BOOK REVIEW - Hamlet: A User’s Guide
Title: Hamlet: A User’s Guide
Author: Michael Pennington
Publisher: Limelight Editions
ISBN: 0879100834
In the introduction to this most readable and charming book, Michael Pennington playfully confesses his awareness to inflicting the world with yet another book on an over-analyzed subject. There are more scholarly writings on Hamlet, he admits, and perhaps more artistically investigational too, but Pennington assures us, in his witty and self-deprecating style, that what he offers is an insider’s view into the Danish Prince. Who better to bestow this insight than a gifted actor/director who’s performed every principal male role in the play, including several incarnations as the title character? His most notable turn in the title role was with the Royal Shakespeare Company, under the esteemed John Barton in 1980.
The author smartly separates the book into two sections: The Action and The Characters. With the first, he introduces each of the play’s five acts as a single day. Why he should do this he can’t explain even to himself. He declares outright that there is a significant passage of time between acts Four and Five and then proceeds with his conceit, blithely ignoring its flaw. In his defense, the evidence offered is that, in this compression of time, the drama is better served. Anyway, each individual Day is given its own chapter, and, within each chapter, every scene is gone over with a fine-toothed comb. Pennington asserts his interpretations of the text with droll humor and perception, staking his claims boldly. Sometimes he treads on the toes of other analysts and artists before him, but not without allowing his reader the opportunity to form their own conclusions.
The Character section is split into families and factions, allowing Pennington the opportunity to dissect the various dysfunctions of both kin and court. This is especially revealing when he is deconstructing Polonius and his children. The sins of a distant father’s domineering cruelty weigh heavily on the heads of Laertes and Ophelia. While he admits to the delicate comic-balancing act an actor must perform in portraying the play’s “Prime Minister”, the author brushes aside the traditional buffoonery associated with Polonius and focuses instead on the inept parenting and social gracelessness inherent in the character. The careless use of his children, Pennington contends, – spying on his son and exploiting his daughter – contributes to his and their downfalls. This “emotional suppression” is what leads directly to Polonius’ inability to succeed as a politician too – “the pawns that he is playing with are his own.” In these pages, the author, once and for all, kills the idea of Polonius as a simpering old boob and leaves him dead and buried. How fortunate for us.
But what of Hamlet, you ask? How does Pennington handle the penultimate role, both dreaded and desired by actor and director alike? The answer is with all the depth, complexity, and contradiction the Prince of Denmark demands. In this particular area, the author and his book shine. He shifts skillfully from memoir to manual and back again. Comparing and contrasting previous Hamlets – Olivier, Gielgud, Burton, etc. – with his own, Pennington speaks without preciousness or pretension. He is concise and verbose and that is how it should be, considering his source and subject.
The book benefits greatly from Pennington’s far-reaching experience and his ability to view his subject clearly and intuitively. It bubbles over with personal anecdotes and sidebars, lending an almost dishy quality to the text. Imagine chumming up the chatty rogue Pennington in a cozy London pub and, in exchange for a few pints, being privy to him spilling his guts on some of England’s greatest (and not so great) performances, many of whom are/were close friends. Approachable in language and tone, yet illuminating in content and text, “HAMLET: A User’s Guide” is chocked full of valuable tidbits and treasures, pleasing the most avid Shakespeare scholar as well as the tenderfoot freshman.