by Bethany Shaffer

My students are all very aware of my love of literature. In the past year of teaching, they have notified me of literary events in the community and indulged me in many conversations (part of lessons I assure you) on the subject, and have even received books of English translations of Czech poets. Thus, it wasn’t a big surprise when this year for my birthday I was given two tickets to a production of Hamlet, my favorite Shakespearean drama.

Upon first glance of the tickets, my heart leapt with joy and gratitude, thinking how sweet and thoughtful the gift was even though, I assumed, it was part of the Summer Shakespeare Festival, which perhaps my students didn’t realize is only in Czech. However, upon closer inspection of the tickets, whose price was blackened out with a Sharpie, I saw the words “musical” and “American Adaptation.” God only knew what this could mean. I conjured images of monastic chants and modern dance inspired funeral scenes; Ophelia by a river bank contemplating her fate, weeping and crying while throwing poppies into rushing water. Then I thought about a Czech’s idea of an “American Adaptation” and realized I was all wrong-this wasn’t going to be an elegiac, period operatic tragedy-which would have been laughable in its own right-no, this was going to be pure camp, but after five minutes of baring witness to Janek Ledecky’s adaptation of his own Czech version which premiered in Prague six years ago, I realized my powers of imagination weren’t as good as I thought. Not in my worst (or best) parody of Musical Hamlet would I have imagined this-a purely campy, tacky, blasphemous adaptation, the campiness of which is heightened by the fact that the camp is not intentional. These people are completely serious.

Now, I hate to be the negative critic, especially when critiquing the arts in my own community or place of residence, but after reading the praise this production has received and learning that it is being taken to Broadway under the auspices of a serious musical since according to America theater producer Vince Parillo, “many musicals in the United States these days are lighter musicals,” and “Broadway is ready for a serious musical and this seems to fit the bill,” I just couldn’t keep my negativity to myself.

Aside from the outright silliness of scenes involving Polonius, in silk pajamas and looking very much like a washed up Vegas lounge act, showgirl-kicking his way throughout the “He’s crazy, the boy’s a nut,” number, and Hamlet, Horatio and the grave-digger tossing skulls and moving the jaws to sing, Ledecky also takes poetic license to an extreme by blatantly changing the plot and assuming the authority to answer questions that have stumped Shakespearean scholars form Samuel Taylor Coleridge to Harold Bloom. First of all, Ophelia and Hamlet consummate their relationship; Ophelia ends up pregnant, thus killing herself and her unborn child, heir to the throne of Denmark. Second, one of the long debated questions in Hamlet, whether Claudius and Gertrude had an affair previous to and/or during her marriage to the King, is answered by Ledecky in the second scene in which the newlyweds appear to be as giddy as high school sweethearts reunited after two decades of separation and lies. Gertrude also doesn’t appear surprised to learn of her new husband’s crime, leading one to believe that Ledecky imagined her an accomplice.

As I sat in awe of the formulaic, cheesy 70s rock ballads (lines like “Long Live the King” delivered a la Michael Bolton, and the main song describing Hamlet and Ophelia’s love a thinly veiled remake of Joe Cocker’s “Love Lift Us Up Where We Belong”), the hodge-podge of dance numbers (ranging from swing to samba to rock opera in the vein of Grease) and the ludicrous idea that Hamlet is basically a love story with just some psychological bullshit thrown in to make it a drama, I thought I’d never in my life seen anything as blasphemous. My partner in the crowd however reminded me, in between laughter that almost sent him out of his chair, that the Bard did have a good sense of humor and probably would have laughed himself.

What makes all of this worse is that I and my friend, who made me stay even when I wanted to bolt during intermission, seemed to be the only ones who felt this way. The crowd gave up standing ovations and enthusiastic applause, seemed as if their breaths were taken away by the masterful composition and costuming. To make matters worse, I later read a glowing review in “The Prague Post” and on Radio Praha , in which Ledecky’s version in dubbed “modern poetry.” I realize that the original version was Czech, that translation is difficult, and that perhaps English speaking audiences have a more intimate relationship with the material, but the sad thing is that American’s are the ones bringing this thing to Broadway (poet George Havrilla helped with the translation, Robert Johansan directed the adaptation). I have to wonder if these people believe what they are saying or just see dollar signs lighting up an easy gimmick-a widely accepted vehicle for a collection of formulaic modern ballads. I’m all for the Czechs receiving acknowledgment for their work in the arts and crossing boundaries, but why oh why does it have to be with this?

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