All the recent talk of Oscars, Jessie Buckley and Shakespeare reminded me of a column here in April 2016, marking the 400th anniversary of the Bard’s death. RIP William.
It was about Omelette, a scrambled version of Hamlet we staged as students at the then University College Galway (UCG). I was either Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. The set was sci-fi, as on Star Trek.
It was also the first (and last) production of the newly formed UCG Shakespeare Society, whose patron was then professor of English, Lorna Reynolds. An endearingly eccentric figure, she lived in a village near Galway.
The production was staged in Galway, to somewhat limited acclaim, before being invited by Prof Lorna to put it on in her local hall. So, on a Sunday, we travelled there. It snowed. An omen, perhaps, of what was to come.
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At Prof Lorna’s house the hospitality was generous, even as she addressed us by our stage names, as in “... more tea, Hamlet?”
The hall had a built-in box set onstage with a tight space between it and the wall. The ladder to a dressing room below was missing, with a rope in its place. The stage was small. We extended it with planks on a barrel. No audience came. We went to the pub.
When a teacher arrived with pupils, we returned in high [plus other] spirits, led by a fluthered Hamlet. It began, as it would continue, with Horatio telling the ghost of Hamlet’s father, played by Pete, to “....stay Pete, stay”.
Rapiers, for the last fight scene, were missing, so it was fought with [tiny] daggers drawn
Soon all was chaos, as few cast could get past one another in time through the space between set and wall, or up the rope from dressing room to stage. Our director exited, to a shed outside, caressing vodka.
Addressing unpredictable entrances, Hamlet himself began to edit as he went along, dropping entire scenes. He tottered precariously on the stage extension as he declaimed “... to be or not to be…” while, sitting in front, Prof Lorna jumped to save him, believing he was headed for a fall.
Rapiers, for the last fight scene, were missing, so it was fought with [tiny] daggers drawn.
All too much. Probably the only production of Hamlet ever staged as comedy, though we never intended it to be.
Hamlet, from Old French hamelet, for “small village”. Diminutive of hamel, for “village”.
