I went to see the encore screening of Hamlet at the cinema yesterday. I recommend it. I’ve seen Othello via live broadcast now, and Hamlet as an encore screening (not live, but still complete with interval etc.) and although I think it is marginally better if they are live, encores are still very good. She says basing it on a sample size of 1. But yes – it sounds dubious, but watching plays through a cinema screen is cheaper and more comfortable than going to London or Stratford, plus in the case of certain plays, it allows you to see ones that are otherwise sold out.
I am most impressed though by Rory Kinnear. He happened to be in both Othello and Hamlet. In Othello he played Iago, and by the end of the play I did NOT like Iago. I mention this as this is very unusual – Iago was a villain, and I did not like him. My love of villains started with Malificent in Sleeping Beauty, and has continued unabated through Scar, Jafar, Hans and Simon Gruber right through to pretty much any role Jason Isaacs has and Loki. As Alan Rickman said and I paraphrase, they aren’t villains, they’re very interesting people.
Well, Iago is a villain. And he’s a despicable, nasty, remorseless piece of work – not remorseless in the sense that he was proud of what he’d done, more in that he was bitter he’d been caught at it. This alone made Othello one of the most remarkable things (to me) that I’ve ever seen – I’ve liked villains, and I’ve been disinterested in villains, but I’ve never really actively disliked one, yet Rory Kinnear managed to evoke that.
Fast-forward to yesterday, and Rory was playing Hamlet. In this version Hamlet is portrayed as a tragic character (whereas when I saw David Tennant play him he was vicious). This Hamlet had some similar mannerisms to Rory’s Iago, in fact there wasn’t much obvious difference in them, other than in his eyes, but somehow even though Hamlet kills people, and causes people to die, and generally makes people miserable, we had sympathy for him. Incredible how one actor can do that so subtly – be despised, and then be pitied.
There was a programme on a while ago about Greece and I remember it talked about how the Ancient Greeks viewed the theatre as necessary to maintain emotional stability – watching more-tragic-than-tragic and more-farcical-than-farcical plays was essential to allow people to experience extremes of emotion as a form of catharsis, and so prevent the build up of harmful emotions. Certainly I prefer Shakespeare’s tragedies and tragic histories to comedies and farces – humour doesn’t capture me in the same way, but if you wrap me up in the pathos and drag me down, it’s like being removed to another world.
