By S. J. Litherland
In fair England I awoke to the heady notes of the rain. In my head were the fair words of Master Shakespeare, Warwickshire’s gift to the world and last night to the Durham village of Horden on the (former) North East Coaly Coast.
It was a rare night. A performance of the First Quarto (publication) of Hamlet. The apron stage was set in a modern Playhouse of beauty and rough scaffolding, our players a Company named Ensemble ’84 in memory of a certain date redolent in these parts. I take up my quill to praise them.
Here was Hamlet in the Bard’s first draft proving even genius has a road to follow, and that the greatest of poetry arrives by a stuttering start, in that famous soliloquy ‘To be or not to be’, the great lines leap out at you with their counterparts of later abandoned language. Summer rain indeed, much needed by plants and by people.
This was a fabulous earthy performance by the players. We could imagine England when theatre was king and inns and taverns welcomed travelling companies such as these, their mixed ethnicity in tune with the collective artistry of the renaissance, the ghost appears with the ferocity of a voodoo shaman, a brilliant note of real terror chanting and thrusting clashing symbols in his son’s face.
In the Mousetrap play within a play – to catch the conscience of the King – one actor delivers his part in Spanish. The fight scene with clashing poles is the best I have ever seen. It was a wonderful ensemble performance, that does full justice to the extraordinary presence of this great play as it once first spoke to its author.
I remember in the far realm of Uzbekistan (then part of the Soviet Union) fellow poets in Tashkent told visiting guests from Northern England that their Hamlet was translated from the Russian version of Boris Pasternak (Nobel Prize winning poet). “Hamlet is Uzbeki!” they claimed. All his deliberations of the soul were pure Uzbeki! When we perform the Bard, teach Shakespeare in our schools, and audiences turn up, we are honouring what the world reveres. This is more than culture. It is our heritage. Hats off to Horden.
An empty Catholic Church has become the Playhouse Theatre in Horden, home of Ensemble ’84. Debut production last year was Mother Courage and her Children by Bertolt Brecht. I hope they will reprise the play. Hamlet will run until June 6. Director is Mark Dornford-May, Associate Director Max Roberts. A local actor from Shotley Bridge, Joseph Hammal, is a fine Hamlet.
