Why Hamlet is the every actor wants to play
With the news that Ruth Negga is set to take on Hamlet later this year, Maggie Armstrong attends rehearsals for a new take on the classic, and finds out why it’s the role every actor wants to play
In a room down a quiet street in north Dublin, two men are sword-fighting to the sound of trumpets. They have no shirts on. There is also a Trinity College Dublin professor and a Great Dane called Mr Darcy. The Great Dane is in Shakespearean dress.
Welcome to the run-through of The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane. This can only be a Pan Pan play, and with a Great Dane wandering the room in a ruff collar, it can only be Hamlet — or Pan Pan’s inquisitive take on Shakespeare’s tragedy of a Danish prince who sets out to avenge his father’s death.
The long-standing Dublin theatre company first premiered The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane in 2010 and have since toured it around the world. This week it plays in the Abbey for five performances.
Hamlet is supposedly the career-defining, life-changing theatrical role. As Uncle Monty noted, the most shattering moment in a man’s life is when he wakes and realises “I will never play the Dane.”
In Pan Pan’s remake, the ambition to play the Dane is turned into a competitive sport. In Act I the audience auditions three Hamlet actors and votes for who should play Hamlet in Act II. The three actors are Fionn Walton, Anthony Morris and Conor Madden — who, it turns out, has played Hamlet before.
“I got injured,” he says, and pauses. “I was stabbed in the face.”
At this point I notice he is wearing an eye patch.
“I got a brain injury. No one believes me when I say that.”
“No one believes you,” says director Gavin Quinn, shuffling Conor onto the rehearsal stage. Moments later Conor is cursing this “foul and pestilent congregation of vapours”, shouting, “What a piece of work is a man!” while Mr Darcy, a dog the size of a lion, growls.
What is the appeal of playing a character as miserable as Hamlet? “Hamlet is the first great antihero; the self-reflective, soul-searching protagonist,” says Quinn. “It’s a very modern character, that lends itself to an incredible feat.”
Hamlet quotes were coming thick and fast in the news last week with the announcement that Ruth Negga — who also worked with Pan Pan on Oedipus Loves You — is to play Hamlet at the Gate in September, directed by Yaël Farber. Conor Madden has also been cast in the ensemble. But let’s get back to what he just said.
Outside, the actor sits down and takes off the eye patch. His left eye turns outward. The 31-year old from Clare was just 23 when Second Age theatre company cast him as Hamlet. It was the evening before opening night in the Everyman in Cork. They had reached the last scene and Hamlet was duelling with Laertes, played by Aonghus Óg McAnally. They got too close. “Come, for the third, Laertes: you do but dally,” was Conor’s last goading line before the solid metal rapier pierced his eye and he fell to the ground. He remembers lying before the audience, trying to say “ambulance”. He remained in hospital for four months with what neurologists diagnosed as a brain injury, and in rehab for another five months.
“Unfortunately, I have permanent double vision and permanent ataxia,” he says. “There are lots of other effects. Depression, anxiety, vertigo. A traumatic brain injury is a kind of stroke.”
He has heard different medical theories as to how the blunted tip of the stage weapon impacted his brain. “One is that the sword pierced the eye and the energy of the travelling sword did the damage. Or I could have fallen and banged my head. They don’t know. The scans show what looks like a bullet wound.”
Hamlet nearly finished his career, but he wasn’t finished with Hamlet. While he was in hospital he was on the phone to a theatre director about a play he had been cast in. That director was Gavin Quinn and the play was The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane. In 2011, six months after the accident, Conor was back on stage. They toured Australia, New Zealand, the US, China and Korea. Eerily, they brought the show to the Everyman and Conor stood at the same spot where he had been injured, facing another Laertes with a sword.
“I remember turning to the actor, saying ‘do not stab me in the f ***** face.’ It’s PTSD. I was twitchy.”
He did get an out-of-court settlement from Second Age. In the initial years following the accident he was often out of work, surviving on writing gigs as he came to terms with his injury.
He describes how at times, he was “horrible” to his family. “I was reflecting my inside to my outside. Omitting horribleness, because I felt horrible. Your identity is wrapped up in who you are. I was a sprinter. I rode mountain bikes. When your identity is taken away from you it shakes you. You hate yourself.”
In auditions he can get nervous when he finds that he can’t perform the tricks that were his calling card. Except when the audition is for Hamlet — as his upcoming part alongside Negga shows. He feels he has a kind of unfinished business with the play. He wrote two ‘shows in a bag’ for Fishamble which were, of course, about Hamlet: U-RHAMLET and U-R-HAMLET-TOO. “I love this bastard play and I’m so excited,” he says.
He has married his teenage sweetheart, actress Zara Starr. “She stood by me through everything. She is an amazing woman.” Another who stood by him is his old on-stage adversary, Aonghus Óg McAnally — a “gentleman” and a “rock.”
But of his brain injury, he says, “I wish it didn’t happen, simple as.”
Back in the rehearsal room, it’s Mr Darcy’s turn to shine. “Amanda, do you have your bondage gear on?” asks Quinn and Professor Amanda Piesse stands with the Great Dane strapped to her waist as she gives a short lecture on Hamlet folios. She then takes out a whistle and plays a thin rendition of ‘Green Sleeves.’
All the actors stand solemnly holding copies of Hamlet. There are seasoned Pan Pan performers — Daniel Reardon, Andrew Bennett, Gina Moxley — and fresh-faced, such as Anna Sheils McNamee as Ophelia (“Goodnight ladies, sweet ladies, goodnight,” she drawls).
There is also a play within a play at this rehearsal inside a rehearsal. On the Abbey stage, nine teenagers from Dublin Youth Theatre will perform a short version of Hamlet.
“The concept of the show is to make something that’s very alive. That’s not dead,” says Quinn. “When Shakespeare is spoken well, it should feel like sweets coming out of your mouth.”
Act II will situate the play in a graveyard with an overarching Beckettian feel. Thirty metal bins now fill the stage, a loud wink to Beckett’s Endgame.
Soon the actors are crouched in the bins telling personal Hamlet anecdotes. Dan Reardon recalls seeing Richard Burton’s Hamlet in New York in 1964 (“Some people wondered whether Richard Burton was drunk”). Anthony Morris describes quoting Shakespeare at Wesley disco to impress girls. For Conor, it’s that time he was wounded on stage.
And he is back having another sword fight, roaring “a villain killed my father and for that I this villain send to heaven!” This time the swords are plastic, with ball tips. But how does it feel to wield the sword now?
“It’s wild. Lots of actors say playing Hamlet changed their life. Maybe I’m the only guy on the planet who can really say playing Hamlet changed my life.”
The Rehearsal, Playing the Dane runs at the Abbey Theatre until May 26