Hamlet is probably Shakespeare's most commented on play.

It is extraordinary

in countless ways, but one outstanding feature is certainly the length of it. A

performance of Hamlet, without intermission, roughly takes four hours. Philip

Edwards, editor of The New Cambridge Shakespeare Hamlet, mentions a

complete version of the play, apparently called the "Entirety"(p.67). First pro-

duced by F. R. Benson in 1899, it was later performed at the Old Vic and lasted

for six hours. Even though these performances were always sold out, it is ob-

vious that, for the standard audience, the play has to be cut. The tradition of

cutting Hamlet has been extensively documented and certain drastic elimina-

tions, along with other alterations, have led William Hazlitt to sigh : "We do not

like to see our author's plays acted, and least of all, Hamlet. There is no play

that suffers so much in being transferred to the stage."(p.86) What a paradox,

though, since the destination of a play is to be performed for an audience.

Last summer, I went to see Peter Brook's production of Hamlet. He pre-

sented a strongly abridged version of Shakespeare's play, shortened by over

one third. One of the scenes Brook cut, is the very first one and he also left

away all the minor characters : only eight actors are performing. However,

without the perspectives offered by the minor characters, the understanding

of Hamlet is highly diminished. The drama unfolding before my eyes left me cu-

riously uninvolved and untouched, even though Brook strived to reduce the

play to its essence. The audience was seated on three sides of a stage which

was level with the first row of spectators. In this way, Brook's productions try to

come closer to Elizabethan theater than productions on a regular proscenium

stage.

This spring, I attended a performance of Hamlet at the Schauspielhaus in

Basel, several times during which I found myself gripping the arms of my chair.

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Stephan Bachmann stayed very close to the translation of the original text by

August Wilhelm Schlegel, choosing to cut other moments than the first scene. It

was the beginning of the play, set in darkness, which created a captivating

tension and led to anxious anticipation.

In this paper, I want to present reasons for including scene one of act

one in a performance of Hamlet on the stage. T. S. Eliot, who has elsewhere

called Hamlet a failure, nevertheless acknowledges that "the opening scene

of Hamlet [...] has the advantage of being one that everybody knows."(p.118)

This fact has led many directors, for instance Peter Brook, to leave out the first

scene and supply the missing exposition during the second scene. A fateful

de-cision, because scene one of the first act supplies so much necessary

informa-tion, it is difficult, if not impossible to regain everything. And, quoting

the middle part of Eliot's sentence, the scene is also "- as well constructed an

opening scene as that of any play ever written -", designed to transfer the

audience's awareness into the appropriate mood.

In a drama, the first scene is more crucial to the comprehension of the

work than the first sentence(s) in a book, which you can leaf back to if you get

the feeling of having missed something. A. D. Nuttall, in Openings, investigates

"the various tensions which exist between the formal freedom to begin a work

of fiction wherever one likes : medias in res, and an opposite sense that all

good openings are somehow naturally rooted, are echoes, more or less re-

mote, of an original creative act : ab ovo."(p.vii-viii) Even though Nuttall's main

concern are narrative beginnings, he refers to Hamlet in the epilogue, showing

how the first two lines are prophetic and raise a radical uncertainty.

Shakespeare plunges the audience of Hamlet right into the middle of

things, medias in res. An atmosphere of tension and fear is created from the

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start of the play. We get an extremely nervous relieving sentinel, Barnardo,

wrongly challenging his colleague still on duty

Who's there? (1.1.1)

followed by the apprehensive question

Have you had quiet guard? (1.1.9)

and, implying his fear of being alone, the urging

The rivals of my watch, bid them make haste. (1.1.13)

Barnardo's first anxious question is bound to raise uncertainties in the audience.

"By the time the play is over we know that the question was in a manner pro-

phetic," states Nuttall "for standing in the darkness is a dead king having the

power to undo and involve others in his own unbeing."(p.233) Who else than

Francisco was Barnardo anticipating? And why is Francisco sick at heart?

These unanswered questions generate uneasiness.

In this way, Shakespeare establishes a tonality of hovering threat for the

play, emotionally involves his audience and raises expectations as to the

course of events. Subsequently, he supplies a large part of the background

and information necessary to follow the plot. We are introduced to Horatio

(Hamlet's confidant) and told that he is a scholar. Horatio's dominant appea-

rance in the first scene establishes him as a character who stands on his own.

In a flashback, we learn that Old Hamlet, King of Denmark, has recently died

and has appeared on the fortifications as a ghost two nights in a row. In a

second flashback, we hear of Fortinbras (Hamlet's foil) and the conflict be-

tween Norway and Denmark. Before the first scene ends, Shakespeare

unobtrusively introduces the protagonist of the play, Young Hamlet, when

Horatio says to the sentinels

Let us impart what we have seen tonight

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 Unto young Hamlet (1.1.169-170)

and Marcellus's closing remark

and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most conveniently. (1.1.174-175)

guides the audience to a favourable view of Hamlet's personality : Obviously,

this is a prince trusted by his inferiors and open to them, as far as his where-

abouts are concerned. The stage is even more subtly prepared for Hamlet by

the fact that a lot of the scenery in 1.1. is created verbally, whereas during the

following scenes "it is Hamlet who creates the most significant images, images

marking the atmosphere and theme of the play."(Wolfgang Clemen, p.106)

Most importantly however, in scene one we meet a key figure, the

character who is to trigger all the action of the play : the Ghost. John Dover

Wilson claims that "Shakespeare employs all his cunning to make the Ghost a

dramatically convincing figure."(p.59) The sentinels, who have witnessed the

spirit's two previous appearances and are expecting it again, refer to it as

this thing, this dreaded sight, this apparition (1.1.21,25,28)

and with a sense of foreboding, call it

this portentous figure (1.1.109)

while Horatio is at first the unbelieving and skeptical scholar

'tis but fantasy, 'twill not appear (1.1.23,30)

but when having encountered it, we hear that he looks pale and trembles. Af-

ter a digression in which Fortinbras is introduced, a deceivingly quiet moment

in the play, tempting us to relax

Good now sit down, and tell me he that knows, (1.1.70)

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the Ghost surprisingly appears a second time and then vanishes at the cock's

crowing without having spoken a word. Horatio however, comes to the con-

clusion that

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him. (1.1.171)

and together with him the audience receives ample evidence that this Ghost

is real, we hear the following accounts of it

with that fair and warlike form (1.1.47)

with martial stalk (1.1.66)

comes armèd (1.1.110)

When Horatio later describes it to Hamlet, he states that it was armed from top

to toe and had its beaver (movable lower part of helmet) up. Samuel Taylor

Coleridge concludes "that the apparition itself has by its frequent previous ap-

pearances been brought nearer to a thing of this world."(p.25)

Horatio requests of the Ghost to 'speak' four times and when it comes

again, he urges it to 'speak' another five times, though, as we learn, unsuccess-

fully. Of the 63 occurrences of the word 'speak' in the entire play, already 14

take place in scene one of act one. The character challenged to speak, how-

ever, remains silent. This is called back to the audience's mind with Hamlet's

last words

- the rest is silence. (5.2.337)

towards the end of the play. Now that its task has been completed, the Ghost

once again remains silent and we are dismissed in doubt as to the nature of

this spirit in arms : evil or good?

Other instances in which the beginning echoes the end are pointed out

by Terence Hawkes in his essay Telmah : The play begins overshadowed by im-

minent war and ends with Fortinbras and his army taking over. In the end, as in

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the beginning, we have a dead king. Hawkes also states that "it begins without

words" and "it ends without words." (p.92) Although, in my opinion, this is some-

thing that every play does (with a few rare exceptions, where the curtain

opens and/or closes on speaking actors), I nevertheless agree with Hawkes

that "symmetries suggest circularity and recursive movement" instead of "pro-

gressive linearity."(p.94)

Scene one of act one introduces the audience to a rhythm of double-

ness. The two appearances of the Ghost before the play starts are repeated

within the scene. Words which imply recurrence are used : again (5 times out

of 32 in the entire play), twice (2 of 4), same (4 of 12), and entire phrases occur

mirrored :

who's there? (1.1.1&14)

where it comes again (1.1.40&126)

sit down (1.1.30&70)

In order to recognize the recurring elements as such during the further action

of the play, we need the information supplied in the course of the first scene.

Only for the audience who has heard Barnardo say to Horatio

you tremble and look pale (1.1.53)

may Hamlet's words to Horatio

you that look pale and tremble (5.2.313)

ring a bell.

Easier to note, is the recapitulation of scene one at the end of act one.

Again, we see the platform and again, it is bitter cold. Shakespeare, for both

of these scenes, gives us the exact time period : from midnight to near dawn,

whereas, during the larger part of the play, he chooses to ignore time or even

falsify it. Harley Granville-Barker, when examining the time-structure in Hamlet,

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draws the conclusion that "the scene gains importance by being measured

out" and that "this framing of the exordium to the tragedy within a precise two

nights and a day gives a convincing lifelikeness to the action and sets its pulse

beating rhythmically and arrestingly."(p.24)

A further element indicating doubleness in Hamlet has been pointed out

by George T. Wright. He counted 63 cases of hendiadys, a figurative device,

which expresses one idea by linking two unrelated words. Shakespeare made

frequent use of hendiadys, but, comparing all his plays, it occurs most in Ham-

let. Horatio speaks hendiadys three times in the first scene :

sensible and true (1.1.57)

gross and scope (1.1.68)

law and heraldry (1.1.87)

Just as the Ghost is the key figure for triggering the action, scene one of act

one initiates the rhythm of the whole play.

I have intentionally not dealt with any of the Hamlet films we were able

to see this semester, because most of my arguments for including 1.1. in a

perfor-mance apply only to productions in the theater. The medium film offers

possibi-lities to create atmosphere which are not available on the stage.

Grigori Kosin-tsev's Gamlet, for instance, is a poetic, haunting version of

Shakespeare's tra-gedy, which manages to captivate the viewer without

scene one.

In the theater, however, we want to see Hamlet opening as Shake-

speare intended it to, because of the atmosphere (darkness, tension, fear,

anxiety, menace), the background-information, the statements from minor

characters and we want to experience the rhythm set in motion.

1971 words

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List of Works Used and Works Cited

Abrams, M. H. . A Glossary of Literary Terms (6th edition). Fort Worth, etc. :

Harcourt Brace College Publishers, 1993.

Barry, Peter. Beginning Theory. An Introduction to Literary and Cultural

Theory. Manchester, New York : Manchester University Press, 1995.

Booth, Stephen. "On the Value of Hamlet." Critical Essays on Shakespeare's

Hamlet. ed. David Scott Kastan. New York :
G. K. Hall & Co. , 1995.

Clemen, Wolfgang. The Development of Shakespeare's Imagery. London :

Methuen & Co. Ltd. , 1977.

Coleridge, Samuel Taylor. Coleridge's Shakespearean Criticism.

ed. Thomas M. Raysor. London : Constable & Co. Ltd. , 1930.

Edwards, Philip (ed.). Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (The New Cambridge

Shakespeare). Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, 1985.

Eliot, T. S. . "The Opening Scene of Hamlet." Casebook Series : Hamlet. A

Selection of Critical Essays. ed. John Jump. London and Basingstoke
: Macmillan, 1968.

Granville-Barker, Harley. Prefaces to Shakespeare. Third Series : Hamlet.

London : Sidgwick & Jackson, Ltd. , 1937.

Hawkes, Terence. "Telmah." That Shakespeherian Rag. Essays on a Critical

Process. London, New York : Methuen, 1986.

Hazlitt, William. The Characters of Shakespear's Plays. London, Toronto:

J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd. , New York : E. P. Dutton & Co. , 1817.

Nuttall, A. D. . Openings. Narrative Beginnings From the Epic to the Novel.

Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1992.

Wilson, J. Dover. What Happens in Hamlet. Cambridge : Cambridge

University Press, 1937.

Wright, George T. . "Hendiadys and Hamlet." Critical Essays on

Shakespeare's Hamlet. ed. David Scott Kastan. New York :
G. K. Hall & Co. , 1995.

Concordance of Shakespeare's Works.

[http://www.concordance.com/shakespe.htm].