The Magnetic North Theatre Festival in Canada currently taking place in my city Calgary is coming to a close. After seeing shows such as Ignorance and White Rabbit, Red Rabbit (both of which deserve a blog of their own)I had heard that the not-to-miss show of the festival was Hamlet (Solo). It is exactly what it sounds like: one actor (Raoul Bhaneja) performing all of William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Certainly it sounds impressive--just on premise alone, it's a circus act. This
play has undergone 6 years of performance already and has been
workshopped since 2002.The actor and director (Robert Ross Parker)consider going back to the masterwork again and again a gift.
The play starts with an all-dressed-in-black Bhaneja calmly placing himself center stage calling "lights". Lights come up (onstage and in the audience) and he even provides the sound effects of the whistling winds that open the play. The stage is bare. We soon see from the play's conversation between Bernardo and Franciso how Bhaneja is going to craft this world for us. For each character he has a specific set of physical gestures and stances, as well as subtle differences in vocal quality and tone. All the props are mimed. Bhaneja speaks straight out to the audience for the majority of the play and each character would switch when it was their turn to speak. I felt as though I was watching the play through tunnel vision.
The play requires immense imagination and focus. I cannot even begin to fathom how Bhaneja must feel imagining he is speaking to different characters as different characters from line to line or from setting to setting without any aid. It challenges the audience to imagine and focus with the actor, to go along with the gig. Bhaneja accomplishes this with ease with master transitions physically and vocally that mimic that of a film camera moving around set. The Ghost of Hamlet Senior closes his arms as he exits, and the disturbed Hamlet hugs himself as he falls to the ground contemplating what he's just seen. Claudius makes bold, open gestures; Polonius is a bit hunched over, his legged apart (perhaps chaffed from old age) and Hamlet's physicality is often pointed and indirect. Hamlet's voice is the least affected by Bhaneja and for me he is the most real of them all, even if at first, he is the most timid. It is after Hamlet sees the Ghost that his character explodes: That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—/At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark 1.5.108-9). He slaps himself against his cheek with each order to "smile" and the self-abuse in his soliloquies is a motif throughout the production. Bhaneja's Hamlet is manic, destructive, and tortured.
The play starts with an all-dressed-in-black Bhaneja calmly placing himself center stage calling "lights". Lights come up (onstage and in the audience) and he even provides the sound effects of the whistling winds that open the play. The stage is bare. We soon see from the play's conversation between Bernardo and Franciso how Bhaneja is going to craft this world for us. For each character he has a specific set of physical gestures and stances, as well as subtle differences in vocal quality and tone. All the props are mimed. Bhaneja speaks straight out to the audience for the majority of the play and each character would switch when it was their turn to speak. I felt as though I was watching the play through tunnel vision.
The play requires immense imagination and focus. I cannot even begin to fathom how Bhaneja must feel imagining he is speaking to different characters as different characters from line to line or from setting to setting without any aid. It challenges the audience to imagine and focus with the actor, to go along with the gig. Bhaneja accomplishes this with ease with master transitions physically and vocally that mimic that of a film camera moving around set. The Ghost of Hamlet Senior closes his arms as he exits, and the disturbed Hamlet hugs himself as he falls to the ground contemplating what he's just seen. Claudius makes bold, open gestures; Polonius is a bit hunched over, his legged apart (perhaps chaffed from old age) and Hamlet's physicality is often pointed and indirect. Hamlet's voice is the least affected by Bhaneja and for me he is the most real of them all, even if at first, he is the most timid. It is after Hamlet sees the Ghost that his character explodes: That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain—/At least I am sure it may be so in Denmark 1.5.108-9). He slaps himself against his cheek with each order to "smile" and the self-abuse in his soliloquies is a motif throughout the production. Bhaneja's Hamlet is manic, destructive, and tortured.
Another of the play's accomplishments is it's links to performativity that already permeates the play: the idea that we are
always playing a character or role in our daily lives and that those switch depending on who we surround ourselves with, or what we
want.Before the Murder of Gonzalo takes place onstage, Bhaneja takes a sear in the audience with us, referring to us all as the "guilty creatures sitting at a play"(2.2.552).
But despite Bhaneja's character Hamlet and the play's dabbling in contemporary modern theory--that is sure to delight me on any occasion--Hamlet (Solo) falls short of spectacular. And I was upset at myself during intermission trying to piece together why I wasn't staggering out of the theatre, drunk with glee. I listened to some volunteers discuss it in the lobby:
"It's a very cohesive story, the most cohesive and understandable I think I've ever seen of Hamlet". That is very true. Bhaneja's grasp of the text and its language are exquisite. He is "expressive" and "divine in reason" even!
"It's too self-indulgent for me." LIGHTBULB. Is it?
No. It's not. I went back into the theatre and took my seat. I watched the second act. There was a standing ovation. I obliged. And then there was a talk-back with Bhaneja and Parker and I asked, "How did you find the emotional transitions as an actor? Did you feel limited? Did you find you couldn't fully go anywhere, because in a millisecond you'd have to be somewhere else?" His answer to me was that is was difficult, but it was like riding a roller-coaster. He just went where he needed to be and he calls himself the play's "storyteller" rather than any particular character. He admits that some nights he has better Claudius than others, a better Ophelia, a better Laertes, what-have-you. And he said the word storyteller and I thought: That's it! I didn't want to be told a story. I wanted to be shown one.
It is tragically ironic that what makes the show so unique is what makes it unavoidably disappointing for me. While it has a clear vision, it is a vision that is less rich because there's only one point of view--the solo actors approach to each character. It's not self-indulgent enough because Bhanjei isn't able to fully drop into anyone character. Instead, he has to rely on stock gestures, physicalities, vocal qualities and personalities for his characters to distinguish them for the audience. Of course, Claudius makes sweeping hand motions and of course Ophelia turns the fabric of her shirt nervously in her hands. Of course the females aren't real, fully-realized characters at all: they are meek and soft-spoken, even in their time of madness! The result of this one-act circus show is menagerie of stock characters usually reserved for melodramas.
But despite Bhaneja's character Hamlet and the play's dabbling in contemporary modern theory--that is sure to delight me on any occasion--Hamlet (Solo) falls short of spectacular. And I was upset at myself during intermission trying to piece together why I wasn't staggering out of the theatre, drunk with glee. I listened to some volunteers discuss it in the lobby:
"It's a very cohesive story, the most cohesive and understandable I think I've ever seen of Hamlet". That is very true. Bhaneja's grasp of the text and its language are exquisite. He is "expressive" and "divine in reason" even!
"It's too self-indulgent for me." LIGHTBULB. Is it?
No. It's not. I went back into the theatre and took my seat. I watched the second act. There was a standing ovation. I obliged. And then there was a talk-back with Bhaneja and Parker and I asked, "How did you find the emotional transitions as an actor? Did you feel limited? Did you find you couldn't fully go anywhere, because in a millisecond you'd have to be somewhere else?" His answer to me was that is was difficult, but it was like riding a roller-coaster. He just went where he needed to be and he calls himself the play's "storyteller" rather than any particular character. He admits that some nights he has better Claudius than others, a better Ophelia, a better Laertes, what-have-you. And he said the word storyteller and I thought: That's it! I didn't want to be told a story. I wanted to be shown one.
It is tragically ironic that what makes the show so unique is what makes it unavoidably disappointing for me. While it has a clear vision, it is a vision that is less rich because there's only one point of view--the solo actors approach to each character. It's not self-indulgent enough because Bhanjei isn't able to fully drop into anyone character. Instead, he has to rely on stock gestures, physicalities, vocal qualities and personalities for his characters to distinguish them for the audience. Of course, Claudius makes sweeping hand motions and of course Ophelia turns the fabric of her shirt nervously in her hands. Of course the females aren't real, fully-realized characters at all: they are meek and soft-spoken, even in their time of madness! The result of this one-act circus show is menagerie of stock characters usually reserved for melodramas.
Longer speeches were more satifying because they allowed Bhaneja to better root himself and dig deeper and those were more satisfying. I prefer to see actors and people affected by other people. I like to see progression and internal struggles and canvases. I like to see a grounded, dropped-in, wholly realized character who thinks and breathes and lives,and feels--not a tantalizing snapshot of these things as possibilities. I want to see a character's motivation even if I don't quite understand it. I want to see thoughts--a crack into the bones of a person.
This play's focus on control isn't conducive to grounded work. Bhaneja called it a roller-coaster, but it's a ride I'm disinterested in because I don't care about the characters in a play I've so long loved. The play closed today, and if it comes to your city, I encourage you to see it. While I disagree with the fundamental drawbacks of a one-man Shakespeare, it is a feat both impressive and experimental.
I enclose a link to see a trailer of the play. Until next time, adieu.
http://www.magneticnorthfestival.ca/pages/whatson/plays/hamlet.html
I enclose a link to see a trailer of the play. Until next time, adieu.
http://www.magneticnorthfestival.ca/pages/whatson/plays/hamlet.html
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