It is about the script of Hamlet in Bárka Theatre also about the Ghost, of course

The final performance of Hamlet in Bárka was on 4th June 2007, during one and half year there were sixty-eight performances of it. Tim Carroll, the English director’s work has been respected: critics have appreciated it, as “they usually do it with strangers”. Zoltán Balázs for the role of Hamlet got the Miklós Gábor Award in 2006 for the best Shakespeare performance.

However, between the nice acceptances there were voices, according to which they just fool around Hamlet, the properties move on the performance, the director has no conception, the performance is nothing more than game of forms and actor training. Judit Berki says for example: “the performance frees in a way Hamlet from Hamlet himself (not only from the accumulated clichés). The focus is on the properties, on the interactions between the viewers and actors, and between the actors, on the recognition of situation, on the next step and choice of the performers so much, that the text, the performance of the actors even in case of monologues are in the background. We can say that the choice of the play is accidental, almost any play can be useful for this kind of workshop practice.”

In Carroll’s direction anyway, both the actors’ performance and the text is very important. The actors’ play, which is based on improvisation, was so important in the performance that critics have mostly tried to write down and interpret it. The convention of improvisation, which was based on the fixed text and ruled by certain rules, has the aim to make the viewers and actors experience the birth of theatrical situation. The improvisation emphasises the plurality of the interpretation of the text, as it has given possibility from performance to performance to work out different situations. The central position of the text is shown by the formation of the script, which refers to detailed philological and theatrical historian readiness. The director emphasises strongly besides the careful formation of text, the understanding and telling of it, during the rehearsal period. It is result is that the actors of Bárka Theatre could understand their texts (which is a fresh experience in case of modern, Hungarian Shakespeare performing), as improvisational performance can be based only on detailed knowledge of the text. I do not argue with Judit Berki’s statement, that Carroll chose randomly the iconic play of European theatre history. For meta theatrical play needs a meta drama, to think over the traditional interpretation needs such a basic play, has (at least according to the clichés) wide cultural resonance.

Hamlet of Bárka Theatre both from the point of view of theatre history and theatre theory is an important performance. Carroll rethink the conventions of theatres from Shakespeare’s time and forms that kind of theatre, which interpret in a new way the relationship of auditorium and stage, and that way frees the performance from the most elements of peeking box-like theatre. The director did not make a difference between the auditorium and the stage, there was not a “fourth wall” in the performance, the actors performed between and with the viewers, without costumes, we cannot make difference between the viewers and the actors and the lights of room enlightened everybody.

Tim Carroll treated his direction of Hamlet in Budapest as a theatrical experiment. Carroll tried to raise the colourfulness, endless nature of the rehearsal period into the performances. He took theatre into its elements, and then put it together combinatorically again, that way that randomness would be resulted in more and more versions, and they could not fix one of them. In the performance, there were not choreographies of movements and dialogues, which could work from evening to evening: during the series of performances, the actors improvised varied situations to the same dialogue. The combinatory nature of it was supported by more elements. A draw helped to decide from scene to scene the formation of stage. Except for the role of Hamlet, the cast was chosen by a draw too. The actors learned their roles according to doubled or more casts: the viewers drew at the beginning of the performance, who played which role. The diversity and suddenness was strengthened by the fact that the viewers brought the properties and the music. The active participation of the viewers and viewers’ reactions towards the actors formed definitely the evenings.

As the result of concept, the actors took care mostly of the speech situations, as with the lack of orders, they worked out the happenings on stage reacting to one another. Instead of the approach of psychology and character interpretation they emphasised the speech and the actions, the viewers’ and their partners’ reactions. The idea of working with variables, of the concentration on the dramaturgy of each scenes from performances to performances, and inside a performance too can result in controversial solutions. According to the actors’ intention, for example the relationship between Hamlet and Polonius changing from scenes to scenes, could be the relationship of father and son, observer and observed, two silly people, two simulators and so on. The conception of direction can be connected with some readings of the play, for example with Géza Fodor’s or Árpád Kun Kékesi’s, who have emphasised the lack of unified story and causality, the counterpointing dramaturgy because of it, the thematic rhythms and changings of viewpoints.

Besides so many changing elements which are the constant ones in Carroll’s performance? Besides the director and the actor’s personality, who performs Hamlet, the most important cohesion power is the text, which is said in the theatre. However, the critics (and the viewers too, who are talking on the forum of Hungarian Theatrical Portal) usually emphasised the improvisation in connection with the performance and talked only a little about the text, Zoltán Balázs emphasised the central role of this later one: “Of course it is not that way, that you can leave everything and put into the others anything that comes into your mind, but it is about the fact that the text, its texture, Shakespeare’s text can be listened to here in the Bárka Theatre with János Arany’s translation, it is the most important part of the performance”. Kristóf Bíró, from the critics, was the only one, who pointed out the central role of the text: “Tim Carroll’s performance with all of its freshness can just strengthen the traditional concept of theatre. He states, that the deep structure of the performance is given by the play itself. According to Bíró, that kind of dialectic could be seen, according to which, on the one side the freshness (experimenting, innovation) on the other side the traditional theatre (dramatic or lyrical) were standing. Carroll’s performance was supported by the experiments with the traditions. He was interested in that how he could make the theatre of director that way, we were standing on its borderlines. As a director he put many of his works (cast, orders, properties) on the actors and the viewers, as he deleted the traditional elements of theatre of director, but he did it all in an ordered way, according to the viewpoints of the conception of the theatre of director. Carroll took some of the characteristics of lyrical theatre too: the performance was play oriented; the script followed the published version in a conservative way. Anyway, the illustration of text without any conception could not be seen in his theatre. The opposite of it could be there. During the watching of Hamlet in Bárka Theatre, we could come up with the radical questioning of our fixed reading memories and theatrical experiences. The director admitted, that what he had found out, could work only with a canonical translation of a canonical play, as the performance worked with the viewers’ expectations.

Hamlet in Bárka was a disappointment to everybody, who came to theatre for the director’s interpretation of Hamlet. After the September meeting with viewers, one of them told, that in contrast to Fortinbras’ words, we did not learn from the performance that Hamlet would have become a great king. This viewer could feel well that the director had no aim to make a decision. Carroll told, that he thought about Hamlet something different every day. The director’s interpretation of the play was there anyway. His spirit was in the script. Similarly to the ghost of Hamlet’s father, he did not tell what would happen on stage, but similarly to the ghost he ordered, gave an exercise. It is not an accident that there is an additional theatre historical story, that Shakespeare himself played the role of the ghost.

The script of the Ghost is not the same of Hamlet’s, as the script and the performance are not the same too. The dramatic text can be written down as many possible performances, anyway as Árpád Kun Kékesi writes it, on the stage not the text but its interpretation gains an expression on theatrical language. The text of the performance in theatre is the verbal and non-verbal signs together, where there are possibly the production and reception, the actor and the viewer. The script is between them, which is the interpretation of the dramatic text, but it is not still the text of the performance.

The script of Bárka Theatre is the director’s interpretation of the dramatic text of Hamlet, which gives the guiding points of interpretation after the intervention of the editor (leavings and keepings). The script gets its newer interpretation in the text of the performance by the dialogical acceptance of the performance by the actors and viewers. Tim Carroll and László Bérczes, the dramaturg of Bárka Theatre made a script, which gave the biggest place for the formation of different kinds of texts of performance. As the dramatic text itself, is counterpointing, it uses the dramaturgy of the changing of viewpoint, they have tried to save this characteristic for the script and the performances too.

The result of the strict following of the dramatic text is the formation of conservative script. Its conservative nature does not mean that in Bárka Theatre we can listen to Arany’s whole translation. The idea of the performance of the whole text appears on the stage sometimes, for example in case of Peter Hall’s Hamlet in Old Vic in 1975, or in Kenneth Branagh film in 1996. Anyway, the theatrical tradition is about the changing of the text, and as a result of it, the director (who knows Hungarian well) and the dramaturg (who speaks English well) sometimes cut and over-wrote Arany’s translation together. The fact that on one hand knowing the problems of the traditional usage of Shakespeare’s plays Carroll dares to change the dramatic text (does not afraid of loss, as so many elements could have lost till the first publishing of the whole text), so it indicates that Carroll is conscious and well-prepared. On the other hand, his conservative text editing indicates that he trusts the dramaturgy of the Shakespeare’s text, which we have, and those theatrical conventions, which they have saved.

The formation of the script of Hamlet makes the director make many decisions, as he can choose between many possible Hamlets. Its plurality can be found not only in the history of the interpretation of the performance and play, but on the level of the text too. On English language the edition, on Hungarian language the choice of translation means a task. The choice determines greatly the possible interpretations, as both in the case of the editions and translations the director would get a different tradition of interpretation. In case of Hamlet three versions of the text exist: the first quarto (1603), the second quarto (1604-05) and the first folio (1623). The short text of the first quarto is mostly a publishing and theatre historical interest, it is published and performed just as a curiosity. Since the 18th century the performances to Hamlet can be connected to the second quarto or the first folio (just quarto and folio since then) or to the mixture of the two. The quarto is the longer text (3800 lines), the folio is shorter with 230 lines, but it contains 70 lines that cannot be found in the quarto. The differences between the quarto and the folio are not just about the lines, but there are hundreds of differences of words, which cannot be explained by any kind of ideas.

However, there are many explaining ides. The philologists have tried to find the connection between the unknown Shakespeare manuscript, the unknown changings (because of copying, theatrical, publishing changes) and the printed texts. The representatives of the New Bibliography in the first half of the 20th century thought that the first quarto was reconstructed by memories, the second quarto was by Shakespeare’s manuscript and the first folio was published according to the theatrical script. Paul Werstine reminds us, that the editors of the revolutionary, from many point of view, Oxford Shakespeare in 1986, believe in the second quarto, which is based on the author’s manuscript and Shakespeare (folio) dichotomy, which over works the text based on theatrical point of views. These ideas that go back to the origin of the texts, most of the textology doubted (anyway did not put them aside at all). The attention was on their publishing and formation, the new textology concentrates on the product not on the ides, which study the quality of Shakespeare’s manuscript.

The hierarchy of the remaining texts thanks for the uncertainty and the relationships between the versions, the publishing practice since the 18th century has tried to save what it could from both versions, that way came to life the tradition of the conflate edition, which is the combination of the two versions. Harold Jenkins’s Arden publishing in 1982, for example was based on the text of the second quarto, and he completed it with those texts, which remained only in the folio. Anyway, those editors, who took the folio as a base, completed it with the texts of the second quarto. The editors of Oxford Shakespeare left this tradition, when they based their work only on the text of the folio. They could not avoid anyway the conflate tradition, which has a long history, and in the final notes after the play, they published, the collected parts, which are in the second quarto. The newest published Hamlet version (2006) of Arden Shakespeare, gave all the three versions of the text, they emphasized the historical part of the editions and tried to leave the hierarchy of the texts. They could not avoid the conflate tradition at all too, as in the edition of the second quarto they put in the appendix the parts, which are only in the folio.

What is the importance of this philological turnout for theatre? The editions, which can become the basis of the script give suitable material for different ideas of directions. Paul Werstine’s study shows, that we can get a different picture of Hamlet by analysing independently the quarto and the folio, he points out that those inconsistencies and contradictions of Hamlet and Hamlet, which are mentioned many times can be many times in connection with the mixture of the texts of the quarto and the folio. From the point of view of the performance it is not unimportant, if the director knows about the theatrical tradition, which is followed by the chosen edition. In connection with the script of the performance in Bárka Theatre, the question of the traditions has risen up, which Tim Carroll inherited with the translation, what kind of possibilities has it offered to the performance, and why did he choose exactly this translation.

Carroll could choose a translation, which reflects the modern Hungarian state of language (Dezső Mészöly, István Eörsi or Ádám Nádasdy’s translations between 1980-90s). Meanwhile he chose a classical translation of 1867. As a director he must have had the same kind of dilemma, about which Ádám Nádasdy wrote in connection with the translators: “Shakespeare lived in 16th and 17th centuries so it is natural that his language compared to the English of today is really old fashioned (similarly to Zrínyi or Pázmány’s language for the readers of today).” Then he goes on that way: “The translator arrives to the crossroads: should he show in the translation that the text was written centuries ago, (as the English viewers of today can feel it), so uses a language, which is old-fashioned for Hungarian ears too, or choose the other way, according to which, Shakespeare’s text was not old-fashioned in its time, for those viewers so he has to represent the play for the Hungarian viewers on their language of today, as it was the writer’s original aim too (...) I chose this later one, so I wrote it on the modern Hungarian language, as theatres have expected it too from me.”

The director has to choose to whether shows Shakespeare’s old-fashioned nature on the stage on an older Hungarian language, or emphasis its modernity with a modern Hungarian translation. According to the common thinking, the classical translations are old-fashioned for theatre. Carroll chose Arany anyway, as other directors of Hamlet in the term of the 2005/06. Andrea Tompa critic points out too the popularity of Arany’s text on the Hungarian stages of today. “In this term I can hear Járon Arany’s poetry from the stage for the third time. When they offered it first time in Bárka Theatre, it seems to be surprisingly modern, its humour is modern, its turns can come from the modern poetry too, many linguistic fireworks.”

As there is not any ideal edition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, it does not even have any ideal translation too. In a lucky situation all generation forms their own translations of Shakespeare, which takes history with themselves from the moment of their births. Ádám Nádasdy for example, translates in the spirit of “lowering poetry”, which expression must be a chapter title of history of translation later on. The new translations cannot push the older ones from stages. Hamlet, with Arany’s translation, can keep itself on stage, and between the directors of Hamlet of this term, Carroll will have less problem with the old text. Arany’s old style can be a drawback, if Shakespeare’s language is that on English speaking areas.

The choice of Arany, as the choice of the play too, builds on the canonical viewpoint, which gives the possibility of a language game with the viewers’ expectations. On the one hand, Arany’s translation is “The” Hamlet for many on Hungarian language, many of its lines have become sayings. On the other hand, in connection with Hamlet, those viewers have an idea, who have not watched or read it before. Above it, this viewer, (even those who have watched and read it) is the inheritor of a romantic Hamlet image, which is questioned mostly in the direction. In case of canonical play, there is a phenomenon that “we know them before we read them, as Péter Dávidházi points it out in the Hungarian acceptance history of Shakespeare, and it characterises the individual acceptance too. Hamlet from the point of view of the Hungarian culture history is the most important play by Shakespeare. The first one, which is mentioned by critics, the German theatre in Hungary put it on stage first, and Hamlet is the first, totally Hungarian adaptation (so not just parts of it) by Ferenc Kazinczy.

What kind of text tradition did the English director get from János Arany? As István Géher writes it, Arany for the translation “Studied well the German text by Wieland and Schlegel, and found the modern base edition by Nicolaus Delius, together with his German notes.” Delius’ English version combined the text of the folio with the parts of the quarto. So Tim Carroll could hold in his hand the conflate publishing tradition and the translation after it. The question is if the director keeps the combined text, or followed the today’s trend of publishing and pushed Arany’s text towards the folio or the quarto tradition. It is not a question from the first time that we cannot listen to the “whole” Hamlet in the Bárka.

Does the “whole” Hamlet exist on stage? From historical point of view, its cut is the norm, the script of Hamlet, which is the same as the published one is the exception. Takes into consideration the English tradition, Claris Glick says, that sometimes they put Hamlet on stage without any cuts, the cut version of it has centuries long traditional and common practice. Shakespeare’s play is almost double as long as the theatre could bear it even in Elizabethan era, and we can find many refers to the theatrical cuts of the text of that time too. According to Lukas Erne, both the second quarto and the first folio are lyrical texts and not theatrical ones, and as they are known today, both of them needed shortening and theatrical changes too.

Alan C. Dessen in his study: The director as the editor of Shakespeare, studies the British Shakespeare directions after 2000 and states that the directors’ most common tools in case of Shakespeare are the cutting and writing over and the re-editing of the scenes. He calls the reasons partly pragmatic, while the other parts of it come from the director’s conception. Between the pragmatic reasons, there are the defined length of time, the composition of the trope, the reparing of old-fashioned and shadowed part. A characteristic tool of the conception changing is the re-editing of the scenes.

An illustrative example for this later one can be the fate of the monologue “to be or not to be” (3.1.) in those two English versions of Hamlet in 2004, which I saw too by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Old Vic. Both Michael Boyd (RSC) and Trevor Nunn (Old Vic) re-placed the famous monologue from the third act. Boyd put the great monologue and the monastery scene after it to the scene of 2.2. Because of it, the re-edited scenes could counterpoint Polonius’ idea, which tried to convince the royal couple that Hamlet’s state of mind can be because of Ophelia’s unrequited love. Nunn made Hamlet tell his famous speech at the end of the first act, after the lines of “The time is out of joint” between the tools that refer to suicide and it created a clear continuity between the two speeches, which are separated by a whole scene from each other.

In case of the script of Bárka, the great monologue remains on its place in 3.1., after that Polonius and Claudius have hidden to be able to become the ear witnesses of the dialogue between Hamlet and Ophelia. So the famous monologue, as the three editors of Arden have emphasised, is not a real monologue, as Polonius, Claudius and Ophelia are within hearing. Anyway Hamlet speaks as he would be alone, and we can usually see this on stage too (there are exceptions, in the performance of Old Vic in 1977, Hamlet told his speech to Ophelia, who was on stage, according to the dramatic text too).

In Bárka Theatre Zoltán Balázs worked out more solutions for the “To be or not to be”. In Gyula he told it from the top of the castle wall, while the viewers were sitting in the moat. In the Fencing Hall, in the performance of September, he put the scissors first to his own, and then to a viewer’s throat, while he was telling one part of the speech, then he made the viewer repeat it. In the performance of November he repeated more the parts of the “To be or not to be”, some lines he told in sotto voce. In the last performance, an old lady a little boy told in turn by turns the text, which Balázs whispered into their ears. In the Bárka Theatre the paradoxical effect of the monologue is the fact that Hamlet told it as he was alone (it is even truer in case of the fulfilment on the caste wall, where the physical distance grows huge between Balázs and the others). It gave the effect of loneliness as in the case of those performances where I took part, Hamlet did not tell his speech to Ophelia. In spite of this the “To be or not to be” has never been a monologue, as he always built the scene on the viewers’ non-verbal reactions, he always told it to the viewers and chose some of them to act together.

From the point of view of the editing of the text, Carroll uses radical interventions too, in his direction of II.Richard (Globe 2003), he used the possibility of the combination of roles. For the formation of the script in Bárka the moderation and conservativism of editing techniques are characteristic. We can tell that Carroll did not use many techniques, which were mentioned by Dessen: there is not any combination of roles, there are not any additional texts, he did not re-place any scenes. He did not use the modern Hungarian directors’ favourite tool, the insert and the frame story too. Carroll’s changes in connection with the translation by Arany can be put into three main groups. The first, and most common technique is the cut, the second one it the re-writing, the third one, which technique he used once, is the changing of lines. One part of cuts have philological origin, the other part means the traditional theatrical cuts, the third one can be connected to theatrical pragmatics.

1. The cuts

1.a. Philological cuts

A part of Carroll’s cuts have philological basis. The Oxford Shakespeare mentions in the appendix sixteen, parts of the text, which are only in the quarto. The Delius edition, which Arany used for his translation, is a conflated edition, so it contains those parts too, which are missing from the second quarto and the folio. From the comparison turns out, that Carroll left almost all parts, which were only in the quarto. So with this decision he pushed Arany’s translation obviously towards the folio. According to the editors of Oxford Shakespeare the folio is a more theatrical text, so Carroll put closer the more lyrical quarto towards the theatrical text tradition.

Basically the part of the quarto is missing from the script. These are the following:

1.4.589-611: Hamlet’s ideas about the king’s party (“This heavy-headed revel east and west Makes us traduced and tax'd of other nations” and so on.)

1.4.650-3: The end of Horatio’ speech to Hamlet, which is about the danger of the Ghost (“The very place puts toys of desperation” and so on.),

3.4.778-89: Hamlet’s crititc to the Queen in the bedroom scene (“Sense, sure, you have, Else could you not have motion; but sure, that sense Is apoplex'd; for madness would not err” and so on.),

3.4.917-926: Hamlet’s plan that trap Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (“There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows, Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd” and so on.),

4.7.584-94: That part of Claudius’ speech in which, similarly to Hamlet, he is thinking about the wants, while he is planning with Laertes about the trap of Hamlet (“There lives within the very flame of love A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it; And nothing is at a like goodness still” and so on.).

The cutting of some parts of the quarto sometimes happened in bigger units, so they were cut together with parts, which are both in the quarto and the folio. I will boldfaced those numbers of the lines, which were cut from the script, and were only in the quarto, and I put into brackets those, which were further cuts by Carroll:

1.1.106-124: Bernardo and Horatio’s dialogue about Julius Caesar before the appearance of the ghost can be found only in the quarto.

(Carroll cut this part of the text only three lines earlier: “It is the main motive of our preparations” and so on. 1.1.103-24).

3.2.375-6: The closing couplet of the queen on Stage is only in the quarto: “Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear; Where little fears grow great, great love grows there”.

(Carroll cut more from this love promises, he used only two lines from them: “So many journeys may the sun and moon Make us again count o'er ere love be done” (365-6). He left the lines: “But, woe is me, you are so sick of late”, and so on. (3.2.367-376)).

3.2.422-3: The Player queen’s another quarto-couple was left from the script (“To desperation turn my trust and hope! An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!”).

(Carroll left the next couple out to: “Each opposite that blanks the face of joy Meet what I would have well and it destroy!” (3.2.424-25). In the script from the eight lines long rhythmical promises on stage, only four lines remained: “Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light! / Sport and repose lock from me day and night!” (420-1), “Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife, / If, once a widow, ever I be wife!” (426-7)).

4.1.41-46: That six lines, which Claudius tells to Gertrud and show his real political virtue, can be found only in the quarto. He wants to tell the killing of Polonius and his acts in connection with it that way he wants to avoid the scandal (“And what's untimely done... Whose whisper o'er the world's diameter, As level as the cannon to his blank, Transports his poison'd shot, may miss our name, And hit the woundless air.”). Besides this, Carroll cut Claudius ordering speech to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to find Polonius’ dead body (4.1.32-46). That way in the next scene (4.2) it seemed to be a self-diligence as the courtiers are looking for the dead body. However, at the beginning of the 4.3. from the king’s questioning turned out that they did it according to his order.

4.7.537-550, 570-2: Only the quarto contains Claudius and Laertes dialogue about Laertes’ fencing abilities. Carroll cut more ideas by Claudius, which would be formed in front of us about the trick against Hamlet, in which he based on Laertes’ fencing knowledge and his reputation (4.7.526-76).

5.2.447-8: Only the quarto contains Horatio’s ironic comment about Hamlet, which he mentions during the dialogue with Osrick. Hamlet’s question to Osrick: “What call you the carriages?”, Horatio interrupts there: “I knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done”. Carroll left Horatio’s addition with a bigger cut, which contain many of Hamlet’s jokes in connection with Osrick (5.2.440-55).

5.2.484-97: The dialogue between Hamlet and God about the organisation of the duel, can be found only in the quarto. Carroll cut it together with other funny lines in connection with Osrick (5.2.474-97).

With the leaving of the parts of the quarto the director got generally closer to the text version of the folio. For three times from the sixteen he differed from his own practice. For the first time, he kept three lines from the deleted quarto. In the bedroom scene, Hamlet talks to Gertrud about the power of habits. Carroll cut the lines 3.4.873-884, and kept only the lines (878-80) “Refrain to-night, / And that shall lend a kind of easiness / To the next abstinence: the next more easy” and so on, which is only one concrete demand in the middle of the long line of thought. For the second time, one part of the dialogue between Osrick and Hamlet can be found only in the quarto (in case of Arany these are the lines of 5.2.403-436). Carroll kept one part of it, he kept Osrick’s eulogy about Laertes, which was there to rise Hamlet’s vanity. Anyway, he deleted Hamlet’s answer in which he mocks Osrick’s style (409-418). He could do it as remained enough from the teasing (for example the lines of 418-426, 430-1, 435 are the parts of the script).

The greatest difference can be found in scene 4.4. According to the folio, this scene is very short, only eight lines. (in case of Arany the right lines are 4.4.146-153), which contains Fortinbras and the Captain’s dialogue about the fact that they asked free crossing over Denmark in the war against the Polish people. In the quarto this scene is seven times longer (In case of Arany these are 4.4.146-153) In that version Hamlet asks the Captain about the reasons of the war, and connects the listened ideas to his own task. Carroll kept exceptionally the part of the quarto, and deleted only five lines from the scene (4.4.149-51, 165-6). So that way, Hamlet’s famous speech that started with lines: “How all occasions do inform against me, / And spur my dull revenge!” (4.4.177-214) becomes part of the script closer to the folio, however the quarto is a longer part.

This speech is that part of the director’s interpretation of Hamlet, which he could not leave because of its canonical nature in a performance, which reflected strongly to the conventions. The speech is important from the point of view of the dramaturgy of Hamlet too. Hamlet finds a newer acting base for himself in this scene. While he is talking about Fortinbras’ campaign, he faces up against that behaviour, which is (momentarily) ideal for him: “Rightly to be great / Is not to stir without great argument, / But greatly to find quarrel in a straw / When honour's at the stake. / How stand I then, / That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, / Excitements of my reason and my blood, / And let all sleep? while, to my shame, I see / The imminent death of twenty thousand men, / That, for a fantasy and trick of fame”.

The discovery of the newer motivation Balázs’ performance interpreted in different ways. In July, he played with the reflectors, which lighted the castle wall. Maybe he tried to find his new motivations (or his lack of motivation) at the source of light. He raised the reflector, pointed it towards us, as he would like to seen into our thoughts too, what he could find there but he pulled the lamp out of the socket. The situation with comical elements had no clue in the performance in November. That time I could see Hamlet, who was physically broken, and lived with suicide gestures.

1.b. Classical theatrical cuts

Besides the philological changes, some of Carroll’s cuts had their place between the British theatrical traditions. Claris Glick’s study gives the classical cuts from Hamlet according to the English scripts of three centuries, from Thomas Betterton (1676) to Laurence Olivier (1969). The twenty-seven scripts, which Glick studied were all cut, the fewest of them can be found in case of Olivier (162 lines, all together). Glick put these between the classical cuts: Polonius and Rajnald’s line (2.1.), the modern theatrical reference about the boy actors (2.2.), a silent game (3.2.), and the role of Fortinbras is whether cut out or shortened a lot (1.1, 1.2, 2.2, 4.4, 5.2). The part, which is about Hamlet’s oversized body is deleted many times too, from the twenty-seven studied script, sixteen of them left it out.

Tim Carroll according to the classical cuts, left Polonius and Rajnald’s scene (2.1.1-77), and the lines about Hamlet’s oversized body (5.2.584). Meanwhile he kept many parts in the script, which had been deleted many times. The role of Fortinbras remained but got shorter. He left for example the roles of Cornelius and Voltimand in connection with Fortinbras and Claudius’ political ideas (1.2.193-217, 2.2.164-169, 175-211) and he deleted many lines in connection with the Norwegian war (1.1.62-66, 73-94, 103-109). Anyway as the dramatic text, the script was finished with Fortinbras’ words. The dramaturgic role of the line about Fortinbras was to take the empty place (Fortinbras has no possibility to take revenge on Hamlet, as his father killed his father too). He is neither a saviour nor a usurper he just closes the act. In the performance the lines about the war and social life are not stressed, there were some references in the text, but the viewers could forget them too. During the performance I could not remember the parallel between Fortinbras and Hamlet’s story (his father is dead, his uncle is the ruler), as Carroll left this later reference out too (1.2.193-201).

1.c. Pragmatical cuts

In Shakespeare’s dramaturgy sometimes some characters indicate the acts of the next scenes, and gives lyrical ideas for the next play itself. The writers of the scripts, because of time limits, deleted many times, as the performances were usually three and a half hours long. Some examples of it can be 3.1.31-36, in which Claudius reveals for the viewers the plan of overhearing of Hamlet and Ophelia. Later we could learn all these from the acts on the stage. Polonius’ announcement was deleted about his plan to hide behind the carpet (3.3.625-633), which could be seen soon on the stage. However, Claudius’ order to Rosencrantz and his partner to find Polonius’ dead body (4.1.) was deleted, in the next scene (4.2.) they were working on its fulfilment. Six lines were left out (3.2.249-254), in which Hamlet would like to know whether the royal couple watched the play, and a similar act on stage was written down by the character, named the God (5.2.)

One variation of theatrical pragmatology is when Carroll put an earlier part of the dramatic text into the script because of a longer cut in the text. The change is the most radical one between the conservative editing techniques of the play. In the scene of 4.7., the plan about the intrigue against Hamlet was developing continuously, we could witness the king’s loud thinking in the company of Laertes. Carroll cut a part of it (526-576). When the whole trick was there in Claudius face, he summed up the plan to Laertes (598-612), which is also in the script.

Bárka Theatre                                                                                                            Arany

King                                                                                                                           (I will work him) 533 (One) and so on

No place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;                                                             (word), 606 (Together)

Revenge should have no bounds.

But, good Laertes,

Will you do this, keep close within your chamber.

Hamlet return'd shall know you are come home:

I will work him

To an exploit, now ripe in my device,

Under the which he shall not choose but fall:

And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,

But even his mother shall uncharge the practise

And call it accident.

We'll put on those shall praise your excellence

bring you in fine together

And wager on your heads he, being remiss,

Most generous and free from all contriving,

Will not peruse the foils; so that, with ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unbated, and in a pass of practise

Requite him for your father.

The speech in the script is different from the translation as the writers put six lines from the king’s earlier, cut lines (532-537, emphasised) into this one. This is the only example of re-editing, which happens in the same scene (with 60 lines difference), in the same character’s speech. The editing was necessary because those lines were deleted, which show the birth of the idea (526-576). Comparing to the speech of the dramatic text, the script got six lines (532-537), and two of them were left (604-5), in which Claudius refers to Lamord (“And set a double varnish on the fame / The Frenchman gave you,”). Carroll had to leave these lines out as he had left Claudius’ earlier refers to the Lombard motive (551-560).

2. Transcription

Claris Glick brought many examples for the rewriting of the text and for the transformation of some speeches. In the script of Bárka there is not any example for this later one (I did not count here the re-editing of Claudius’ two monologues within one scene and sixty lines). There is not any examples for rewriting of the text, as Glick thought about the rewriting of Shakespeare’s English text, and he thought about the adapting practice of restoration. Rewriting happened in case of the script of Bárka Theatre for two reasons. Once one its writers went back to the English text, and put a translation into a text, which is not from Arany. Secondly, when the writers modernised some Hungarian expressions, which they thought to be old-fashioned and according to them they would make harder the telling and understanding of the texts on stage. In case of re-writing the authors usually used István Eörsi and Ádám Nádasdy’s solutions.

2.1. Returning to the English text

Carroll in the first twenty lines of the opening scene returned to the text of the English edition twice. Mostly because he thought both of them important moments for the interpretation of the play, as he did not make a critic about the translations of the whole play. Francisco lines are different in the script from in the translation. In the later one there is: “'tis bitter cold, And I am sick at heart” (1.1.6-7.). In the script instead of “And I am sick at heart” there is „And my heart is heavy”, as in the translation by István Eörsi. In the Arden edition there is “I am sick at heart” and the script returned to the picture of “heart”. Harold Jenkins wrote in his notes, that Horatio does not tell the reasons but foreshadows that things do not go well, and he quoted Dover Wilson, according to him in Francisco’s melancholic answer we can see Hamlet’s future. There is an important re-writing ten lines later, when for Bernardo’s question: “Say, What, is Horatio there?”, Horatio’s answer in Arany’s translation is: “It is his body and soul” while in the script: “A piece of him” as in Nádasdy’s translation. In the English version there is: “A piece of him”. According to Jenkins the place indicates that Horatio raises his hand, and metaphorically, it refers to Horatio’s scepticism, who makes his presence smaller in the actions with humour. Arany’s translation is full of pathos instead, in contrary to the irony of the English text.

Hamlet and Horatio’s dialogue is shortened to the reasons of Horatio’s return, and the script is different from Arany’s translation many times:

Arany                                                                                                                        Bárka

Hamlet

I am very glad to see you. Good even, sir.

But what, in faith, make you from Wittenberg?

Horatio

A truant disposition, good my lord.                                                                           I get away from schoo, my lord

Hamlet

I would not hear your enemy say so,                                                                        I would not hear your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,                                                                  Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,

To make it truster of your own report                                                                       To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself: I know you are no truant.                                                              But what is your affair in Elsinore?

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

We'll teach you to drink deep ere you depart.

The writers got back again the original English version (“A truant disposition, good my lord”) when they changed the “truant disposition” to the “get away from school” according to Eörsi. The line: “I would not hear your enemy say so” refers to “enemy” anyway.

In Hamlet and Ophelia’s scene in the monastery, the line 3.1.125.was in the script differently than in the translation. For Hamlet’s statement: “I did not love you”, Ophelia’s answer in Arany’s translation is: “I was even more disappointed”, while the script, because of the original English version (“I was the more deceived”), used the version of: “I was even more deceived” (Nádasdy uses a similar verson “I was more deveived”, while Eörsi translates: “than I am more deveived.”)

Instead of Claudius’ phrases: “these sayings are not mine” (Arany, 3.2.303-4) in the script we could find: “these words are not mine” following Nádasdy. With some lines under it (326) we find another change comparing the translation to the script:

HAMLET

Do you think I meant country matters?

OPHELIA

I think nothing, my lord.

HAMLET

That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.

OPHELIA

What is, my lord?

HAMLET

The nothing

In the script there is “The nothing”, in Arany’s translation Hamlet says: “I said nothing”. In the English text there is: “Nothing”. He repeats Ophelia’s “nothing” some lines before, which is a refer to the shape of “O”, to the traditional representation female genitals. Hamlet continues with it his joke of “country matters”, which we cannot find in Arany’s translation. (“Do you think I meant country matters?”). At that time the expression of “country matters” had a meaning of sexual action, and with the stressing of the first syllable of the word “country”, the word “cunt” (the pejorative form of the female genital) was stressed because of the similarity to that word.

In line of 3.4.850. the word: “enthusiasm” appears twice in Arany’s version. The script changed it into “insanity” as the Hungarian version of the English word: “ecstasy”. (the Arden’s note wrote “madness”) [57]. After Ophelia has got mad, Laertes cries that way: “Do you see this, O God?” (4.5.421). The script changed Arany’s translation and used “they see” instead of “you see”. The personal pronoun “you” from the line: “Do you see this, O God?” could be told to the other on stage and to God too.

2.2 Modernization

As Judit Berki wrote about it, in the 80s there was an argument in connection with the performance, directed by Tamás Ascher in Kaposvár, the question is whether it is allowed to correct Arany? [58] The director asked Eörsi to delete the old-fashioned verb forms, the words, which are hard to understand, so to form the play to the expectations of the modern viewers. Today after many new Hamlet translation have been made (Eörsi, Mészöly, Nádasdy) probably only a few would argue for its integrity from the point of view of classical theatre, anyway the justification of eclectic scripts is still topic of many arguments. According to Berki it was a backtrack that all the three directors of Hamlet in 2006 put on stage Arany’s translation which was “secretly” (Mészöly) corrected in 60s and 70s and “a bad forgery” (Nádasdy) without signing the corrections instead of having chosen one from the three new translations.

Before the new translations in the 80s and 90s, Arany’s text was treated with respect of classics, it could explain why the performers did not talk about the necessary correction of it. After the new translations there is a possibility of choice, and I do not think that it is a backtrack if a director builds his performance on the old-fashioned nature of the text, on a well-known text, and on the reflexions on these. In this situation the solution would have been more consistent, if besides the cuts there were not any other modernizations, and the old text remained old. Anyway, theatre does work on philological aspects, but it is formed by the aspects theatrical pragmatics. The modern English directors modernize Shakespeare too, because they are afraid of the fact that the audience may not understand some phrases and more complicated sentence structures.

The writers of the script of Bárka, because of similar pragmatic ideas, to have made the text more understandable, fixed the text to the viewers’ expectations. Here are some examples of modernization: Instead of an old-fashioned word in the script there is “our sister” (1.2.184). Laertes’ line: “For Hamlet and the trifling of his favour” (1.3.438) was also modernized. They used the modern word for the word “my daughter” (2.2.255), instead of “train of air” they used “draught” (2.2.343), and instead of “poltra” they used “mite” (2.2.407). Ophelia’s answer to Laertes: “I shall the effect of this good lesson keep, As watchman to my heart.” was too old-fashioned again in Arany’s translation and it was modernised in the script with the help of Eörsi’s translation.

In the first speech to the Ghost (“Angels and ministers of grace defend us! / Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd” 1.4.612-632) Arany used two expressions, which were changed in the script.

The “wax-opal” is not the part of our active vocabulary and it could make understanding harder on stage as there is not any possibility to look up some words. Both Eörsi and Nádasdy used “shroud” in their translation. István Géher wrote about it that “wax-opal” had an archaic effect; in editions there is always a note for it: “a shroud filled with wax”. So it must be ununderstandable without the explanation. But its contrary is true: it can have more meanings. With its old-fashioned nature it has a similarly mysterious meaning as the Shakespeare’s original version had in its time with its modern nature then. Instead of the well-known »cerecloth«, the used »cerements« is the poet’s own invention, its aim was that from the French word »cirer«, the phrase »to cere«, which they got from there (means to wax something) to connect it with its material nature the Latin expressions, which rhyme with it (for example: »sacraments, ornaments«) thanks for their ritual abstraction.” According to Géher the word: “póla” can make us remember the meaning of a linen strip, which they used for the wound care in Arany’s time, but it can refer to the modern Hungarian swaddling too. The study goes on with the marble gum, which is against “the dramatic nature of oxymoron”, which is not in connection with the original one. Arany himself wrote “marble jaw first (as well as Eörsi and Nádasdy did), then he changed his mind. Géher wrote that in his final solution he gave a magical translation instead of a faithful one. The authors of the script chose the un-declaring in theatre instead.

The famous line: “To be or not to be: this is the question” is different in Arany’s main text (3.1.56), but in his notes Arany himself gave the original line in the same version too. The note, which Arany wrote to it: “Maybe the line is more well-known that way: To be or not to be”. Both the director and the dramaturg thought to be better to use the more “well-known” line, as in the script there is: “To be or not to be”. There are many topos in Hungarian literature, the changing of which in a performance, which used conventions, would have resulted the missing of reflexion to the canon.

We can find an important re-writing in Ophelia and Hamlet’s dialogue, which comment the scene of the Mousetrap (3.2.447-52). In Arany’s translation for the modern ears the sexual refer is very hidden. The script made it more modern, the second, “”poking” part of it was made according to Nádasdy.

There was a more important change after Claudius’ unmasking. The poem was not put in the script with Arany’s translation (3.2.474-7) but with István Eörsi’s.

The original version:

“Why, let the stricken deer go weep,

The hart ungalled play;

For some must watch, while some must sleep:

So runs the world away.”

What results did these changes make in the script? How did it change because of the director’s Hamlet reading? What kind of possibilities did the script offer with the remaining text and cuts for the performance?

The Ghost of the script

The central question of the detective story of Hamlet, that how can Hamlet know that the Ghost tells the truth. The viewers of the performance could learn about the killing of a brother and king from Claudius’ confession (3.3), but how can Hamlet know it for sure, as he could not hear Claudius? About the Ghost, similarly to Hamlet, Horatio and his mates cannot decide if the Ghost that evokes the form of the king, has good or bad intentions. (For the two a good example can be found in 1.1, where Horatio’ words: “Do, if it will not stand” and Marcellus’ answer to it: We do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence”).

These lines, which are in the script too, refer to the double understanding of the Ghost, which is the characteristic of Hamlet and the Ghost’s meeting. For Hamlet’s protestant world, the mentioning of the purgatory is suspicious in its own (Stephen Greenblatt wrote a whole monography about the similar protestant and catholic theological questions in Hamlet.) However, the cuts changed the ghost-appearance, the most important characteristics, which are in connection with the dramatic text and the spirit of the performance, the ambivalence and the unsolvable contradictions have remained.

Horatio and Hamlet’s dialogue about the appearance of the Ghost is shorter in the script, the questions and answers about the Ghost’s outlook were cut (1.2.400-410, 415-416). The scene of oath was shorter too (1.5. 800-803, 808-811, 817-820, 827-833). Hamlet’s repeated calling to take an oath and the mentioning of the Ghost as an “old mole” are missing too from the script (832-3):

HAMLET

Well said, old mole! canst work i' the earth so fast? / A worthy pioner! Once more remove, good friends.

The questioning of the Ghost’s authenticity appeared a few lines before (822-4), Hamlet’s comic and disbelieving attitude remaind the part of the script:

HAMLET

Ah, ha, boy! say'st thou so? art thou there, / truepenny? / Come on--you hear this fellow in the cellarage—/ Consent to swear.

That way, ambivalence remains in the script too, however with the cutting of the “mole” thing, on a stage there was not as much reference and a comic statement was missing too.

The performances refered well to the doubt. In the performance of July, when Hamlet met (1.4.) the Ghost, who was staring (with Attila Egyed), he held a viewer’s hand and came fearfully closer to him. During Horatio’s words, with which he tried to talk him out of it, the Ghost disappeared, then jumped up from behind the viewers as a puppet, so not only Hamlet saw the Ghost in two different ways, Attila Egyed played in two, a comic and a tragic role. In scene 1.5. during the telling of poisoning, Balázs and Egyed were in physical connection all through it (whether it is hitting or hugging). Balázs jumped into Egyed’s neck, kept him like a little boy at the part of: “Revenge his foul and most unnatural murder”, than at the part of the telling of the poisoning he hit and pushed the Ghost in delirium, then they hugged each other at the lines of: “Let not the royal bed of Denmark be / A couch for luxury and damned incest”. Only some fragments remained from these, great amount of touches and gestures between father and son, in the performance in November. Zoltán Seress’ Ghost, who had armour from aluminium foil in the performance in November had alienating effects, there were fewer touches and comic elements.

Neither Polonius could avoid the barber, with whom, Hamlet threatened him, because of his (2.2.631). Many scenes by Polonius and Ophélia got shorter, mostly with Polonius’ words (1.3.553-558, 561-566, 2.1.104, 106-109). Rajnáld and Polonius’ scene was missing, which made the intriguer Polonius, who is looking after his own son, weaker in the script (2.1.1-77). Polonius tried to prove his idea about the love sorrow anyway, which was made more colourful sometimes with promises and retardative rhetoric forms. A part of them was shortened in the script (2.2.262-271, 285-291). To the king’s speech: “Love! his affections do not that way tend!” and so on (3.1.172-185) some lines were cut from Polonius’ answer (I mark to them in brackets): “It shall do well: [but yet do I believe The origin and commencement of his grief Sprung from neglected love. ] How now, Ophelia!” (3.1.186-188). So the script made shorter Polonius’ boring repeated idea about love. A comic possibility was out because of it, according to the script Polonius was about to accept the king’s diagnose, while in the dramatic text against all signs he insists to his idea. The dramatic text is rich in similar scenes (especially the scenes of 2.1 and 2.2.), the cut of some of them could not eliminate this characteristic of Polonius’ role.

In the performance, Polonius (whether he was played by József Czintos or by Béla Gados) formed a comic old man. Between Czintos and Balázs there was a mainly ironic, sometimes emotional game of a father and son, with many physical contacts (Balázs hugged and jumped on, played with Czintos like a boy), while his relationship with Béla Gados was cooler and more suspicious. The editors of Arden 3 mentioned, that while Polonius was a comic role for centuries, today he has been hardly ever that kind. Judit Berki mentioned József Ruszt’s direction in 1972 in Kecskemét, as the new interpretation of Polonius on Hungarian stage, who was ruthless instead of a silly old man, and he appeared as a political leader. Meanwhile, in contrary to the note of Arden 3, both English Hamlet performance in 2004 (the already mentioned RSC and Old Vic) had a comic Polonius, whose figure was turning into burlesque. The actors of Bárka Theatre used this tradition too, and the cuts of the text gave less possibility too to form a spying and intriguer figure.

Horatio of the script

According to the script, Horatio is Hamlet’s close friend, and this interpretation could be found in the performance too. From Horatio, who is ironic and an outstander in the dramatic text, remained less. From Horatio’s last speech, Hamlet’s six lines long abstract was out (“so shall you hear / Of carnal, bloody, and unnatural acts, / Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters, / Of deaths put on by cunning and forced cause” and so on 5.2.682-88). The missing lines would indicate two types of interpretation of Horatio. We could read that way that Horatio understood only those things from the happenings, or that only those things happened, the interpretation was our work, and Horatio could not do it instead of us. In Horatio there can be a less friendly performance, as the king considers him to be his ally (4.1., 5.1.). The script left those parts, which made Horatio “less friendly”, so Horatio and Fortinbras political discussion got shorter, which was about to install the new playground of power. From Fortinbras’ these lines were cut: “For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune: / I have some rights of memory in this kingdom, / Which now to claim my vantage doth invite me.” (691-3), and with it Horatio’s ambitious answer was left out too: “Of that I shall have also cause to speak” and so on, 694-8). Laurence Olivier’s film version in 1948 strengthened this ambitious Horatio. As Fortinbras’ role was cut, he fulfilled it, and Horatio said Fortinbras’ last words and put him on the role of the new king. Peter Brook emphasized the importance of the role too in his direction in 2000 in Paris too, Horatio opened and closed the performance [68]. In the Bárka Theatre he was Hamlet’s playmate, with whom he did the clown jokes together. In those four performances, I watched, there were not any reference to Horatio as a politician.

Claudius of the script

The line of Cornelius-Voltimand emphasizes Claudius as a politician and a “good king”, and its leaving makes it weaker. When the king makes decisions in connection with Polonius’ death, as a good strategist he tries to save himself and Hamlet too. This tactical Claudius was less stressed because of the cuts (the lines of 4.1.1-3, 13-22, 32-46 were cut). From the 4.3. Claudius’ speech (77-87) was cut, which would prove his political insightful. He knows that Hamlet is popular, his punishment would get a political meaning too and the scandal would fall back on his own head. Claudius’ plan about the killing of Hamlet became shorter by half (the lines of 4.3.130-3, 135 -139 were cut). From the scene, 4.5. the king’s situation analysis about the loss was cut (4.5.295-314). He evaluates the situation again as a good politician (he notes for example that: “For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly, In hugger-mugger to inter him”). He understands the situation well, meanwhile Laertes first blames the king for his father’s death.

Claudius and Laertes’ scene (4.7) is shorter, in which Laertes blames the king for the impunity of Hamlet’s murdering act, and then they plan the duel. Claudius’ reasoning to Laertes was cut too, about the reason of the leaving of Hamlet’s punishment (the enlisted reasons: his passion towards Gertrud and Hamlet’s popularity, 474-493). Claudius’ lines to Laertes about the fact that Hamlet can be punished just trapped were cut too. In the scene Claudius mentions a story, according to which Mr. Lamord has praised Laertes’ fencing abilities in front of Hamlet and this made him jealous (526-576 were cut). From this memory comes the idea of the duel and of the poisoning foil. The making of the plan itself was cut (526-576), Carroll used only its summary. So in the script we could find fewer parts, which would refer to Claudius as a king, who handles well the foreign- and domestic policy, to his logic with the tools of Machiavellianism.

In the performance, thanked for the cuts in the script too, Claudius as a ruler was not emphasized, the play was mostly about the family’s relationships. Claudius and Gertrud’s relationship is intimate, tender and full of eroticism in all the four performances (either Zoltán Seress – Olga Varjú or Attila Egyed – Kriszta Szorcsik performed the roles). As the performance showed the actions mostly through the dialogues, Claudius (especially when Zoltán Seress played it) showed overall a multi-faced man, who was not a psychologically motivated Machiavellian all through performance.

Gertrud and Ophelia of the script

The two female roles of the script, however, there were cuts in connection with both Gertrud and Ophelia’s texts too, were not changed significantly, and their meanings remained the same on the level of the text. The reason for it, that in case of all men roles, the political and intriguer lines were shortened, and we could find similar things in connection with the female characters. In the performance the play, which was showed in connection with Hamlet’s relationship to the women is ambivalent. Balázs in the performance in July, in the bedroom scene, made an oedipal scene with Olga Varjú: there were hugging and kissing. In September, he had mostly aggressive behaviour: at the beginning of the bedroom scene Balázs pushed a rusty scissors to Olga Varjú’s neck. With Kinga Mezei (Ophelia) in the performance in July he formed a spiritual and physical relationship (we could see the choreography of a sexual affair in the funeral scene, 5.1), in June they played like kids with each other, in September, with provocative Nóra Parti he was dismissive instead.

The actors and the Mousetrap

Hamlet is theatre about theatre. The performance of Bárka Theatre played with the mechanism of theatre and the combinatory of theatrical elements. In connection with theatrical reflexivity the director made those elements to be the part of the script, which were usually cut in English theatre traditions. The meeting with the actors remained in the script, Pyrrhus’ long speech (the rehearsal of theatre in theatre), Hamlet’s crucial Hecuba-speech, Hamlet’s advices to the actors and the greater part of the silent play and Gonzago play too.

The cuts were mostly in connection with the theatre of that time. From the meeting scene with the actors the characteristics of types of actors (2.2.452-458) and a part of those lines, which were about the affairs of contemporary theatre (475-489) and Hamlet’ joke about the handshake with the actors (496-500) were cut. Hamlet’s jokes about the contemporary conventions and his statements about the boy actors were not in the script (2.2.548-558). From Polonius’ historico-pastoral speech (2.2.523-528) the last line: “For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men”, however (summarised in a line) it would be very characteristic for the Hamlet performance in Bárka. Carroll may have cut this line, because Polonius’ line must have connected the actors of Bárka with the actors from the play. As Polonius’ words are about a troupe, the performing method of which (the product of an earlier performance) was parodied by Hamlet too (3.2), this comparison would have reduce the performance to a simple scheme, which would have worked against the director’s conception, which was in favour of plurality.

Hamlet’s introduction got shorter at the Pyrrhus speech (the lines 2.2.562-575 were cut), only the lines of: “I heard thee speak me a speech once (...) 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido” remained. In the part, which was cut, Hamlet analysed the play as a critic (“twas caviare to the general.”), as it did not get into the script, there was a less talkative, analyser Hamlet than in the drama was. The Pyrrhus speech itself was told on the stage, both by Hamlet and by the first actor too. For Carroll it was important to have that long, rhetoric speech, which is similar to the parody of style. On one hand it could be a perfect possibility of performance to the actors, on the other hand it would precede one of the key scene of the play, Hamlet speech about Hecuba, in which he compared his own situation to phenomenon of theatrical experiencing and effect. David Kastan wrote, that Hamlet, as we could learn it from his classical styled advices to the actors (3.2), believed in the mimetic and didactic function of art, and he tried to identify with Pyrrhus, the famous vengeful boy of Virgil (2.2.562-650). But the exercise was not successful because Hamlet found out that on the base of poetic, which was built on imitation, he could reach only the repetition of the sin. In his Hecuba speech (2.2.678-740) he admired the actor’s abilities, whose art was not about the art of repetition: “What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, / That he should weep for her? What would he do, / Had he the motive and the cue for passion / That I have?” (2.2.688-691).

Hamlet was unsatisfied with his own performance as an actor in his Hecuba speech, in the next step he got to the realization that the tool to get the evidence would be theatre (“I'll have grounds More relative than this: the play 's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.” 2.2.738-740). When Hamlet told, that: “I have heard / That guilty creatures sitting at a play / Have by the very cunning of the scene / Been struck so to the soul that presently / They have proclaim'd their malefactions” (2.2.723-26), he referred to the mechanism of action of the contemporary theatre theory. As Edward Burns wrote about it, the era of Elisabeth knew many stories, in which the viewers admitted their own sinful story because of the effect of the performance. Thomas Heywood, a contemporary play writer, mentioned two similar stories as an example for the moral benefits of theatre, which was attacked much because of moral issues. As the scene of Mouthtrap pointed it out, the mechanism of the effect of theatre cannot be planned so evidently, as Hamlet imagined it, and as Heywood stated it. The acceptance of the importance of the Hecuba speech, that the director did not cut even a line from it, he turned the attention towards the operating of theatre. In the speech, as Robert Weimann wrote it, the actor did not identify perfectly with his role, he told it to himself as an actor, and reflected on the question of identification. Carroll’s performance, according to this interpretation, showed us always the actor, who was working on the formation of the situation. According to Weimann, the mimesis was not the product itself, but the process, where the actor was always more than the closed representation of the role.

An unpredictable shocking moment of theatrical effect was born in the performance in June, not long after the scene of Mouthtrap when one of the viewers was so affected by the performance, which he was watching carefully, that he got an attack of epilepsy. Balázs’ performance moved in theatre rarely experienced physical, emotional and intellectual energies in the viewers. For an actor, that kind of performance could be very demanding physically, where he hanged upside down as a bat, on the barrier of the balcony or did acrobatic exercises on a chair, lived always in movements and activity, while he was telling the hardest text of drama literature. It was a great achievement especially because he did not do it following the director’s orders, but he set it for himself every evening. It required the closed contact with the viewers, the acceptance of those, who wanted to play, the high level of empathy, concentration and emotional intelligence. The intellectual challenges of Hamlet, the games of words, and rhetorical turns of the 19th century were enough on their own too.

Hamlet’s advice to the actors remained in the script too, just the last lines were cut, in which Hamlet would make that actor hit, who is “more Herod like, than Herod” (3.2.215-216). The Hamlet of Bárka was a performance, which reflected well on performing, so those parts were not cut, which criticized the actors’ mannerism (3.2.218-240). The counterpart of that critic, which we could hear the most, (clowning, too much improvisation) in connection with the performance, could not be found in the script (241-247), Hamlet gave there advices to the clown: “And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.” The cut must have been according to the same logic as the line by Polonius, which has already been mentioned, which he said about the actors (“For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men"). The difference from the text and sensationalist making the viewers laugh would have served as easy analogy to compare it with the performance of Bárka Theatre. There were examples for both, especially by the greatest clown, by Zoltán Balázs, who played Hamlet. Hamlet’s prescriptive lines got the meaning of a parody of themselves, if the actor, who played Hamlet in the performance, accepted the role of the possible clown. Balázs exploited this possibility: he played with the tools, he made acrobatic tricks, made fun of the other characters, spoke to the viewers, he played with them. Thanked for the missing advice, the viewers could not connect Hamlet to the role of the clown, whom he condemned, but they could see him formed the clown. The self-mockery reflection was not there.

The photo of rehearsal, silent performance

Carroll kept the silent performance as the part of theatrical reflection, he played pantomime with or without masks, we could see stylised movement theatre. The dramaturgical role of the silent performance is mysterious, as the performance, which was built on dialogues (the Mousetrap), repeated what we could see in the silent performance. So directors usually choose one of them with the title of the Mousetrap. As we could learn it from Ágnes Matuska’s writing, this point of view of using one of them, characterised the film adaptations of the play too. Between the films, which have been studied, only the one, which was made from Tom Stoppard’s play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead, used the dramatic element of both the silent performance and the Mousetrap. Those performances, which were interested in the meta drama of the play and its self-reflection, built consciously on the seemingly redundancy, which could get many possibility of interpretation and play anyway. Ádam Nádasdy emphasised four possibilities: 1. the king does not listen to, 2. the silent performance is stylised, it is hard to understand, 3. from the silent performance the line of relationships is not clear, 4. the king understands it, but at this point he can control himself.

In the performance under the silent part Claudius took care mostly about Gertrud, so he did not listen to most of the time. When he watched the theatre with interest, it was usually during the performance with texts. The situation forced him anyway into a static situation (into a dramatic trap), Ophelia’s words indicated clearly when the king could stand up, (When Lucianus pours the poison into the sleeping man’s ear), so if he understood it before, he could not move anyway. As Claudius did not reflected on the Gonzago play and its effects by words, the actor could react with mimics and gestures. It is hard to give the description of the king’s reactions, because the scene of the Mousetrap divided the viewers’ attention, while similarly to Hamlet they had to watch the king’s reaction, the Gonzago play went simultaneously with Hamlet’s solo performance. Hamlet trapped himself too in the Mousetrap. The simultaneous happenings divided his attention too (the division of the viewers’ attention is the dramatic version of it), Ophelia and not he told that the king stood up. Meanwhile Hamlet thought the theatrical trap successful, the king did not make a confession, as the characters of Heywood’s story did. In spite of Hamlet’s all revealing intention, he could not get obvious evidence. It could not be decided how the king understood the happenings (he accepted it as the mentioning of the past, he connected himself with Lucianus, or he saw Hamlet in Lucianus, who played the king’s nephew according to his role, and unsderstood it as a threat of the future). We could not know how mimetic this inside performance was. As W.W. Greg pointed it out, it was not for sure that the Ghost told the story of the murder precisely according to all the circumstances.

Hamlet of the script

The speaker with the most amount of texts of Shakespeare’s longest play, could not avoid that barber. What was missing form Hamlet? What did not we learn from him? Hamlet himself warned us for his ununderstandable nature in the scene of the flute (3.2), when he told Guildenstern: “You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery” (...) but “yet you cannot play upon me.” From this mysterious Hamlet the following elements were cut.

There was not in the script Hamlet’s bloodthirsty speech in which he planned the murder of the mother from the end of 3.2. (585-597): “Tis now the very witching time of night, / When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out / Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood, / And do such bitter business as the day / Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother. / O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever / The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom” and so on. As the previous planning of murdering was not in the script, Hamlet was shown to be less conscious and less mature in connection with his plans. Parallel with it, Zoltán Balázs’ performance was not characterised by psychological construction, plans in advance, but by spontaneous reaction, and play with the possibilities. Carroll left less from the planning and manipulative Hamlet of the dramatic text in the script, and with it he strengthened the improviser Hamlet on the level of the text too.

In the bedroom scene, after the appearance of the Ghost, the speeches got shorter with more lines (3.4.823-4, 829-834, 835-837, 838-40, 852-6, 864-8). There are especially more cuts from Hamlet’s moral advices to his mother. The advices were told, but many explaining and additional parts were missing from the script, for example about the nature of habit and good intention (873 -878, 881-886, 890 -894), and the parable about the birds was cut too (904-11). From Glick’s study we could learn, that over the centuries between the common cuts in theatre could be found Hamlet’s longer thinking around a given problem (these are the following: about drunkenness 1.4., about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s fate 3.4., about the connection between Polonius and the worms 4.3., his philosophy about the courtier’s skull and Alexander the Great 5.1., Hamlet’s report about his travel to England to Horatio and his apology for Laertes 5.2.). Carroll also cut the parts of 1.4., 3.4. 5.1.

Horatio and Hamlet’s dialogue gives the possible interpretation of a cynical Hamlet, which is at the beginning of the scene after Ophelia’s funeral (5.2.294-6). We could not know what did the phare “So much for this” refers to, but if it does to Ophelia’s funeral, than an uninterested Hamlet in connection with Ophelia’s happenings, enters at the beginning of 5.2.:

HAMLET

So much for this, sir: now shall you see the other; You do remember all the circumstance?

HORATIO

Remember it, my lord?

Carroll cut these lines from the script, so the actor had fewer possibilities on the level of the text to show Hamlet’s cruel face too. Balázs’ play anyway, depending on the (especially with the actresses, who played Ophelia and Gertrud) scenes and the evenings, could be hurtful, threatening and cruel. In the performance in September, at the beginning of the bedroom scene (3.4.) Balázs pushed a rusty scissors to Olga Varjú’s neck, and used physical violence many times.

Hamlet’s strategic thinking could be recognised mostly in connection with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s and besides them, with Claudius’ role. His relation to the courtiers was ambivalent from their first scene (2.2). On the one hand the tone is friendly and intimate but on the other hand it was characterised by distrust. Hamlet thought, then learnt that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were there around him because of the royal couple’s rule, they were called in. In their new scene (3.2.) after the Mousetrap, the courtiers’ task became more obvious, and in proportion with it, Hamlet was more hostile. From the hostile tone, many elements were out, for example a reference to the courtiers’ political ideas. According to Rosencrantz the inheritance was the main reason for Hamlet’s strange behaviour, Hamlet answered with a proverb for it (3.2.535-542). From the second part of the flute scene (3.2.543-69) some lines were out too in the script (543-8). Another addition was cut from Hamlet’s hostile tone and Guildenstern’s politeness (the missing parts from the script I marked with brackets).

ROSENCRANTZ

My lord, you once did love me.

HAMLET
So I do still, (by these pickers and stealers.) O, the recorders! let me see one. (To withdraw with you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERN

O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLET

I do not well understand that.) Will you play upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERN

My lord, I cannot.

After the king decided to send Hamlet to England, because he thought him more and more dangerous, Carroll left out Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s speech, which was worthy of courtiers, it was about the nature of the king’s safety. According to the script we got fewer from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s political statements, the lines of 3.3.602-624 were out. They were more harmless in the script than in the drama. This more harmless reading brought the script closer to Tom Stoppard’s interpretation, according to him the courtiers were more similar to “confused innocent” people than to Claudius’ “hired men”.

It was an important change that the first part of Hamlet’s last monologue (3.4.917-933) about the trapping of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (917-926) from the third act was cut. This monologue was only in the second quarto, its presence showed a more calculating and vengeful Hamlet than the one in the folio or the script:” There's letters seal'd: and my two schoolfellows, / Whom I will trust as I will adders fang'd, / They bear the mandate; they must sweep my way, / And marshal me to knavery. Let it work; / For 'tis the sport to have the engineer / Hoist with his own petard: and 't shall go hard / But I will delve one yard below their mines, / And blow them at the moon: O, 'tis most sweet, / When in one line two crafts directly meet.”

In this so called fire master speech Hamlet thought in the 3.4., that what must have been in Claudius’ official letter (for the content of which, Claudius referred to only in 4.3.). When Hamlet talked about how to send the courtiers to the moon, he was planning to get Rosencrantz and Guildenstern into their own trap. Anything could be in the royal trap, Hamlet could know or not that they brought his capital sentence in it, the same thing happened to the courtiers that would happen with him. So Hamlet did not plan obviously their death, but it could be in the game too, it depended on the fate, which was planned to him by the king. Hamlet in the quarto and the courtiers too were more calculating than in the folio.

The sponge scene remained in the script (4.2.), where all friendly parts were lost from Hamlet’s speech; he left Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for all the time, to whom, according to him the king’s support could give content. The beginning of the scene 5.2. got shorter, and the Hamlet of the script spoke shorter about the courtiers’ death. They got fewer explanation and devastating sentence (the parts in brackets were cut, 356-360).

HORATIO

So Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to't.

HAMLET

Why, man, they did make love to this employment; / They are not near my conscience; (their defeat Does by their own insinuation grow: 'Tis dangerous when the baser nature comes Between the pass and fell incensed points Of mighty opposites. )

Thanked for the fact that Carroll brought the script closer to the folio, in the relationship between Hamlet and the courtiers there were more comic things. To get the effect of a more harmless Hamlet-courtiers, Stoppard left out the firemaster speech of the quarto from his play, and even that flute scene, which in a cut form could be found in the script of Bárka Theatre. Thanked for the stressing of the script, in Hamlet and the courtiers’ interactions, the clowning was the ruler part. Hamlet made mostly fun of them, and when they revealed (when Hamlet learnt that they were called), it seemed to be school-like bust instead. At the same time (contrary to Stoppard) Carroll did not cut all those parts from the dramatic text, which referred to the courtiers’ mission. In the performance depending on it, the courtiers were balancing between the reaction of the dutiful sycophants and of friends, who got a political exercise.

The monologue of: “How all occasions do inform against me And spur my dull revenge!” (4.4.), which was only in the quarto, could be connected well to the strategic thinker Hamlet’s picture of the quarto. According to Paul Werstine in this scene Hamlet, while he was thinking about Fortinbras, found motivation for himself for the fulfilment of revenge, in the name of honour: “Rightly to be great / Is not to stir without great argument, / But greatly to find quarrel in a straw / When honour's at the stake. / How stand I then, / That have a father kill'd, a mother stain'd, / Excitements of my reason and my blood, / And let all sleep? (...) O, from this time forth, / My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!” Hamlet in the folio, only in the second scene of the fifth act talked about his motivation, when he told to Horatio: “Does it not, think'st thee, stand me now upon-- / He that hath kill'd my king and whored my mother, / Popp'd in between the election and my hopes, / Thrown out his angle for my proper life, / And with such cozenage--is't not perfect conscience, / To quit him with this arm?” This part was in the quarto too, the following part was only in the folio anyway: “and is't not to be damn'd, / To let this canker of our nature come In further evil? (...) “the interim is mine; / And a man's life's no more than to say 'One.'” (5.2.367- 72). According to Werstine for Hamlet in the folio, the stake was the salvation, while in the quarto it was the thinking in honour.

In Bárka, he thought mostly in theatrical situations. The experimental performance was built on a conservative script that followed strictly the dramatic text. The playfulness of the performance came from the discovery and re-formation of the traditions. Carroll traced back the improvisation and the activation of the viewers to the conventions of the contemporary theatres of Shakespeare’s time, and the loyalty of the script to the dramatic text could free energies of the traditions for the viewers of theatre of today. The formation of the script of Bárka, showed us punctual Shakespeare philological and theatre historical knowledge. The techniques of edition were characterized by restraint, which was on behalf of usage of possibilities, which were encoded in the dramatic text (in connection with cuts, role consolidation, transcription, insertion, edition of scenes and so on).

Carroll’s script shows us, that the method of performing, as he has found it out, built on playful improvisation that doubts the canonical readings, can work effectively, when it is built on a classical text. As Melinda Sőregi wrote it, “the troupe of Bárka tried to treat Hamlet as a rite text, which does not need any reasoning.” Besides its rite text nature, at the formation of the script it did not mean to be untouchable. Carroll treats Hamlet as a text of theatre, and cuts it bravely. Arany’s translation is 3914 lines, from the script about 1300 lines were cut, which results in a script with 2614 lines (so about 66 percent of the translation remain). If we compare the script with the 3570 lines of the folio of Hamlet, to which Carroll has brought closer Arany’s translation, then the script is 73 percent of the text of the folio.

The director and the dramaturg’s cuts are conceptual, which remained in and out of the script, are in connection with the director’s interpretation. The script of Bárka, because of the changes of the translation shows us a less strategic Hamlet, a less outstanding Horatio, a less intriguing Polonius, a less manoeuvring Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and a less politician Claudius. There were cuts in Gertrud and Ophelia’s texts too, but compared to the below ones, they did not lose their nuances based on the text. The ghost of the script usually kept its ambiguity. The scenes of “theatre in theatre”, the texts about theatre remained mostly in this performance, where the working of theatre and actors, the viewers’ increased involvement were in the centre of the performance.

The script moved the text obviously towards the folio of Hamlet. Carroll cut all texts, which were only in the second quarto, except for three of them. Those parts of the quarto, like the speech of the firemaster and those, which were in the folio too, for example 3.2., the cut of the monologue that was about the planning of the murdering of the mother, resulted in a less provident and strategic Hamlet in the script on the level of translation. With this Carroll made the base of the improvising Hamlet with the text too. More surprisingly the speech of 4.4. “How all occasions do inform against me”, which was only in the quarto, remained there, and with it at this point broke the dominance of the folio, and brought in another motivation, the honour as the reason of acting, with the example of Fortinbras. As the result of the cuts, less remained of Hamlet, who made quick generalization from the parts, and who proned to rhetorical detours.

The exercises could be very punctually circumscribed, we could talk about the Ghost revenge-script, the performance of the Mousetrap or the staging of Hamlet, the text could be the most secure constant thing and the always-changing one too. Shakespeare’s Hamlet has more versions, which remained for us, many edition traditions have changed the versions. In the theatre the dramatic text could be the fix starting point anyway, about which during the performing has turned out how unfixable it is. The same dialogue can be born on stage in very contradictory situations on the stage, it is formed by unexpected situations, and the performance can never be the same. Especially in case of a performance, which is similar to Carroll’s, who aimfully deleted the fixed things. His theatre introduces us the moment of birth and its unrepeatability. If we could not experience the moment of birth on the stage, than it happened against the conception. The performance could have remained on program, but in the scale of performances, accidentally there were some elements, which were fixed, the combinatory of the performance seemed to be finite. The greatest enemy of improvisation theatre that is based on fixed text is the scale of performances itself, from which repetition can be hardly deleted. The importance of Carroll’s theatrical experiment cannot be found in the fact if the performance can defeat repetition and fixed things, but in the fact of revealing the mechanisms of theatre, which part can be fixing and improvisation, the performance and the process too.

Júlia Paraizs, apertúra, 2007

(translated by: Veronika Fülöp)