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 The Theatreguide.London Review

In March 2020 the covid-19 epidemic forced the closure of all British theatres. Some companies adapted by putting archive recordings of past productions online, others by streaming new shows, and various online archives preserve still more vintage productions. Even as things return to normal we continue to review the experience of watching live theatre onscreen.

Hamlet
Broadway 1964 and YouTube   February 2024

Time can be kind to some works of art, giving the world a chance to catch up to them and appreciate what was missed before. And time can be unkind to others as the first flush of excitement fades and what seemed special back then loses its lustre.

In 1964 Broadway saw a production of Hamlet starring Richard Burton, arguably one of the finest verse speakers of the century, directed by John Gielgud, unquestionably the finest verse speaker of the century.

So noteworthy was the event that a performance was recorded live and broadcast to cinemas around America.

Contractually the video was to be destroyed after the single showing, but three decades later a copy was found in Burton's files. It was remastered and cleaned up to pristine quality and has now found its way into YouTube's archives.

And what is it like, seen sixty years later? Disappointing.

At its best, the production seems terribly old fashioned, despite such touches as a bare stage and modern dress. The combined inclinations of Gielgud and Burton put the emphasis on the music of the language, an approach that was already fading in popularity in 1964 and can't help seeming stagy and artificial now.

The result is a string of recitations, every scene or speech by almost everyone having the feel of audition pieces, the actors pulling out all the stops to make this two minutes be impressive.

Burton runs his voice up and down the musical scale and up and down in volume like a master musician, but there is too little sense of meaning to the sounds he is making, and too little sense of the character making them.

You are always aware of the virtuoso Burton, too rarely aware of a living and feeling Hamlet.

This is compounded by two other factors. News leaked out during the play's four-month run that Burton was becoming visibly bored, indulging himself in illogical actions and line readings just for his own amusement.

In the performance recorded here he delivers “What a piece of work is a man” while bouncing up and down in a cushioned chair and then walking on the accompanying table – and it is very clear that this is not Hamlet being or acting mad, but Burton keeping himself awake.

Broadway audiences of the 1960s were very sophisticated, but the draw of the Burton Hamlet was not limited to experienced theatregoers (Many came with the thwarted hope of spotting Elizabeth Taylor in the audience or in the limo that picked Burton up at the stage door).

The responses of the audience at this performance show they are not familiar with the play or with theatregoing culture. That's worth noting because you can see Burton getting annoyed and expressing his contempt for them by deliberately overacting or giving them what they imagine Real Shakespearean Acting to be.

He will abruptly SHOUT some random word, or elonnnnnnnnnngate some random syllable or insert an ill................ogical pause, and then smile to himself, visibly thinking 'So that's what you want? Well, take it.'

To be fair, Burton settles down in the second half of the play. The Closet Scene is quiet and unflashy, and in the 'How all occasions' soliloquy you actually get a glimpse of a thinking, feeling character.

In the supporting cast only Alfred Drake as a cool and imperious Claudius and Hume Cronyn as a garrulous old fool of a Polonius come away with much dignity. Both characterisations are simple and unoriginal, but they are viable characterisations.

And Drake and Cronyn alone break with the prevailing mode of reciting poetry and actually sound like real human beings thinking and speaking.

As Gertrude Eileen Herlie is given little to do but cry hysterically through the Closet Scene. Lynda March is invisible as Ophelia, even when running mad, and the others range from barely adequate downward.

A huge shadow and John Gielgud's recorded voice play the Ghost, Guilgud's acting reduced to the ultimate extreme of a disembodied voice.

For the scholars among us, the text is trimmed throughout, among the most noticeable cuts being Hamlet's early rumination on how one bad habit can ruin a reputation and his later description of reading Ros and Guil's mail. Even so, and with the interval skipped in the recording, it runs over three hours.

This was not a Hamlet for the ages. And so it stands today as an historical document, capturing outstanding talents of the period approaching Shakespeare in a way that was already dying.

Gerald Berkowitz