PROJECT-HAMLET.INFO: The Audience

Thoth Tarot (Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris):
The Four of Wands – Completion
(image used by permission of the Ordo Templis Orientis, Secretary General/ International Headquarters,
Berlin, Germany)

Fortinbras – The Audience

[Nervous coughs and shuffles. Murmurs begin to rise, first tentatively, then solidifying into a thick carpet. Folks in the back rows start to get up and walk out into the lobby, to have a smoke or get a beer (or a coffee, or a soft drink, according to the addition of man and country). Although they had almost begun to actually buy into the "anchor versus central character" bit explained in connection with Horatio's character, now they're concluding that in fact, this production just works sort of like a rock concert, with one or a few minor acts preceding the major headliners.]

Because who really cares about Fortinbras, right? What's Fortinbras to us, or we to Fortinbras – heck, what's he got to do with anything? He's not even in Elsinore when all of these tragic events take place, right? First he's back home in Norway, where he gets a beating from his old, bedridden uncle for ever levying forces against Denmark in the first place, then he's graciously given leave to employ those same forces against Poland; and the only time we actually ever see him before the end of the play is when he and Hamlet – sort of, not even directly and according to the First Folio, even then not at all – cross paths while Hamlet is on his way to England and good ol' Forty is about to beat the hell out of "the Polack" (Shakespeare's words, not mine) over a piece of land not worth tuppence. And at the play's very end he only shows up after everybody else is dead. Well, yeah, everybody except Horatio; but so what? We know that Horatio doesn't have any truck with anybody else at Elsinore, so he's never in any danger for his life to begin with – it's actually a wonder he's still there after everything that's been going on. Now he'll surely want to be outta there for good, right? And there's an end to it.

Um, Sir – yes, you in the second to last row – would you mind either tossing those fries or finishing them outside? Madam, could I ask you to close that door behind you please and have a seat? Thanks very much. Now, then. Do I have everybody's attention? Good.

[Blank stares. Puzzled frowns. Bewildered "huh?"s from a few scattered seats here and there.]

Yes. And let me say that again: Fortinbras is all of us. Fortinbras is the audience; and the one charged with carrying on where others no longer could. He is the primary addressee of Horatio's story, and the heir to Hamlet's legacy. Fortinbras is you, at that moment when you first learned about slavery in the pre-Civil War South, or when you learned what really happened at My Lai, if you're American. Fortinbras is you at that moment when you first learned about Stalin's regime if you are Russian; when you learned about the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge if you're Cambodian; when you learned about Korean and Chinese "pleasure women" in World War II if you're Japanese; when you first saw Apartheid's ugly other face if you're South African and white; when you learned about the Reign of Terror following the glories of the 1789 Revolution if you're French; when you learned about Cromwell's policy towards Ireland, and about those on the sidelines of colonial India (i.e., virtually that country's own entire population) if you're British; and when you first learned about the dirty secrets of the Franco and Pinochet dictatorships if you're Spanish or Chilean. Fortinbras is me at that moment when I first learned about Hitler – and again each time I revisit the site of a concentration camp, or the slaughterhouse where Count Stauffenberg and his followers were – well – slaughtered after their failed coup, or an exhibition on the Third Reich, or anything else having to do with Germany's national socialist heritage and the entire political and historical baggage that made it possible in the first place. Fortinbras is, in other words (and without wanting to equate with each other any or even all of the examples of inhumanity I have just given), all of us at the moment when we first learned about the instances of grave injustice or atrocities committed in our own countries' past, which burden our societies to the present day and force us all to take a stand on them.

[Muffled gasps.] "Whoawhoawhoa," someone makes; and it sounds rather uncomfortable. "What are you up to now ... is this turning into some piece of political activism? 'Peoples, hearken the signal – arise for the last battle – the International fights for the Rights of Man'? Or 'Swords to Ploughshares,' or some such thing?"

Now, what exactly Fortinbras is going to make of Hamlet's legacy we never learn – only he himself would be able to tell us that, just as only each one of us for him- and herself can answer how we respond to the darker sides of the history of our own country. But ultimately, I think there's reason to hope. Because Fortinbras is also a foil to Hamlet. If you take a look at the constellation at his own, the Norwegian court, it's actually not so different from that of Denmark: The former King is dead, his brother is the new sovereign, and at the beginning of the play the young prince and heir to the throne is sitting behind an as-yet closed gate; huffing, puffing and scraping his hooves like a thoroughbred a few seconds before the flag goes up. But there is one substantial difference between Fortinbras and Hamlet, and it is this that produces at least a glimmer of hope on the Danish horizon: Whereas Hamlet, for all his obvious intelligence, for all his wrestling with his fate and his conscience – and never mind the question whether the odds he is facing aren't a bit overwhelming to begin with – ultimately comes very, very close to failure, and will never himself be able to reap the fruits of his struggle (and the reason for this is, at least in part, the fact that those choices that he does make are not always very wise; indeed, a large part of them are absolutely disastrous), Fortinbras's development shows a clear upward progression. From a young hotspur who impulsively makes preparations to invade Denmark to recover the lands lost by his father – despite the fact that that loss was sealed by contract and thus, while painful for Norway, ultimately sanctified by law – over the course of the play we hear how he develops into a brave, upright military leader, who indeed before bringing his army into Denmark on the way to Poland sends a messenger to the Danish King, to duly inform him that "by his license Fortinbras craves the conveyance of a promis'd march over his kingdom" – and when he finally returns from Poland, freshly crowned with a victor's laurels, and comes upon the scene of carnage at Elsinore, it is on his orders that Hamlet is put to his grave with fullest regal and millitary honours, because, as the Norwegian prince points out, "he was likely, had he been put on, to have prov'd most royally."

So if Fortinbras is so important after all, why is his part routinely the first one to be cut in an abridged version of the play; and why haven't I assigned his role to a specific actor (and one of note, at that)?

In answer to the first question, remember what I said on Horatio's character page about the way "Hamlet" is structured, with its several layers (or circles), from the outermost one of playwright and audience, connected to the main level (Hamlet and the royal clan, Polonius's family and most other characters) by Horatio's person, to the innermost circle with the Players and their monologues. Since Fortinbras symbolically stands for the audience, he – like Horatio – is a link between the play's outermost and its central level. That said, however, now consider how you would go about paring the tragedy down to its principal elements if you absolutely had to. I'll wager you'd hardly be able to do without the Players; nor, for obvious reasons, without Hamlet and his immediate family, as well as Polonius and his children, and at least the First Gravedigger/Clown. I personally believe that an abbreviation should also give some space to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (that, too, is explained in greater detail in its own place), and to Osric and the Sentinels. But of the two characters linking the tragedy's main level to the outer layer of playwright and audience, only Horatio is absolutely indispensable, because of his dual function as both Hamlet's trusted friend and his chronicler. For who becomes Horatio's audience if you remove Fortinbras? Why, all of us, directly and without any intermediary.

Does that mean that I would drop his character, too, after all, if I had my say? No; I rather like the symbolism associated with him; indeed, I think this – the question, "Now that you have inherited this mess, what are you going to do about it?" – is in many respects the play's most important issue: with the exception of "To be, or not to be," perhaps the one thing which, more than anything else, accounts for its timeless significance and applicability. For this reason alone, I would definitely want to keep Fortinbras's character. Moreover, I believe this play is an epic and should essentially be maintained as such. So while I'd make a few select cuts here and there, including part of Fortinbras's lines, I would also make damned sure I'd get across the metaphor lying in the way that this heir to a reign of terror comes upon the scene of recent carnage at the end.

This, then, also answers why I haven't assigned the role of Fortinbras to a specific, well-known actor: since his character really symbolises all of us out here, I just wouldn't want any recognisable face associated with him. For if Fortinbras stands for all of us, then – prince or not – he should look like one of us, too: an anonymous member of the audience.