Wrestling with Hamlet

I've been going back to "Hamlet" time and time again in some form or another since I was in Junior High. I'm constantly obsessed with it. I have read "Hamlet" more than anything else in my life, there's something about it that stirs me to no end.

"Hamlet" made me fall in love with Shakespeare. Like all students in Junior High, Shakespeare was the criterion in our English class. The first play we studied was "Romeo and Juliet", then it was "The Merchant of Venice", then "Macbeth", but "Hamlet" was still far off.

In my drama class in Junior High, we were given scenes to do that were to be performed in front of the school. The only thing that was assigned to us that was Shakespeare was the balcony scene from "Romeo and Juliet". I didn't want to do that scene, I never really connected with those two young lovers from Verona. I asked my teacher if I could do another Shakespeare scene and requested "Hamlet". She agreed, and with me playing the lead, my partner would play the part of my father's ghost.

This would be the closest I would ever come to playing "Hamlet" on stage, I pretty much had no idea what I was saying, my partner actually had more lines than I did. My one monologue is still one I can remember by heart, I'm not good at memorizing monologues, but this one has stuck with me, I even recited it as my monologue to get into theatre school.

Perhaps it's the fact that being young makes one relate to Hamlet, and his troubles. He was always the one with the most angst, the most melancholy, the most brooding intensity. I always found Hamlet to be the most tragic of Shakespeare's tragic figures, however I've been told when I get older I will find King Lear to be the most tragic.

Hamlet is of course the cream of the crop for actors to perform, and I must admit it has been a dream of mine to portray him on stage. I've become a bit more realistic as to what parts I'm able to play and what parts I'm not. I can't see Hamlet in the near future for me, but I haven't given up complete hope.

I've seen many different filmed versions of "Hamlet", most recently the BBC version with David Tennant (Who's already my hero as Doctor Who), I've only seen one stage version which was performed by pseudo-Shakespearan actors, they didn't really pull it off.

I suppose the language has always been intimidating for me. I never really understood how to read Shakespeare until we did it in our acting class. It did become easier for me to recite it, but still there were parts that I couldn't understand. I remember doing a speech from "Henry V" in front of my instructor, and apparently I was saying the speech all wrong. I didn't like that feeling, I wanted to understand what I was saying, later I did a terrible audition for the Stratford school in Ontario. I felt embarrassed and out of my league, and since then I've been a little gun shy when it came to Shakespeare.

Still "Hamlet" keeps returning to me, like the ghost of his father, I've always respected to work of Shakespeare and admired him, in my humble way I've always wished to come up with something that was even a minuscule bit as poetic as what he wrote. I think "Hamlet" is the one play by his I understand the most simply because it is the one play I've read and seen the most. The story is so engaging, but I think it's mostly the character, who is so conflicted in so many ways and so deeply layered. I suppose Hamlet represents to me the most, all those universal questions we ask ourselves, it's all there in the "To Be or Not to Be" speech, which I won't dictate to you just now as it is so familiar. Even though that speech has been done to death, when spoken by the right actor, I can't help but be moved by it in a very philosophical and spiritual way.

My favorite quote of all time actually comes from "Hamlet", I'm not sure if I ever shared that with anyone but it's "There are more things in Heaven and Earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy". I usually take out the Horatio bit, but basically I state that quote as my belief system. There are so many things we do not know, and perhaps will never know, that we can't possibly take everything at face value. Hamlet wrestles with the mysteries of life and death like all of us, it's a vast universe out there, and we don't know how it was created, or if anything is out there. At times I remain skeptical, but sometimes I catch myself wondering, and wishing, perhaps it's all in vein, perhaps not, to be or not to be, that is the question.

There are so many things about "Hamlet" that I could delve into. I suppose I appreciate different things about it in different phases of my life. When I was younger, I think it was his melancholy and loneliness I latched onto being a fellow alienated party myself. Today I think of Hamlet as a great thinker who contemplates the same things I do. There's always a reason for me to go back to it, and as long as it gets played, I will always love it.