Had wanted to see this play since its ads first began on Zee Marathi (everyone knows why that channel runs in Marathi houses: support swadeshi Radhika Masale). Anyway, my parents got to it first when it was last in Pune. I jumped on the opportunity when I saw its poster in Bal Gandharva, the day I had gone to see Sir Sir Sarla. I contacted Avaneendra Bhargav (henceforth referred to as AV) with whom I had adjudged a pact appropriate to see it together. The day decided was Friday, 26th October, 2018. This was his first full live commercial play.
When booked online the message said "Strictly no entry post 8 PM". That message was more ghanta than the three ghantas that began the play. Who the fuck mistakes 8:30 for 8? This is not Westend where every movie is preceded by 10 minutes of ads.
The dialogue translations were well-crafted. The acting was well done. Especially the Queen, who gets a substantial role to display her skills in Act III. Polonius is fun.
A special shout-out to the
Mousetrap troupe.
So mid-way, in the gravedigger scene, to show a different community/strata, they have given the actors who play those characters a markedly different dialect of Marathi. The royals also spoke a more orthodox Marathi. If you are going to these lengths to adapt, then why would you keep dialogues like "Long Live the King!" and "Goodbye" in English? The costumes are enough to indicate that you are in Denmark; and the audience will not be in Lal Mahal if you just say "Maharajancha Vijay Aso!" And as AV pointed out, how can you keep "The rest is silence" in English? At least "To be or not be!" was accompanied with "Asava ki nasava!"
In between Dhakte Hamlet says
"Tu tya taslya jaagi ja" referring to a nunnery. Did Saahil actually
forget the word or was it part of the script? Will never get to know.
Another series of interactions which I do not know whether were in the original Hamlet or not was this really random-feeling jayjaykar of actors and playwrights. That they fearlessly oppose tyranny and all that. Never misbehave with them. These seemed like the forced moral which generally appears at the end of Chala Hawa Yeu Dya jokes.
One aspect I painfully noticed was that once the play starts the amount coughing grows exponentially! Arre kiti khoktat loka! And in madhyantars and before the play everyone is smiling; but once dialogues start, so does the coughing. It seems like yawning, when one starts, everyone has to cough. Or there were too many old people who couldn't sahanofy the AC.
Sticking to the audience; I myself recognized at least six people. And as the auditorium was filling up, shouts from one corner to another "Arre you are here!" and "Ithe kasa kay?" I think there is some social classism at play. A Marathi adaptation of Hamlet probably needs an intersection of people who can afford the 1000/800 che tickets, know the importance of Shakespeare/Hamlet or know about it, understand theatre Marathi and enjoy it. In Pune, with its close-knit community, excepting theatre and art students, this is very peculiar Marathi Mafia slice of society. And everyone's Baby Ajji will know someone else's Bal Kaka.
Thankfully not a single cell-phone rang. So Saahil did not stop the play in between.
Bal Gandharva definitely has some issues with the audio. The bass was so low, that the chairs resonated! The ribs shook, the air was filled with the droning sound of Hans Zimmer's score in Dunkirk. The scene where Thorle Hamlet speaks; a few dialogues may well have needed close captioning. Also, some mike issues thankfully were rectified by the actors' skills in voice modulations; mainly in Acts II and III.
The sets were not bad, though I think some of the black-outs were a bit too long. I would attribute this to my own short attention span and am sure this was the standard black-out time. What I would commend is the accompanying black-out music. The cues at which the lights were back on were perfect and climactic.
The lighting was adequate. However, I do think that the entire roll-call of credits could as well be projected onto the curtains instead of reciting them.
Regarding whether you should see Hamlet: the original is a V-Act play and I understand the need to abridge it. So if one is well-versed with Hamlet, this has nothing new to offer and according to AV, definitely not among the best adaptations (he mentions the 1948 Olivier adaptation). However commercially and considering it is a new/fairly recent adaptation for a Marathi audience, it would be a good idea to catch it. Especially if you do have some background idea. When the audience does not necessarily know the basics, any interpretation is probably for an experimental audience. For a first-timer who wants to know about Hamlet, probably this only gives a rough summary, enjoyable though. But because it is sankshipta, there is a distinct lack of character depth which can still be explored. When Ophelia drowns, I was like "Haan thike. Pudhe."
I would not have paid Rs. 800 for the experience I had. AV said he would have been fine with paying for the better Rs. 1000 seats just to see the expressions of the actors. I would not have. I could see from where I was sitting (on bookmyshow they seemed much nearer (so I do feel cheated even though I may not be)).
Had nice charcha over late night dinner at Mayur (opposite Bal Gandharva). There we also discussed one particular scene (don't remember which exactly right now) where humour was supposed to play into the helpless tragedy of another character and increase that gravity. People laughed at the funny dialogue. I experienced a similar phenomenon in Sir Sir Sarla. AV attributes this to MCU: where people will try to find a joke or humour in every moment and treat it as such. I would concur.
AV even got hold of some Marathi audio-books on Samuel Beckett.
3 Beards/5
Addendum: Finally remembered, thanks to Ramanand Jx for confirmation that "Ek Hasina Thi" from Karz also uses the Mousetrap trope.
Also, when I was doing Purushottam, we were always told to rarely use blue-lighting except to show night. At a point, the entire stage in Hamlet is lit in blue. AV explained how it is also the colour of craziness. And since it was rightly used, it gives a wonderful disorienting effect as the hard level borders merge and Hamlet's craziness is imprinted in a sort-of 3D effect,
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