Hamlet

By William Shakespeare

Adapted for the stage by Peadar de Burca

Having directed full-scale productions of Hamlet, Macbeth and King Lear, de Búrca knows a thing or t wo about Shakespeare: “Hamlet is a tragedy. It is, at many times, a comedy. It is a play about acting. It is a revenge drama, a whodunnit, a play that celebrates the glories of being human and the utter insignificance of being human."

De Búrca has edited the text to a lean sixty minutes, keeping the original language and the famous speeches, but with an eye on making it understandable for an English-speaking Polish audience. "I’ve seen many productions live on stage – McKellen’s age-blind production, Cumberbatch’s “sweet prince”, Sam Wanamaker’s irreverent production at the Globe – the key thing is not to attempt some unattainable definitive version, but to make a 400 year play relevant to a modern audience. There will be laughter in this version, there will be tears and only brave souls or aspiring actors should sit in the front row for what I guarantee will be an unforgettable hour of your life.”

Po wyreżyserowaniu pełnowymiarowych inscenizacji Hamleta, Makbeta i Króla Leara, Peadar de Búrca zna się na Szekspirze jak mało kto: „Hamlet to tragedia. Często to także komedia. To sztuka o grze aktorskiej. To dramat zemsty, kryminał, opowieść celebrująca zarówno chwałę człowieczeństwa, jak i jego całkowitą nieistotność.” De Búrca skrócił tekst do zwięzłych sześćdziesięciu minut, zachowując oryginalny język i słynne monologi, ale z myślą o zrozumiałości dla polskiej publiczności anglojęzycznej. „Widziałem wiele inscenizacji na żywo – bezwieczne podejście McKellena, „słodkiego księcia” Cumberbatcha, bezczelną wersję Sama Wanamakera w Globe – kluczowe jest nie dążenie do jakiejś nieosiągalnej wersji ostatecznej, ale sprawienie, by sztuka sprzed 400 lat miała sens dla współczesnej widowni. W tej wersji będzie śmiech, będą łzy, a tylko odważni lub aspirujący aktorzy powinni siadać w pierwszym rzędzie, bo gwarantuję niezapomnianą godzinę waszego życia.”

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July 9 – There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.

Hello and welcome to what is the first blog post on the BORN Productions website and let me begin with a question:

Is the world getting you down?

The wars, the genocide of Gaza, the drones and missiles raining down on Ukraine, the politicians with their crooked smiles, the ever – rising cost of living, the utterly dispiriting news from the UK of an 83 year old retired priest being arrested for displaying a sign that read “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

This gets me down.

Those who have helped turn Gaza into an abattoir have, in that twisted way documented by Orwell in “1984”, turned the world on its head. Freedom is Slavery. War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength.

Mass murder is okay. Opposing it is a crime.

To be honest, I’m a little raw at the moment. We all have those moments, for whatever reason, where we are emotionally vulnerable, and the newsfeed starts to get under your skin.

I started rehearsals for Hamlet. For me, the period before a production starts, is amazing. I put in four hours a day, learning the lines, developing characterisation and exploring themes.

I love it. I love becoming Hamlet. I love becoming the villain Claudius, or Horatio, or Gertrude or any of the other eight characters I have to play. I love matching my personal experiences to these people who become real to me and who breathe and laugh and howl in my mind.

But Hamlet is a story about life and death, a story that routinely discusses the pros and cons of living. It is a story about a man who isn’t sure if he wants to live or die. Without labouring the point, on a cloudy day, rehearsing Shakespeare’s classic, can bring you down.

Is there a solution to this? To feeling blue?

I’d like to think there is some truth to the maxim “the antidote is in the poison” – if Hamlet is causing the problem, then Hamlet can also solve it.

Anyone who has stepped into the world of Hamlet, knows the line there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. For me, this is the best line Shakespeare ever wrote, so much so, that I’m thinking of having it tattooed somewhere on my stomach.

Is this the answer? Can I make all those shitty things in the world somehow better by thinking about them in a different way?

I don’t know. But it won’t hurt to give it a try.

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A Thoroughly Modern Hamlet.

When I decided to bring Hamlet to Polish audiences, I spent months editing the text. A complete theatrical production of the 1623 First Folio would clock in at four and a half hours. I was aiming for a running time somewhere about 65 minutes. I might stretch this to 70 minutes, but anything longer and the human mind, not to mention the human bladder, is going to say, “I’m outta here.”

Superfluous plot strands were quickly jettisoned. Hamlet’s banishment to England – gone. The threat of Norway in the shape of Prince Fortinbras – gone. The treachery of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern – gone. Shakespeare had a habit of using twenty lines when often one or two would do fine. By chopping away the other eighteen lines, I got this one-man Hamlet down to a lean and mean fighting weight. Then I modernized the setting, introducing contemporary props and devices – guns, phones, a chainsaw and even a humble can of beer. If Shakespeare is to be enjoyed by twenty-first century audiences, his work needs to be relatable at a surface level. His themes are timeless, but how many will balk at attending Macbeth or Henry the Fifth owing to a belief that these plays are highly intellectual relics concerned only with ancient royalty? What kind of images does Hamlet conjure for you? A dark stage, a sombre actor, dressed in tights and holding a skull?

Oldness and Seriousness are to the theatre what cancer and polio are to humans. The character of Hamlet is a multifaceted creation, but he is most definitely A) suffering from severe mental health issues and B) very funny. Not only did I decide to emphasize these traits, but I knew I needed to remove him from the stuffy confines of European monarchy. So I placed him at the centre of a low-level crime family. To avoid that smothering sense of Seriousness, I decided to make the show interactive, engaging the audience’s help for key scenes. How ironic then, that in trying to update Hamlet, I inadvertently utilized a feature of the Elizabethan theatrical experience wherein audiences would regularly interact with actors in the Globe Theatre. The famous Gravedigger scene for example, would in Shakespeare’s time, have been a comedic interlude where the gravedigger would tell jokes and sing songs with the crowd, a few moments of brevity just before the play’s tragic denouement.

So yes, there will be music in this version of Hamlet too, a live soundtrack by Pawel Gocek and Kuba Modrzecki. Having heard some of the pieces, I can quite simply say they have turned a theatrical production into a theatrical event.

For some, the purists, this is not Hamlet. How could a show that is quarter the length of the original be what Shakespeare intended? Well, somehow it is. It’s Shakespeare’s words. The great soliloquies are all there. The themes of madness, suicide, loss, revenge and duplicity are front and foremost. Hamlet, both the play and the title character, are obsessed with performance. The play-within-a-play and his feigned madness are obvious examples of this. This is where I come in. One man who plays eight characters. This artifice of a monodrama is not only important to finding the truth of Shakespeare’s classic. It is, for me, essential.

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