219. HAMLET (4 Productions). From my (unpublished) ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW YORK STAGE, 1970-1975

Art Burns, Thomas McCann, John Guerrasio, Stephen Greenstein, Philip Campanella, Fred Stuthman, Bruce Kornbluth, Lle Lorentz, Louis G. Trapani, Robert Marinaccio,Sterling Jensen.

1.

HAMLET [Dramatic Revival] A: William Shakespeare; D: Gene Feist; S: Holmes Easley; C: Mimi Maxmen; L: Loran Bruns; M: Philip Campanella; P: Roundabout Repertory Company; T: Roundabout Theatre (OB); 10/18/70-11/29/70 (37); return eng.: Town Hall (OB); 12/4/72 (35)

Sterling Jensen, Louis G. Trapani, Philip Campanella.

The first of four Hamlet revivals of the 1970-1975 half-decade was this low-budget, Off-Broadway, arena-style version featuring Art Burns as the Prince. It was an all-male staging, not uncommon in the period, with directors attempting to capture an Elizabethan flavor through the use of female impersonation. The Elizabethan elements here extended to the costuming, which mingled a few modern touches amid the muffs and doublets.

Fred Stuthman, Philip Campanella, Sterling Jensen.

Gene Feist’s production was generally accepted, more because of its decently integrated acting than for its novelty. No notably new insights seem to have been gained by the experiment. Gertrude (Philip Campanella) was played with no attempt at femininity, while Ophelia (Louis G. Trapani), wrote Mel Gussow, came off as an “indecorous epicene.” Sterling Jensen handled both Claudius and the Ghost, while Fred Stuthman was both Polonius and the Gravedigger.

The revival was seen once more at Town Hall in December 1972, with several of the same actors.

2.

D: Jonathan Miller; S: Bernard Culshaw; L: David Hersey; P: Hunter College Concert Bureau in the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company Production; T: Hunter College Playhouse (OB); 12/26/70-1/3/71 (7)

Hugh Thomas.

Hugh Thomas was the Dane in this English company’s touring production, an idiosyncratic one in which directorial cleverness was given primary emphasis. Jonathan Miller, of course, became one of the foremost classical directors of his era. Still, numerous cuts annoyed the critics. Gone, for example, was the opening scene on the battlements and the scene of the Ghost’s first appearance. Claudius (Jonathan James-Moore) wore a crew cut, Polonius (Mike Baker) was an obvious adolescent, and there was “a foppish Laertes (Keith Kirby) and a butch Osric (John Madden),” according to Mel Gussow. During the play scene, Claudius was too bored even to observe the actors, and he rose and said “Give me some light” with extreme casualness and unconcern. Gussow found it all “preposterous.”

3.

D: William Ball; S/C: Robert Fletcher; L: Jules Fisher; P: Paul Gregory i/a/w the American Conservatory Theatre b/a/w Carnegie Hall Corporation; T: Carnegie Hall (OB); 1/13/71 (2)

Dame Judith Anderson.

Performed in a theatre not often used for dramatic performances, this was a radically cut-down, less-than-two hours-long version, with a 12-member company costumed similarly and all props mimed, even the swords in the dueling scene. Its chief reason for existence was to permit the 72-year-old Dame Judith Anderson a chance to play the title role, in the well-established tradition of Sarah Siddons, Sarah Bernhardt, Charlotte Cushman, and Siobhan McKenna, among other actresses with similar ambitions.

Seeing the role as “asexual,” Anderson claimed Hamlet “could be a daughter torn by anguish for a murdered father and a loved mother who desecrated the father’s memory.” Her performance was lambasted as an “absurdity” of casting and performance. Martin Gottfried wrote, “Mostly she plays with a pained expression, fixed gestures, . . . and suspirations.”

4.

D: Gerald Freedman; S: Ming Cho Lee; C: Theoni V. Aldredge; L: Martin Aronstein; M: John Morris; P: New York Shakespeare Festival; T: Delacorte Theater (OB); 6/20/72-7/16/72 (20)

Stacy Keach, Kitty Winn.

The principal Hamlet of the early 70s starred Stacy Keach, with James Earl Jones as Claudius, Colleen Dewhurst as Gertrude, Sam Waterston as Laertes, Kitty Winn as Ophelia, and Barnard Hughes as Polonius—all but Winn then or eventually major figures of the American stage and screen. Even the smaller roles had substantial star power, with Charles Durning and Tom Aldredge shoveling away as the gravediggers and the cameo of Osric in the hands of the young Raul Julia. This outstanding company brewed an only fitfully heady production that, unfortunately, hit a number of flat notes.

Stacy Keach, Colleen Dewhurst.

Gerald Freedman’s rendition was a mostly intact, four-hour one played in an essentially straightforward manner, with a number of effective touches and some unnecessary ones. The comedy scenes were very funny, especially during clowns Durning, Aldredge, and Julia’s inspired contributions. The latter was then starring on Broadway in the hit musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona, and the others were acting at the Public Theatre, but all were sped up to Central Park after their shows ended so they could appear late in the action of Hamlet. Edith Oliver said, “It is impossible to believe that there could ever have been gravedigger scenes this strong and funny.”

Raul Julia, James Earl Jones, Anna Berennan, Colleen Dewhurst, Stacy Keach.

Also interesting was the way Claudius and Gertrude were played as utter sensualists, with an enormous mutual attraction communicated by having them frequently touch and look at each other with obvious lust. A further workable device was allowing Hamlet’s speech to the Players to be spoken piecemeal as he watched and commented on their rehearsals methods. As for notions that failed to click, John Simon ticked off some that irked him: “Hamlet was made to scribble on the floor with his bare bodkin, assault the king’s chair in proxy regicide, double over as if to vomit while listening to the Ghost, and act grossly demented not only during his ‘mad’ scene.”

The revival was, then, neither wholly effective nor defective in anyone’s eyes. Simon said Freedman’s “main trouble was the lack of an overarching conception”—no decision as to the play’s meaning having been made. But Oliver found that “Every word of it plays; every scene at least registers.” Yet her comment that the court scenes lacked decorum, with everyone treating everyone else in the same informal fashion, regardless of rank, was in keeping with Simon’s belief that the work suffered from “an essential lack of dignity.”

The chief surprise was the immense impression made by Jones’s king, an impression that cast a dark shadow over Keach’s Hamlet. Jones, in a role that usually gets only passing notice, was a “towering, magnetic, resounding” monarch, said Oliver. Jerry Tallmer was astounded: “James Earl Jones created a Claudius that I imagine . . . is the most tremendous ever placed on any stage in any langauge [sic].” Here, he said, was “A king of joy, of pride, of passion, of command—and ultimately of guilt, giant stature, titanic fury, naked semi-suicidal resignation.” Wearing wire-rimmed eyeglasses and gold earchains, Claudius became “the central character in the play,” thought Martin Gottfried. But Simon considered him “an ill-starred Shakespearean King,” and T.E. Kalem said Jones’s was “an eccentric interpretation, bubbling with some roguish interior humor and bursting into toothy malicious glee. Given a riding crop, he might be the head of an old Hollywood studio rather than the ruler of a realm.”

In view of the reported awesomeness of Jones’s portrayal, Keach—then gaining acclaim as one of America’s best classical actors—would have to have been a far more dynamic Prince than he was. He did little that was wrong, and displayed technical excellences, but failed to fire enthusiasm except among a small minority. “There are no fake heroics or rant—in fact no false notes at all,” claimed Oliver, “in Stacy Keach’s Hamlet. Mr. Keach’s performance is subtle, nimble, and nimble-witted; though he is grief-stricken and shattered . . . he never lets an opportunity for comedy or wit get by him. There is also much sensitivity there. . . . But there is no poetry or nobility of power in him.” Douglas Watt felt likewise: “He is . . . all things a Hamlet should be except exciting.” This led to “a hollow in the production,” contributed Tallmer, because Keach’s Hamlet “is a sounding brass, signifying nothing, void without a soul or interesting manner of of expression.” Missing, remarked Gottfried, “was “presence, charisma and stage strength.” Among the actor’s supporters was Henry Hewes, who saw “a commendable and spirited rendering of Shakespeare’s masterpiece.”

                                          

Of the other principals, there was general approval of Dewhurst’s passionate and lovely queen. Hughes’s Polonius inspired Watt to note that it was “the best I have ever seen,” and Simon to observe that it was “the most solid performance of all: fusty without fustian, purblind but not dull-witted, pompous but with humanizing glimpses of his own pomposity.” Disapproval, however, rained on Winn’s Ophelia, Kalem saying it “makes one wonder what Hamlet ever saw in her.” The rising star playing Laertes met with similar sniping, Simon writing that “Sam Waterston is one of the worst actors on our would-be classical stage.”

Despite his critiques, Keach received an OBIE for Distinguished Performance and a Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Performance; Jones landed a similar Drama Desk Award; Theoni V. Aldredge got the Drama Desk nod for her Outstanding Costume Design