• Next message: Hardy M. Cook: "Richard II on TV"
• Previous message: Hardy M. Cook: "Re: First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ]

The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 13.2385  Monday, 9 December 2002

From:           Kristine Batey <kbatey@northwestern.edu>
Date:           Sunday, 08 Dec 2002 17:44:00 -0600
Subject:        Re: Hamlet! The Musical

It suddenly occurred to me today that "Hamlet! The Musical" would come
to life, not on Broadway, but on the silver screen, compliments of Uncle
Walt and Crew.

The Disney animated Hamlet!--from the folks who brought you "The
Hunchback of Notre Dame" (a sequel is coming out!)--would be essentially
the same as the original, except the debate about Hamlet's age would be
settled once and for all. He's not 30, he's sixteen. So is Ophelia, who
is not Polonius' daughter, but his ward. (Polonius is, in fact, an evil
wizard. He stole Ophelia away from her parents so he could marry her to
his own son, Laertes, thereby forwarding his nefarious plans, whatever
those are.) As it will turn out, the late King Hamlet isn't really
dead--he escaped Polonius' evil plot, pretended to die, and then showed
up disguised as his "long-lost brother" Claudius. With the help of his
best friend Horatio--not a human being, but a small, wisecracking Danish
animal of some sort--a hedgehog? a trained seal?--Hamlet gets the goods
on Polonius, outwits the hapless Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (who don't
get killed, just go through some comical humiliation involving pies,
troughs full of water, horse dung, and humorously striped long
underwear), and rescues Ophelia, who isn't dead, just locked up in a
tower. (Ophelia is voiced by the charming Winona Ryder, who sparkled as
a Shakespearean ingénue in "Looking for Richard" and whose participation
in this attempt to make Shakespeare fun for the whole family counts as
part of her community service.) Polonius survives the arras only to be
killed at very nearly the end of the picture by Laertes, who nobly
clears the way for Ophelia to marry Hamlet. At the end of the show,
Daddy Hamlet/Claudius decides to step down from the throne, so that
Little Hamlet can take a turn at being king. In the final scene, Daddy
and Gertrude et al are seen waving goodbye to the newly married
couple--R & G are weeping comically, alternately waving their
handkerchiefs and blowing their noses into them--as the young couple
ride off in their wedding coach. Just as other recent Disney musicals
have co-opted unorthodox musical genres--Aladdin was all big band swing,
for example--Hamlet!'s music is entirely drawn from Grand Ol' Opry. The
hit song of the movie--the number that the cast of "Hamlet! On Ice" will
be skating to--is a production number involving the troupe of actors,
along with peasants and farm animals, entitled "Country Matters."
Fortinbras and his army are offscreen, but we miss them mightily.

Kristine Batey
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL.  USA
kbatey@northwestern.edu

_______________________________________________________________
S H A K S P E R: The Global Shakespeare Discussion List
Hardy M. Cook, editor@shaksper.net
The S H A K S P E R Web Site <http://www.shaksper.net>

DISCLAIMER: Although SHAKSPER is a moderated discussion list, the
opinions expressed on it are the sole property of the poster, and the
editor assumes no responsibility for them.

• Next message: Hardy M. Cook: "Richard II on TV"
• Previous message: Hardy M. Cook: "Re: First English Translation of Montaigne's Essays"
• Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ] [ subject ]