Celebrate Poe

A Goth Hamlet Poe Would Have Enjoyed

Welcome back to celebratepoe - celebrating the life, times, and influence of America’s Shakespeare – Edgar Allan Poe. The music opening this podcast is from Thomas Moore’s Come Rest in This Bosom – Edgar Allan Poe’s favorite song followed by a 1925 recording of  “to be or not to be” by legendary actor John Barrymore. As some of you have kindly written me, I have not had any new episodes of celebratepoe for several months, and several of you have written me that you hope I start the podcast again.  In actuality, the last few episodes were done while I was preparing for an interview as guide at Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece – Fallingwater.  I did get   the job and it has kept me constantly busy, but the experience has been incredible. I spoke in several of the last podcasts in this series about some of the commonalities between America’s greatest writer and America’s greatest architect, and will be talking about many more of the striking similarities in the future.

During the time since the last episode, I have learned all kinds of fascinating information about America’s Shakespeare that I stored away, but with this episode, I finally got myself in gear to start up Celebrate Poe again.  I have found out that this podcast has listeners from all over the world, and I received an email from a lady in Connecticut by the name of Michelle. She suggested future sections in this podcast on Poe’s views on religion, Poe and the South, and some of Poe’s lesser-known poems. – These are all areas that I will deal with in the future, and I certainly welcome any emails at celebratepoe.com about this podcast.  There is so much information connected with America’s Shakespeare, and I hope to cover some of the most interesting during this bicentennial year of the writer’s birth.

Oh yes, Michelle did comment in an email on my accent, but I would like to point out – I do NOT have an accent - it is you people in West Virginia and Pennsylvania who have an accent!  But seriously, Michelle mentioned that she had gotten her BA degree, but had not had the chance to go on to grad school – and she liked to listen to the celebratepoe podcasts as though they were lectures – well, I hope that Michelle enjoys this podcast.

I would like to devote the rest of this podcast to a play and production that, in my opinion, does a better job of Celebrating Poe as anything I have ever seen. And this is made even more impressive by the fact that this drama, arguably the greatest play ever written, was written almost 300 years before Poe was born. The play, not surprisingly, is Hamlet – in an innovative production by the Theatre Department at the University of West Virginia.  This production runs through March 8, 2009, and is staged in a black box theatre in a production that I feel Poe would have especially liked.

But first, the basic story of Hamlet interspersed with one of Poe’s works. Now Hamlet’s father was the king and the king has died. But at the beginning of the play, Hamlet is visited by the ghost of his father and the father tells him his brother Claudius murdered him. Claudius took the title and married Hamlet’s mother Gertrude. All this was done while Hamlet was away at school in Wittenberg, Germany.

The device of spirits visiting Shakespearean protagonists is one the Bard used with great effect. In MacBeth, as well as Julius Caesar, all of those visits meant someone was meeting their doom. But in Hamlet the ghost makes his appearance at the beginning of the play. Maybe if the ghost had revealed himself to Horatio, to Polonius, or even the Queen, Hamlet’s duty would have been clear.

I’ve always thought that the key thing to remember is that Hamlet is the only one who heard the ghost. Some other palace personnel told him about some apparition making an appearance on one of the battlements of Elsinore Castle, but Hamlet’s the only one who’s been told the tale. Therefore he’s the only one who heard the story and he can’t prove anything.

This concept of secrecy due to a visitation by a ghost is evident in Poe’s poem A Visit from the Dead:

Thy soul shall find itself alone ‘Mid dark thoughts of the grey tomb-stone — Not one, of all the crowd, to pry Into thine hour of secrecy: Be silent in that solitude Which is not loneliness — for then The spirits of the dead who stood In life before thee are again In death around thee — and their will Shall then overshadow thee:

Now, the ghost of Hamlet’s father wants his son to revenge him. But the story is Hamlet deciding one thing and then another, never really reaching a decision. His actions have everyone believing he’s lost his mind. He is constantly thinking – he is constantly trying to decide what to do, but he ends up further and further away from a solution.  I feel that eventually he sees life as a mystery, and does not take action until it is too late.

Poe was later to write in A Visit from the Dead:

For the night — tho’ clear — shall frown — And the stars shall look not down, From their high thrones in the Heaven, With light like Hope to mortals given — But their red orbs, without beam, To thy weariness shall seem As a burning and a fever Which would cling to thee forever:

Now are thoughts thou shalt not banish — Now are visions ne’er to vanish — From thy spirit shall they pass No more — like dew-drop from the grass: The breeze — the breath of God — is still — And the mist upon the hill Shadowy — shadowy — yet unbroken, Is a symbol and a token — How it hangs upon the trees, A mystery of mysteries! —

Compare this to Hamlet’s words where he starts speaking optimistically, but ends up despairing about his condition.

What a piece of work is a man! how noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in apprehension how like a god! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust?

I am basing this episode on impressions from the rehearsals and the opening night performance, and will certainly talk more about this production in my next podcast as a specific example of how Poe’s sensitivities are communicated in the arts.  In fact, the great poet T.S. Elliott (certainly no fan of Poe) said that writers today do not realize the extent to which they have been influenced by Poe.  There is certainly no overt reference to Poe in this production of Hamlet – but his influence can be detected throughout. As envisioned by Professor Jerry McDonigle of the Theatre Department, the set and staging is very dark – extremely ominous throughout – making the use of lighting even more powerful.   The audience sits around the acting area on three sides. The acting area is more like a pit than the traditional stage – like the pit in “The Pit and the Pendulum” – where the hero is physically unable to move while a sharp pendulum swings back and forth as it descends towards his body.   This production also communicates the inability to move – but in this case it is Hamlet’s inability to revenge the death of his father because of his   constant analysis of the situation. The acting area or set has quite a few running steps and platforms to represent the castle – like the castle atmosphere of Prince Prospero’s home in “The Masque of the Red Death.”  And the entire effect of the set is like that of the physical decline in  “The Fall of the House of Usher.” When I was a kid – and I know this really dates me - my parents took me to a performance by Richard Burton as Hamlet.  That time, I was completely bored – but over the years I have seen quite a few Hamlets – and I think this is the best production of Hamlet I have ever seen.  In this production, Hamlet is played by Matthew Sincell – an incredible actor who I had worked with when I interpreted for the Deaf at the American Shakespeare Center, Matt is a graduate of West Virginia University, has done a residency at the Globe Theatre, and has acted off-Broadway. In this West Virginia University production, Matt as Hamlet is first seen dressed as a prince – but gradually as his character is shown to be more complex, he is dressed in a leather jacket – and his appearance looks like a cross between a punk rocker and angry, spoiled brat.  Then in the graveyard scene at the beginning of the last Act, he comes out in a leather jacket with studs and a skull and crossbones on the back.

As many of you know, Poe came from a very theatrical family - while he was never an actor himself, and only wrote one unfinished drama, many scholars said that Poe thought of the world as his stage - this is an area that I will certainly be going into a great length in future podcasts.  We know that Poe had memorable lecture tours (usually ending with The Raven) but what did he  sound like? In other words, how would he have come across in a theatrical Environ ment ?

Elizabeth Oakes Smith in her “Autobiographic Notes: Edgar Allan Poe,” published in 1867, wrote “I have more than once sat spell-bound under the Shakespearean illusion of Edwin Booth as Hamlet, and always in the grove scene I thought of Poe. The same deep thoughtfulness — the profound expression of sadness — the weird silence and gloom which harmonize so wonderfully with the character of the shadowy Dane, served to reproduce the image of Edgar Poe.  A Richmond physician also recalled that “In face, form and expression Poe strongly resembled Edwin Booth.”

This is an almost eerie comparison because many other admirers of Poe said that he indeed sounded like the great actor, Edwin Booth.  While Poe died in 1849 long before sound recording was invented, we do have an 1890 recording of Edwin Booth from another of Shakespeare’s tragedies, Othello. By today’s standards, the sound quality is quite poor, so I will read it first.

My story being done, She gave me for my pains a world of sighs: She swore, in faith, twas strange, ’twas passing strange, ‘Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful

And now an untouched recording of Edwin Booth’s voice.  Now remember this was state of the art for the 1890s.  And you can image that this is what Edgar Allan Poe would have sounded like - but with a Southern accent - no lighting, raven sounds, or scary music - but what has been described by many who heard him as a musical voice.

(Booth reading the above)

I feel that it is impossible to seriously study Poe without looking at Shakespeare, and the Bard is a writer I will be returning to again and again in this podcast.  I would like to end this episode  with a quote from Bernard Levin’s essay about how Shakespeare has influenced our language. This piece is read by Don from the Classic Poetry Aloud podcast – giving voice to the poetry of the past - and is used by his kind permission.

If you cannot understand my argument, and declare “It’s Greek to me,'’ you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool’s paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you ,for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare.

In my next episode, I will continue discussing Hamlet and this West Virginia University production – especially interpreting Hamlet for the Deaf.  I am fortunate to be one of the interpreters, and have really enjoyed working with such a talented group of communicators.

This will segue into a brief discussion of interpreting Poe’s works for the Deaf. So hopefully doing this podcast (in addition to being entertaining) will allow you and me to understand America’s Shakespeare better. Doing an informed translation of Poe’s works into American Sign Language is a constant process learning about this incredibly complex writer– understanding Edgar Allan Poe not only as a tragic figure, but a great poet and master of horror – and like Shakespeare - a literary genius with an amazing understanding of the  human spirit.

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