Hamlet Meets Macbeth: All Are Invited

On the Joyful Occasion of Founder’s Day Celebrations
F.E.T-M.I.T.S. Presents

Hamlet Meets Macbeth: All is Well If Only It Ends Well
Date: January 23, 2008 Time: 3-5 p.m.


On Stage

Hamlet: Prerna
Macbeth: Sonam Gupta/Vani Kashyap
William Shakespeare: Trishla Ananya
Christopher Marlowe: Poorvi Gupta
Anchor 1: Snigdha
Anchor 2: Priyanka Dasgupta
Duncan : Sonam Gupta
Claudius: Prerna

Off Stage

Writer: Giriraj Kiradoo
Directors : Sandhya, Giriraj Kiradoo
Assistant Director: Ritika
Costumes: Sandhya
Support: Irene Sarkar, Alpana Gupta, Ankit Gandhi, Rano Ringo

About the Play

Do you know that the greatest ever writer, as he is often called, William Shakespeare (1564-1616) never wrote an original script?! That he copied and lifted material for his great plays from all possible sources? That he had a rival in Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) whose baffling talent, originality and popularity gave William sleepless nights as he struggled to find one smash-hit of a play? That our greatest ever author who came from the small countryside of Stratford-at-Avon didn’t hesitate in lifting from his smart, sophisticated and university-educated rival even! Marlowe was killed in a brawl at a tavern when he was only 29. By then he had already authored three great and immensely popular plays including Dr. Faustus, his best by far. This play deals with a scholar’s pact with the devil. Dr. Faustus, the scholar, gets all the powers in exchange of his soul that he sells to the devil. The famous line about Helen of Troy – is this the face that launched a thousand ships? - occurs in this play.

Back to Will, the source of his greatness is said to be in his tragedies, especially the four greatest ones- Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello and King Lear. Three of them, save King Lear, has murderers as heroes. Let’s meet them one by one.


Hamlet

The young prince of Denmark returns to his homeland to find his father’s ghost paying him a visit during one of his sensational midnight rounds of the palace. Father Hamlet (they have a common name!) demands revenge. Actually, son Hamlet’s uncle Claudius had killed Father Hamlet when Son Hamlet was abroad. To make matters worse, Claudius married Father Hamlet’s wife, Gertrude. Hamlet, unlike strong bloodthirsty princes of his times, is not able to resolve his mind for revenge. Again, to make matters worst, he falls in love, with Ophelia whose mind and heart are both unreachable to him. Burden of revenge, guilt of mother’s deeds and unrequited love convert Hammy into the lovable, confused, mysteriously mad phenomena that he has remained ever since.

Hammy is famous for his delirious ‘to be or not to be’ speech and is considered to be the most refined and complex of the tragic quartet.

Before the play ends Hamlet, Claudius, Gertrude, and Ophelia all find the same fate: death/murder.

Sources of Hamlet: Ur-Hamlet possibly by Thomas Kyd (1558-1594) and The Spanish Tragedy definitely by Thomas Kyd

Macbeth

This committed and trusted soldier in service of Duncan, the King of Scotland, finds his head turned when three witches predict his destiny. They tell him that he’d be a king. Macbeth takes their words on face value and starts working extremely hard to prove the witches right. He’s helped by the ‘fourth witch’- Lady Macbeth who takes the prophecy also belonging to her- Lady Macbeth: the Queen of Scotland!

And he does become the king of Scotland killing Duncan. But as tragedies must end the Macbeth couple also dies.

Macbeth is known for the dagger scene in which a hallucinating Macbeth finds a flying dagger playing tricks upon him.

Sources of Macbeth: Macbeth of Scotland by Raphael Holinshed (? – 1580)

Othello

Othello – the ferocious, gallant moor – wins the heart of a girl all his opposite, Desdemona and they marry against her father’s wishes and under his curse: Othello, if she betrayed her father, no chance she’d spare you. Othello’s deputy, the smart and jealous antagonist Iago conspires Othello into mistrusting his loyal wife. Iago and Chance, lead Othello to kill Desdemona and himself but not before punishing the conspirator.

In modern times, Othello’s identity as a moor has evoked much debate over Shakespeare’s political correctness regarding racism (something he neither heard nor cared of).

Sources of Othello: Hecatommithi by Giovanni Battista Giraldi aka Cinthio

Now, just imagine what will follow if lovelorn and indecisive Hamlet happened to meet the sturdy and ambitious Macbeth? What if Shakespeare and Marlowe also joined the scene? Two rival authors and two rival characters (if the loads of academic research on comparing Hamlet and Macbeth stand any value at all) on one stage! Two competing writers and two incompetent murderers on one stage! And what if one of them is murdered?

Who? Who? Who?
By whom? By whom? By whom?

HMM gets the four on one stage and takes you to a journey inside the writers and characters, murderers and victims and amid the inevitable catastrophe and violence allows the comic relief to the audience.

In a world whose creativity is constantly being sucked by the readymade solutions on the World Wide Web, HMM is refreshingly ‘original’ though as we must have seen ‘originality’ lies in something subtler than mere content. Tulsidas used Valmiki’s Ramayana story but he made it his own in Ramcaritamanas and nobody would dare call Tulsidas a copycat! HMM is derivative and makes use of many sources including picking up a character, Dr. Moth, from the 1998-hepta-Oscar winning movie Shakespeare in Love. In one of the early scenes of the movie an inspiration-dried Shakespeare goes to Dr.Moth and seeks cure.