FREE ESSAY ON DIRECTING TOWARDS FREUD'S HAMLET IN Y2K

DIRECTING TOWARDS FREUD'S HAMLET IN Y2K

Before we begin, I would like to congratulate you all on getting selected for the various
parts in this production of Hamlet. My name is Glenn Close, and I will be directing this
production from today until it closes in Tokyo next May. I have played the role of
Gertrude, as many of you know, in the Hollywood production starring Mel Gibson. I also
played Ophelia twice in high school and once my senior year at UCLA. This is my favorite
Shakespeare play, one of the best of all time. Recently I was reintroduced to Freud's
notable commentary on Shakespeare and his relation to Sophocles in The Interpretation of
Dreams. From this I have pulled the essential pages and copied them for your perusal. In
fact, each of you received those pages one week ago and were asked to come prepared to
discuss its important aspects and to help me create a clearer vision of what we can do to
make our Hamlet more like the one that Freud envisioned in 1899. 
As the director of this play, I have gathered you all here today to explain what this
particular version of Hamlet is best representing. I decided to try to help Hamlet become
more overtly repressed by his intellect so that Freud's vision can come to light in the
minds of our audiences. In my humble opinion, no single director has yet made a good
project out of exploring fully the impact of repression on the individual through the
impotence of a paralyzed Hamlet. There is a reason for this. Many directors have tried
and failed for the following reason: they were all men. Only a woman with the
understanding of what it means to be sexually craved by her son can do justice to the
directorship in the light of what Freud understood. I want this version of Hamlet to
represent a modern day sexual scenario. By changing a few scenes, I can show Hamlet's
repressed emotions toward Gertrude, and his resentment toward Claudius. I want Hamlet
almost to give in to his feelings for his mother due to her persuasion. I will be
directing most of my focus on Hamlet.
The setting will be present day Athens, Greece. I chose Athens because Freud refers to
Oedipus Rex as the basis of Hamlet's character. Since Oedipus is Greek, putting Hamlet in
Athens makes the connection between these characters more direct. There are two reasons
why I moved the play to the present day. The first one is the difficulty that modern
audiences have with Shakespearean English. My goal is get the audience to hear Freud's
Hamlet as clearly as possible without getting lost in Shakespearean language. The second
reason has to do with the poor habits of American theater audiences. If the play takes
place in another time period than the present, the audience members tend to see the
lessons of the story as unrelated to them. Only in bringing the play to the modern day
can Freud's lessons connect directly with the repressed lives of the modern theatergoer.
I also feel that most men living in the twenty-first century will not admit that during
their formative years, sexual desires arose and were naturally directed towards their
mother, the object of their most fond love. 
According to Sigmund Freud, the story of Oedipus Rex and the story of Hamlet have the
same underlying theme. In both stories, the character of the prince, Oedipus and Hamlet
respectively, is caught in Freud's Oedipus Complex: "Being in love with one parent and
hating the other are among the essential constituents of the stock of psychical impulses
which is formed at that time [childhood] and which is of such importance in determining
the symptoms of later neurosis." (294) Hamlet's neurosis is manifested by his inability
to act. The story of Oedipus is different from that of Hamlet because Hamlet never acts
on the feelings he has for his mother and never avenges his father's death. Hamlet
represses the feelings he has for his mother, and feels that if he kills his father, he
is killing the embodiment of his own repressed wishes. According to Freud, " Hamlet
represents the type of man whose power of direct action is paralyzed by an excessive
development of his intellect." (298) By altering certain scenes, I can bring the
repressed Hamlet out and show our modern viewers that dealing with these Freudian issues
is acceptable in today's society. 
At this point I would like to look at a couple of specific key portions of scenes in
order to show you what I mean by bringing the Freud out in Hamlet. Let's turn our text to
act three scene four, please. I would like Hamlet and Gertrude to try out a few key lines
here. This is the scene where Hamlet and the Queen Gertrude are in the Queen's private
chambers. Hamlet, Gertrude, hurry up on stage here so that we can get to the heart of
what Freud was talking about in his treatise. (Changing focus back to the group, Glen
Close continues) Hamlet walks into the bedroom and begins to speak with a "wicked tongue"
to his mother. Hamlet hears a noise behind the curtain, and with no hesitation, kills
Polonius. This is done out of full rage, with the hopes that the King was behind the
curtain. With little regret, Hamlet continues his conversation with his mother. This
brings us to line182. Hamlet, I want you to grab your mother and hold her in your arms
and shake her; let your eyes shine with lust for your mother while your body keeps
shaking and staying away from her. These words of Hamlet's are full of his neurosis, "Not
this, by no means, that I bid you do: Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed," Hamlet,
please stop for a moment. Everyone, notice that Hamlet wants his mother to stay out of
sexual contact with his uncle. That is the driving force of his hatred. Obviously,
Freud's complex is strong at work in this scene. As this scene continues, it is amazing
how much sexual imagery Hamlet uses. He is obsessed with wanting his mother, but his
intellect won't let him act. Hamlet, I want you to reach over and pinch Gertrude's cheeks
as you say the next line. Don't be shy, really give your mom a nice fat pinch. Continue
please. "Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse," Hamlet, pretend to kiss
Gertrude as you say this next line. "And let him, for a pair of reechy kiss," Hamlet, as
you say the next line, touch Gertrude's neck with a slight touch. "Or paddling in your
neck with his damned fingers," Now Hamlet, I want you to reach over towards Gertrude and
act as if you were going to kiss her but back away as you skip directly to line 197. "And
break your own neck down." Now Gertrude replies in lines198-200. Gertrude, after you read
these lines, reach over to Hamlet and attempt to kiss him. Hamlet, I want to back away in
fright, proving Freud's point that Hamlet cannot act because of the modern repression of
action by the mind. "Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I
have no life to breathe/ What thou hast said to me." It seems that Gertrude can't
understand Hamlet's love for her. Therefore she is dumbfounded by his words. Hamlet,
reply to Gertrude in line 201 and after you reply, walk out of the room. "I must to
England; you know that?" The acting of these scenes leads us to Freud's interpretation of
the sexual interactions between Hamlet and Gertrude. According to Freud, there is a
"distaste for sexuality expressed by Hamlet." Hamlet, it is important that you physically
show your neurotic distaste for sexuality in all scenes with either Gertrude or Ophelia
throughout the play.
The next scene I would like to draw attention to is Act Five, scene two, lines 326-339.
In this last scene, a poison ends up killing the Queen, the King, and Laertes. Hamlet
witnesses his mother's death and learns that his uncle has been planning his murder. Once
the Queen is dead, Hamlet is able to act out the feelings he has repressed throughout the
entire play. In these next few lines Hamlet is speaking to his uncle, but a cleverly
placed mirror reveals to the audience that he is also speaking to himself. "Here, thou
incestuous, murd'rous, damned Dane." Hamlet is correct in his accusation of his uncle,
but also of himself. Remember what Freud said about our beloved Hamlet, "Thus, the
loathing which should drive him on to revenge is replaced in him by self-reproaches."
(229) Self-reproaches are what is stopping Hamlet from acting. Continue. "Heaven make
thee free of it! I follow thee. I am dead. Wretched Queen, adieu!" Hamlet, I want you to
lean over and kiss your deceased mother on the lips after the completion of the next
line. "You that look pale and tremble at this chance, That are but mutes or audience to
this act, Had I but time (as this fell sergeant, Death, Is strict in his arrest) O, I
could tell you-" Hamlet finally grasps his own neurosis but has no time to explain it to
us. Carry on, "But let it be. I am dead." As Hamlet stares death in the eye, he is
finally able to stare his incestuous feelings in the eye. By looking in the mirror, he is
looking inside himself. Hamlet sees himself as a hopelessly trapped man, trapped in his
own mind. I chose these particular scenes because they both were dramatically inclined.
These two scenes have been used for many interpretations of the production. For Freudian
purposes, I chose to have the Queen's age and Hamlet's age to be within fifteen years of
each other. There are a few reasons why Hamlet is wearing tight leather pants, a slightly
unbuttoned iridescent shirt, and black boots and why Gertrude is wearing a tight, low-cut
red dress, with black pumps. I think these clothes will enhance the psychosexual image
that Freud was able to take away from the play and will also compliment the modern time
period. The extreme closeness in age between Hamlet and Gertrude will also accentuate the
Freudian concepts that I am best trying to represent. With the loss of his mother, and
death upon him, Hamlet is finally able to carry out his father's (the ghost) wishes by
murdering his father's murderer (his uncle, Claudius). Hamlet's ability to act becomes
feasible in the last minutes of his life. As a woman, it may be easier for me to believe
and direct Freud's concepts of Hamlet. Male directors have a tendency to deny and even
argue that Hamlet had an Oedipus complex. I hope that by directing this modern, Freudian
Hamlet, my audiences (especially men) will become more accepting of these concepts
instead of the repressing them.