Jan Davidszoon de Heem: Vanity (detail) (private collection)
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Even before David Garrick's (in)famous drastic rewrites of "Hamlet," what version of the play precisely an audience would see had chiefly depended, on the one hand, on the text used in the respective production; on the other hand, on the star actor's and/ or director's artistic choices. Thus, even the preface of Davenant's and Betterton's joint 1676 edition of "The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. As it is now Acted at his Highness's the Duke of York's Theatre" (Andrew Clark, printed for J. Martyn and H. Herringman, London) already pointed out that "[t]his play being too long to be conveniently Acted, such places as might be least prejudicial to the Plot or Sense, are left out upon the stage" – though they were included in the print edition, denoted by quotation marks.
Among these "least prejudicial parts" omitted were, interestingly, almost all references to Fortinbras (whose impending military campaign was only referenced so far as absolutely necessary to explain Denmark's own preparations for war, and who himself was only allowed his appearance at the end of the play); as well as huge chunks of Claudius's announcement of his and Gertrude's wedding; the second part of Hamlet's first major monologue (all lines after "Frailty, thy name is woman"); the better part of both Laertes's and Polonius's warnings to Ophelia to keep her distance from Hamlet; virtually all of Polonius's parting precepts in Laertes's memory; the Second Quarto lines of Hamlet's ruminations about national customs and the stamp of one defect tainting a man's reputation immediately prior to the appearance of his father's Ghost; the Prince's first words to his father ("Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd"), including his address of the appearance as "Hamlet, King, father, royal Dane"); the Ghost's reference to Claudius's seduction of Gertrude "With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts;" the line "And shall I couple hell from Hamlet's response to the Ghost's revelations; the complete Reynaldo scene; almost all of the first part of Pyrrhus and Hecuba; Hamlet's references to Claudius as a "bloody bawdy ... remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain" and to his (the Prince's) own "weakness and [his] melancholy" in the rogue and peasant slave monologue; Hamlet's admonitions to the Players and large parts of his praise of Horatio before the "play within the play" (which in itself is curtailed, although not entirely omitted); Hamlet's vow, "My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites – how in my words somever she be shent, to give them seals never, my soul, consent" immediately before his visit to his mother's bedchamber; some of the cruder language and imagery contained in Hamlet's altercation with Gertrude; the core of Hamlet's expostulation on worms in his interrogation by Claudius after Polonius's murder; all of Act IV, Scene 4; Gertrude's lament about her "sick soul" prior to speaking to the now-distracted Ophelia; all sexually ambiguous references and double-entendres in Ophelia's mad songs and prophecies, beginning with "Then up he rose and donn'd his clo'es;" Gertrude's description of orchids (long purples) as flowers "that liberal shepherds give a grosser name, but our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them," and of Ophelia as a mermaid-like creature in her account of Ophelia's "muddy death;" Hamlet's "qué será, será" ("there's a special providence in the fall of a sparrow") immediately prior to the duel; and finally, Laertes's insistence that, though "satisfied in nature" by Hamlet's apology for the grief he has caused Polonius's son, in [his] terms of honour [he] stand[s] aloof, and will no reconcilement.
All in all, hardly omissions without the prejudicial effect on the audience's understanding of the play and its characters claimed by Messrs. Davenant and Betterton, it may be argued: While highlighting Gertrude's guilt (and decreasing signs of her capacity for remorse), and making Laertes appear a bit more deceitful than one might otherwise have seen him, by eliminating all of Act IV, Scene 4 they also expunged any notion that the Prince we see returning to Denmark in Act V is a man who has finally recovered his resolve to act; and at the same time, they cleansed whatever blemish one may otherwise have associated with Ophelia, and minimized the ungodly element of Claudius's acts and motivations (although the King's prayer after the "play within the play" was rendered almost completely, and the omission of his reference to crimes going unpunished "in the corrupted currents of this world" may have had more to do with the recent restoration of monarchy after decades of Puritanism and civil war than with their interpretation of the play as such).
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Copyright 2002 – 2009: Ulrike Böhm, all rights reserved.