Alexander Flanagan Wright: Questions, questions and more questions about Hamlet
ALEXANDER Flanagan Wright has an idea for a show. Not Hamlet exactly, but a version that asks all the big questions in Hamlet, not only To Be Or Not To Be, at York International Shakespeare Festival tonight, tomorrow and on Wednesday.
“I’ve got an idea for a version of Hamlet,” says Alex, storyteller, playwright, dream-weaver of words, director and leading light of The Flanagan Collective, one half of Wright & Grainger and co-founder of Theatre at The Mill, Stillington, near York.
“It’s a gathering, a conversation and a collective reading. We’ll have some tea and some biscuits (I’ll provide those), we’ll read some of Shakespeare’s play together, and we’ll have a good chat.”
There’s more than that, of course, he promises. “It’s deeper than that. It’s about us being somewhere together, here and now; it’s about us grappling with our existential place in the world; it’s about us seeing how words give rise to ideas and definitions about ourselves; it’s about feeling isolated when we’re in the middle of many people. It’s about us all doing something together, whilst bits of the world are tearing us apart.
“And, like I’ve already said, it’s about having a cup of tea. It’s a new show, a new gathering, a new idea. And I’d like to invite you to come and be a part of it.”
What should this week’s audiences expect? “I’m as intrigued to find out as you are,” says Alex, who will seat everyone in a circle and hand out pieces of paper to be filled in when he asks such questions as: “What is Hamlet about?” and “What is your favourite quote?”. At several junctures participants will need to decide if they are in the To Be or Not To Be camp
“I write plays, whereas this feels more like a chat, and I hope it’s useful and of some value. It’s NOT the play and I’m not writing a play. There’s a good one already – and it’s been done a lot,” says Alex. “I read that a production of Hamlet is being performed somewhere in the world every minute of the day!
“I’m kind of simultaneously pulling something apart while pulling people together to have a chat about it, and in saying that, I kind of mean having a chat about us in having a chat about it.
We need to talk: Alexander Flanagan Wright, book in hand for The Hamlet Show. Picture: John Saunders
“What I found myself thinking about was that people are continually producing Shakespeare plays, but why are they doing that and why is Hamlet one of the big ones?
“I was thinking about its existential discussion of our place in the world, and about what do we do when we present it; how it transcends the technical aspects of theatre making; how there are things in Hamlet that are among the best-known things in the world.
“I don’t think there’s a more famous play or a more famous line [than “To be or not to be”] or a more famous image [than Yorick’s skull], yet when Shakespeare wrote it, he was just writing a play that he felt was useful or important or he was told to write, but something about it has persisted.”
Alex previously directed an all-female production of Romeo And Juliet in St Olave’s Church, in Marygate, suffused with the spirit of rave culture, at an earlier York International Shakespeare Festival.
He has not, however, felt the urge to add his name to the ever-lengthening list of Hamlet directors. “What I’ll be doing is going directly to the bits that ask questions and skipping the rest,” says Alex, who found his copy of the play from his Easingwold schooldays – never returned to the school library resources – to do his research.
“No-one needs me to direct Hamlet. That’s not presciently useful,” he says. “I don’t think just doing a production of Hamlet necessarily facilitates the discussion in the way we watch things today, but I do think that having a discussion about how we perceive things, how we exist as a society, is useful.
“That conversation can get more defensive, but to approach it from a ‘defence’ viewpoint doesn’t allow much room for manoeuvre, creativity or passion, because you’re just worried about whether you’re saying the right or wrong thing, but talking about 17th century Denmark doesn’t have the same fear.
“By saying we’re going to talk about Hamlet, rather than Ukraine or Trump, opens it up, but the first thing in Hamlet is a discussion about war and the useless notion of who owns what. That’s all laid out in the first six pages and then all the existential discussions take place after that.”
Taking note: Alexander Flanagan Wright collects audience suggestions at The Hamlet Show. Picture: John Saunders
Alex continues: “The play is saying that warfare is cruel and not good for the people, which sounds so familiar, and within that context a lot of people in the play are saying ‘what am I supposed to be doing in the face of all this injustice?. What should I be doing?’.
“I’m not saying that I have come up with the answers but I think it’s good to sit down with a cup of tea and have a think about it on a Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, and then we shall crack on with the day.”
This is the time for tea, a chat and “to be or not to be”, in a show with a five-act structure to mirror Hamlet: exposition; rising action; climax; falling action and resolution. “We’ll just read bits together and talk about them. There are some things I would like to lay; some things that I think we should read, and sometimes it’ll be me listening to others talking about it,” says Alex.
“Have you noticed how no-one listens in Hamlet? Everyone just talks.There are so many people dead by the end, and you think, ‘did anyone stop to ask anyone how they were feeling’ until Guildenstern asks Hamlet how he is.
“So, in a play where no-one listens, it will be good to have a discussion about us now, just as Hamlet discusses what has led them there. Our responsibility is to have a discussion about where we are going, in the 21st century here and now, and what’s next.”
Maybe, as Alex, speculates, there is a third option: to be or not to be or to let it be.
To be or not to be at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, tonight at 8.30pm, or York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, tomorrow at 10am, or Micklegate Social, Micklegate, York, on Wednesday, 7.30pm, you decide. To book, head to yorkshakes.co.uk. Running time: up to 90 minutes
Did you know?
A scene from Hamlet Hail To The Thief. Picture copyright: Manuel Harlan
ADDING to the list of Hamlet being performed somewhere in the world every minute of the day is Hamlet Hail To The Thief, premiering at Factory International’s Aviva Studios, Manchester, from April 27 to May 18 and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, from June 4 to 28.
Shakespeare’s great tragedy and Radiohead’s seminal album collide for a feverish experience that fuses theatre, music and movement in a frenetic distillation of Shakespeare’s play, where Elsinore has become a surveillance state and “hectic runs in the blood of its citizens”.
Hamlet Hail To The Thief centres on Hamlet and Ophelia’s awakening to the lies and corruption revealed by ghosts and music. Paranoia reigns and no-one is spared a tragic unravelling.
Thom Yorke, left, Tom Knowles and Justin Levine in rehearsal room for Hamlet Hail To The Thief. Picture copyright: Manuel Harlan
In this adaptation, music becomes an integral part of the narrative. Radiohead frontman Thom Yorke has reworked Radiohead’s 2003 album into a deconstructed score that illuminates the text and is performed by live musicians.
The production is co-created by Yorke and directors, Steven Hoggett and Christine Jones. Hoggett is a founder member of Frantic Assembly, whose credits include Sweeney Todd, The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime and Black Watch. Jones is the creator and artistic director of Theater For One, and director of the immersive nightclub experience Queen Of The Night.
Their projects together as choreographer and designer include Harry Potter And The Cursed Child, American Idiot and Let The Right One In.
Bringing together the innovation of Factory International and the legacy of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Hamlet Hail to the Thief will move from a vast Manchester warehouse to an Elizabethan RSC stage. Please note, Radiohead do not perform in this production. Box office: rsc.org.uk/hamlet-hail-to-the-thief.
To be or not to be at Rise@Bluebird Bakery, Acomb, York, tonight at 8.30pm, or York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium, tomorrow at 10am, or Micklegate Social, Micklegate, York, on Wednesday, 7.30pm, you decide. To book, head to yorkshakes.co.uk. Running time: up to 90 minutes