Hamlet is one of those characters about whom everyone who is familiar with the play will hold an opinion. For centuries now, the Prince of Denmark’s dialogue and actions, and his supposed thought process (although, granted, not a lot is left to be supposed once he’s hit his fifth soliloquy and still hasn’t run out of things to say!), have been analysed time and again by actors, directors, scholars, audiences, students and no doubt many others.
Personally, when I first read Hamlet as a teenager, I couldn’t summon an ounce of care for Hamlet himself. I thought he was moody, dramatic, indecisive, over-talkative and frankly a bit of a know-it-all!
My attention fell on Laertes, a character I later had the fortune to play with Origins Theatre. At that time, and for many years, there was no other character in the play I would have considered playing, not even the ‘main man’ himself.
In part, because I always had a thing about flawed hero types, and Hamlet – whilst flawed – was certainly not a hero!
But also perhaps it is partly because I never expected to be given the opportunity. The production I have been cast in was actually planned for 2020, and I was not Hamlet. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was not first in line as Hamlet when the production was first restarted with June 2022 in mind either, so it is safe to say this isn’t a character I ever thought would come my way, and generally when I read plays I tend to hone in on the characters I would like to, or could, play…so, again, Hamlet never really caught my attention!
And, without question, it is also partly because for all the times I had previously encountered the play, I had (to my shame) treated Hamlet himself like ‘white noise’. I had skimmed over his many, many, many soliloquies in favour of reading, listening to and watching those around him, in favour of focusing on the fighting, on the costumes and staging, on the ‘famous bits’.
“To be or not to be: that is the question.”
“There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio…”
We all know those lines, but how many people can honestly recall in any detail the words that follow?
When I was offered the part – after a few moments wondering a) if I’d misread the message and then b) if it had been sent to the right person – I accepted with a genuine mix of emotions. Elation at the opportunity, nerves at the scale of it, and a verging-on-unhealthy panic that I would somehow mess it up.
I met with the director, we chatted through his over-arching vision for the play (which is, quite frankly, fabulous!) and its characters, and he placed in me a level of trust that was both exciting and terrifying. And so, I set about finding ‘my’ Hamlet…
Except I didn’t.
The read-throughs went well, very well, but Hamlet and I were merely rubbing along – we weren’t connected. Looking back, I was trying too hard to be the Hamlet I thought everyone wanted to see; I was so focused on not letting anyone down that I was seeing Hamlet’s words on the page, hearing them come out of my mouth, but that’s all they were: ‘words, words, words…’
Our first full rehearsal came, and something clicked – almost. Surrounded by the other cast members, on our feet, moving the play and finding the chemistry between the characters, Hamlet and I fell into step. I even found myself defending some (not all, I hasten to add!) of his actions because I could ‘see where he was coming from’…but there was still a disconnect, not between him and me necessarily but between the way in which I was connecting internally to Hamlet and the way I was actually playing him. It was as though I was filtering something out between my mind and my mouth.
Fast forward to our second rehearsal, Act III, Scene I.
“Are we doing this scene?” I asked. “We haven’t got Ophelia tonight…”
“We’ll do the beginning bit. I want to hear you do ‘To be or not to be,’” replied the director.
In a panic, my instinctive reply was: “But I haven’t decided how to do it yet!”
“What’re you torn between?” He asked.
I hesitated.
Because the honest answer was that I wasn’t torn at all. I hadn’t decided how to deliver it simply because I didn’t want to actively decide how to deliver it. I knew that, in my head, I had locked into Hamlet’s mind-set, or where I felt it was in any case, and had found where he and I were the same, found the moments in which I understood him rather than wanted to slap him, and I wanted this speech to come from there. I wanted all his speeches to come from there.
I just wasn’t sure if that was the ‘right answer’ or not.
So I rambled for a bit at the director, assistant director and at my fellow cast-mates, buying time by asking questions about the staging, talking about the scene that would follow, cracking a couple of jokes, and basically just delaying the inevitable moment when I would have to actually do something important and risk failing miserably.
The irony of that was not lost on me!
I can’t remember how I delivered the speech, not a bit of it, but I do remember – vividly – the moment after, when in a room of people who really do know their Shakespeare, one simply said:
“Emily, that was brilliant.”
And there it was – or rather, there he was.
My Hamlet.
Approach With Caffeine 