortinbras), Constantin
Grigorescu (Ghost, voice), Petre Gheorghiu (Player King),
Mihaela Juvara (Player Queen), Mariana Buruiana (Ophelia),
Ileana Predescu (Gertrude), Ion Besoiu and Octavian Cotescu
(Polonius), Marcel Iures (Horatio), Nicolae Luchian Botez
(Voltemand), and Mihai V. Boghita (Cornelius).]
For reviews of this production see Anon. România
Literara 41 (1990): 16; Adrian Georgescu.
"Spectacole Shakespeare." Teatrul (Bucharest) 4
(1983): 72; Victor Parhon. Teatrul (Bucharest) 3
(1983), 60; Laurentiu Ulici. "Hamlet pentru fiecare."
Contemporanul 52 (1985): 11, and in Romanian
Review 40, no. 5 (1986): 55-66 (in review-article);
Ileana Berlogea. Romanian Review 40, no. 5
(1986): 55-66 (in review-article); "Oglinda vremurilor."
Contemporanul 51 (1985): 10; Ion Caljon.
România Literara 3 (1986): 14; Dumitru Chirila.
"Hamlet la Teatrul Bulandra." Familia 2 (1986):
12-13; Valentin Dumitrescu. "Hamlet în cheia
melancoliei." Viata Româneasca 2 (1986): 80-82;
Nicoleta Gherghel. Luceafarul 2 (1986): 4; Miruna
Ionescu. Romanian Review 40, no. 5 (1986):
55-66 (in review-article); Constantin Radu-Maria.
"Shakespeare pe scena. Teatrul Bulandra, Hamlet." Teatrul
2 (1986): 29-33; Valentin Silvestru. Romanian Review
40, no. 5 (1986): 55-66 (in review-article); Natalia
Stancu. Romanian Review 40, no. 5 (1986): 55-66 (in
review-article); "Un print al teatrului."
Contemporanul 51 (1985): 10-11; Ion Cocora.
Tribuna 15 (1987): 9; Dinu Kivu. "Hamlet 101."
Contemporanul 14 (1987): 9; R. Volodin. Izvestia
(Moscow) 15 January 1987, p. 5; Mark Almond. TLS: The
Times Literary Supplement 5-11 October 1990, p.
1069; Michael Billington. Guardian 22 September 1990,
p. 21; Irina Coroiu. Romanian Review 44, no. 4
(1990): 110-25 (especially 114-15); Michael Coveney.
Observer (London) 23 September 1990, p. 37; Nick
Curtis. Plays and Players November 1990, p. 30;
Richard Eyre. Guardian 13 September 1990 (advance
account); Benedict Nightingale. The Times (London) 22
September 1990, p. 21; Ludmila Pantlanjoglu. România
Literara 18 (1990): 24 (interview with R. Eyre on I.
Caramitru); John Peter. Sunday Times (London) 23
September 1990, section 5, p. 4; Malcolm Rutherford.
Financial Times (London) 22 September 1990, p. xxi;
Milton Shulman. Evening Standard (London) 21
September 1990; Paul Taylor. The Independent 22
September 1990, p. 30; Irving Wardle. The Independent on
Sunday 23 September 1990, p. 22; Matt Wolf. The Times
(London) 20 September 1990, p. 23 (on I. Caramitru);
Joan Byles Montgomery. Shakespeare Bulletin 9, no. 2
(1991): 25-26; Peter J. Smith. Cahiers
élisabéthains 39 (1991): 71-73; Marin
Sorescu. Secolul XX 319-21 (1991): 105-111.
[back]
[25] Laurentiu Ulici.
Contemporanul 52 (1985): 11. [back]
[26] Dinu Kivu, Contemporanul
14 (1987): 9. [back]
[27] Ludmila Pantajoglu, "Cu Richard
Eyre, directorul Teatrului National din Londra, despre
Hamlet la ora româneasca." România Literara
18 (1990): 24 (my translation). [back]
[28] Michael Billington, The
Guardian, in "Hamlet-ul românesc în Anglia."
România Literara 41 (1990): 16 (my
translation). [back]
[29] Sapdaru, Ion, director. Hamlet.
The "Mihai Eminescu" Theater, Botosani, 1998. Translated:
Dan Dutescu and Leon Levitchi. Sets: Angela Doni.
With Daniel Badale (Hamlet), Marius Rogojinschi (Claudius),
Daniel Minciuna (Horatio), Irina Mititelu (Gertrude),
Teodora Moraru, Volin Costin (Polonius), Florin Aionitoaiei
(Laertes), Tatiana Zavialova (Ophelia), Cezar Amitroaiei
(Rozencrantz), Mihai Paunescu (Guildenstern). For reviews of
this production see Cristina Modreanu. "Anti-Hamletul
zilelor noastre" ["An Anti-Hamlet of Our Days"].
Teatrul Azi 7-8-9 (1999): 65. [back]
[30] Tompa, Gábor, director.
Hamlet. Translated into Romanian by Nina Cassian,
Petru Dumitriu, Ion Vinea, Vladimir Streinu, Leon Levitchi,
and Dan Dutescu. Sets by Theodor Ciupe, costumes by Judith
Kóthay Dobre, and music by Iosif Hertea. Produced at
the National Theater, Craiova, in collaboration with
Offshore International Cultural Projects, Amsterdam,
beginning 5 January 1997. [With Adrian Pintea (Hamlet),
Mihai Constantin (Claudius), Ilie Gheorghe (Polonius),
Valeriu Dogaru (Horatio), Adrian Andone (Laertes), Angel
Rababoc (Marcellus), Tudorel Petrescu (Bernardo), Natasa
Raab (Rosencrantz), Valentin Mihail (Guildenstern),
Constantin Cicort (Osric), Oana Pellea (Gertrude), Ozana
Oancea (Ophelia), Ion Colan (Ghost, Player King), Gabriela
Baciu (Player Queen)]
Reviews: Ion Remus Andrei. Luceafarul 26 (1997): 18;
Maria Constantinescu. România Literara 3
(1997): 16; Alice Georgescu. "Fetele oglinzii sau cine este
Hamlet?" Victor Parhon. "Hamlet la sfârtit de
mileniu." Teatrul Azi 3 (1997): 5-9. Ion Bogdan
Lefter. România Literara 49 (1997): 16;
Costache Olareanu. Adevarul Literar si Artistic 370
(1997): 4; Victor Parhon: Teatrul Azi 3 (1997): 5-8;
Carmen Tudora. Adevarul Literar si Artistic 368
(1997): 7. [back]
[31] Remus Andrei Ion, "Hamlet-ul lui
Tompa." Luceafarul 26 (1997): 18 (my translation)
[back].
[32] Incidentally, I have noticed
that the same artifice has been used in the 1997 RSC Hamlet
directed by Matthew Warchus with Alex Jennings in the title
role. For a review of this production see Cynthia Marshall,
"Sight and Sound: Two Models of Shakespearean Subjectivity
on the British Stage." Shakespeare Quarterly 51 (Fall
2000): 353-61. [back]
[33] Victor Parhon. "Hamlet la
sfârsit de mileniu." Teatrul Azi 3
(1997): 7 (my translation). [back]
[34] Carmen Tudora. Adevarul
Literar si Artistic 368 (1997): 7 (my translation).
[back]
[35] Ciulei, Liviu, director. Hamlet.
Produced at the "Bulandra" Theater, Bucharest, June 2000.
Translation: Nina Cassian. Sets: Architect Octavian Neculai.
Costume: Nina Brumusila. Music: Ildiko Fogarassy Fogarassy
[With: Marcel Iures (Hamlet), Dan Astilean/Victor
Rebenciug (Claudius), Valeria Seciu (Gertrude), Ion Cocieru
(Ghost), Ion Pavlescu (Polonius), Adriana Titieni (Ophelia),
Stefan Banica jr. (Laertes), Andrei Aradits (Horatio),
Razvan Vasilescu (Rozencranz), Cornel Scripcaru
(Guildenstern), Mihai Constantin (Gravedigger), Vlad
Zamfirescu (Fortinbras), Valentin Popescu (Voltimand), Mihai
Cibu (Cornelius), Serban Pavlu (Marcellus), Gheorghe Ifrim
(Bernardo), Costel Cascaval (Francesco), Petre Lupu (Osric),
Razvan Savescu (Reinaldo), Irina Petrescu (Dumb Show
Queen).]
For reviews of this production see Magdalena Boiangiu.
"Poate ca Prospero a obosit" [Maybe Prospero is getting
tired]. Adevarul Literar si Artistic 528 (2000)
< http://adevarul.kappa.ro/lit528-01.html>
Magdalena Boiangiu. "Forma si limitele vremii" ["The
whips and scorns of time"]. România Literara
28 (2000) < www.romlit.sfos.ro/www/texte00/rl28/tea.htm>
Manuela Golea. " La Bulandra este din nou Shakespeare"
[Shakespeare at "Bulandra" Again]. Ziua, June
22 (2000) <http://www.ziua.ro/archive/pag1/2000-06/000622.html>
Marcela Ilnitchi. "Prospero dând viata lui Hamlet"
[Prospero Giving Life to Hamlet]. Teatrul azi
7-8-9 (2000): 48-56; Marcel Iures. "Hamlet se multiplica
la nivel universal" [Hamlet Multiplies on Universal
Scale]. Teatrul azi 7-8-9 (2000): 43-7.
[back]
[36] Magdalena Boiangiu. "Forma si
limitele vremii" ["The whips and scorns of time"].
România Literara 28 (2000) < www.romlit.sfos.ro/www/texte00/rl28/tea.htm>
(my translation). [back]
[37] Cristina Modreanu. "Calatorii
initiatice în prag de nou mileniu. Festivalul National
de Teatru -2000" Adevarul Literar si Artistic 545
(2000) < http://adevarul.kappa.ro/lit545-03.htm> (my
translation). [back]
[38] Stephen Greenblatt. "Hamlet
în Purgatoriu" [Hamlet in Purgatory"].
Translated by Sorana Corneanu. Dilema No.356, 357,
358 (December, 1999). <http://www.algoritma.ro/dilema/fw.htm?current=379/index.htm>
[back]
|