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Hamlet- The Clown Prince
Treatment & Philosophy of the Show |
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Actors in our company have always been fascinated by the idea of clown & clowning; right from our childhood experience of the clown in the national circus that visited our town to our tryst with the silent cinema of Buster Keaton, Chaplin or Harold Lloyd. Also in the performance culture or literature from around the world the characters that have fascinated us have been Fools, Jesters, Jokers or even Vidushakas. It seems to us that these, not-so-real characters, are always in a lifelong search for meaning in man’s existence and his follies. They have also been used time and again as the metaphor for human condition and truth of our beings.
In the world of theatre Shakespeare is probably the most performed writer around the world. The most popular of his plays is probably Hamlet. There are not many theatre practitioners in this world who have not dabbled with this text, or have at least contemplated it. Hamlet, the character, and his world in the play, depicts man in his worst existential, relativist, skeptical and indecisive nature. Hamlet can be considered something of a mirror. May be it is a weird, funhouse mirror held at an Elizabethan angle, but a mirror nonetheless.
We as actors felt the need of exploring this wonderful world of Hamlet as Clowns, hoping that through the works and life of clowning we might be able to find a more contemporary meaning, relevance and context to our times. As clowns we are always scrutinizing ourselves- our dreams, hopes, fears, virtues, troubles. Often we fall upon surprise solutions to complex problems and as someone once said “The Fool has eyes to see, and heart to recognize”. And are we not in a clown mode often in our everyday life when we fool around, or are playful, or just creative? And there is always that sad and happy face, at the same time, of the clown.
Hamlet, in the same stream, challenges a clown to explore the essential ingredient of human situation. It serves as an essential archetype for all cultures and in all times.
We wanted to liberate Hamlet of the uni-dimensional tragic figure that it has acquired over ages and many different film and theatrical explorations. Just as a Clown, we wanted to have Hamlet take a pie on his face, fall down repeatedly and never fail to get up again, to embody hope in the face of hopelessness, to finally come to terms with human folly.
Knowing that there is both a Clown and a Hamlet in all of us, we have tried to evoke both of them simultaneously- weaving the joys and sorrows, self doubt and assurance; something that we felt was waiting for us actors to tap out into a play.
In our play, we see a clown troupe that has it own internal politics, personal chemistries, relationships, hierarchies and dilemmas, trying to put up a show of Hamlet. And through this enactment there are many a similar and parallel universes that are revealed, addressed and played with. The situations thus arisen are comic at surface but extremely potent in their depth.
We have devised this improvisational piece keeping the linear narrative of Shakespeare’s Hamlet but adding a lot of our own text and editing original Hamlet freely. Also, the Clowns who play the Hamlet characters throw in a lot of Gibberish to give further meaning to the action or simply to further the clown tonality to an emotion.
The result is a highly audience interactive experience where stories are told, pants are pulled down, mouths are gagged and gibberish operas are sung but through all these an attempt is made to evoke the quintessential in all of us- “Hamlet”.
Director’s Note
Hamlet is a play that has fascinated me for a long time- as I am sure it has theatre practitioners all over the world- over the last 4 centuries. Of course we had to find a way to do it. Also- my last few productions (C for Clown, The King’s Last Tear- as well as The Blue Mug directed by Atul Kumar of which I was a part) have all been original creations- not based on a text but something that was created during the rehearsals. This is a process that is truly exciting for me and we wanted to continue on the same road. That is how one thought of using the Clown to kind of interpret Hamlet. It allows us a direct entry into the text- and we are able to interpret it directly bringing our sensibilities into the text.
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