The Olivier/Branagh Hamlet comparison is proving problematic. I had a hard time telling what characterizations were in the text and what were the actors’ interpretations. The two characters are different enough to contrast them, but one also has to consider that Branagh did not cut the play at all and Olivier did. In other words, this is still stewing in my addled brain, but it’s a bigger project than anticipated and it’s been pushed to the back burner.

I’m finally getting at Macbeth; my goal here is to place the “Tomorrow” speech in the context of the entire play — how would an actor pull that off? In his introduction to the play, printed in the Norton Complete Works, Stephen Greenblatt lays out a stunning interpretation:

“Initially gripped by a heightened sensitivity to fear, a dread that threatens inward decomposition, Macbeth experiences a gradual numbing or deadening of the self until he reaches a state of absolute spiritual emptiness:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.”

Leaving the speech some context — Lady Macbeth, who pushed Macbeth into committing these murders and was his co-conspirator, has just died — there’s definitely a sense of emptiness in the words (the “brains of the operation” are no longer functional, so now what?) and an absence of self. Time will continue whether Macbeth is there or not; and where is Macbeth anyway? What self is there to register time as having passed, and so, what is the difference between now, this moment, and eternity?

Note, also, that time is thoroughly linear here. To have a last syllable, and to be recorded, means it has a definite ending. Time will stop at some point. What is that point? Is it Macbeth’s last syllable, or time itself?

Greenblatt points out later in the introduction that “Macbeth is a tragedy of meltings, category confusions, and liminal states.” There’s a lot of room for interpretation.

I’m continuing with my reading today — planting myself in a chair for three hours, instead of overexerting myself and wondering why I’m still sick — but I’m hoping to have a more in-depth reading by the end of the week.

I was going to watch Branagh’s Hamlet tonight. I have a thought in my head comparing the way Olivier plays Hamlet to the way Branagh plays him.

Except my plan hit a snag: My copy of Branagh’s is on VHS — in fact, it doesn’t seem to be out on DVD. I found my VCR, dusty in a corner full of boxes, but it’s not hooked up. I’m not even sure there’s a place for it among the other random electronic entertainment devices snaked around the TV.

A place will be found; I just thought I’d share my amusing moment of confusion.

Olivier slaughtered the big line and seriously hammed up Henry’s speech in 3.1. Shatner-quality.

“Once MORE! … unto the BREACH — dear FRIENDS!! once MOOORRRREE!!”

Didn’t cut a word of “Then imitate the action of the tiger…”, either. Is it obvious that Olivier starred, directed and produced?

I’m pleased with the scenery, though. The miniatures are cute, rain in the Globe was a nice touch, and there are excellent dissolves from stage to painted backdrop and back again. Walls and fields match up exactly in style and in line. Really it looks like the actors are walking right into the background, even if it’s a bit surreal. The art reminds me of the Old English Tarot.

And the costumes! I don’t know how period they are, but they look fantastic. There’s a bit of overacting, but it goes with the tone of the piece. I’m filing this one under “delightfully cheesy”.

This question has occurred to me almost every time I read Shakespeare, and certainly every time I read criticism: What is Shakespeare’s text? What are we really interpreting, the words on the page or the lines acted on stage?

Shakespeare was writing plays to be performed, not to be read as a script or as a literary text years and years later. I doubt that Shakespeare ever intended his plays to be read as widely, as often, or as closely as they have been. They were printed for the first time in folio after his death. Shakespeare wanted his sonnets to last, not the plays. He referred to himself always as a poet, never a playwright; he spent time and effort composing the sonnets, but as Prof. Devlin once mentioned in class, his plays were throwaways. Shakespeare wrote the plays to make money to write sonnets. He worked at publishing his sonnets in his lifetime, but never the plays.

(Play scripts were, however, read by the public; Samuel Pepys wrote in 1662 that he saw a performance of “The Valiant Cidd” and much preferred reading it to seeing it acted.)

The question then becomes, if we allow for authorial intent, should we be more interested in the printed version or a general, theoretical performance? Of course, every individual performance is different, and criticism of those performances becomes theatrical criticism. The words are the province of literary criticism. Yet the literary canon contains no other plays. In my own experience as a student, I read plays in theatre classes and books and poems in literature classes, and never the twain did meet. I submit that Shakespeare is only included in the canon because he has been there for centuries. More for background reading, since his lines, characters, and plots are widely referenced by other writers, than on his own merits.

I haven’t done much research yet on this question, but I would not be surprised to find dozens of articles considering the question of text and/or calling for the removal of Shakespeare from the literary canon. (My aforementioned professor Devlin, for one, thinks Shakespeare should be taught as a theatre class.) I don’t know that I would argue for his removal — mostly because I personally benefit from his inclusion — but it does help my interpretation of the text to consider scenes and plot as action on a stage. I’m not alone; McAlindon noted periodically how actors have traditionally handled difficult points in the plot, like Hal’s rejection of Falstaff in the last scene of 2 Henry IV.

My argument, obviously, is that criticism of Shakespeare should take performance into account. My roots are in New Criticism so I am in the habit of disregarding authorial intent, but it takes a lot more work to create an incorrect interpretation — to interpret the plays as standalone works of literature unattached to tradition or other plays within the canon — than to recognize intent or interconnection to other plays, so I am disinclined to apply New Criticism where Shakespeare is concerned.

Besides, not only is psychological criticism more fun, new historicism seems to have won the field.