PARTISAN REVIEW
company or it may express some interior derangement on the part of
the author or, very likely, both. In any case, this unsteadiness, which
is the most striking feature of
Hamlet,
is the thing which most acted
versions begin by trying to eliminate, either by "interpretation" or by
a kind of glaze imparted to the diction that makes it (a) inaudible
and (b) all of a piece. Sir Laurence Olivier's is the only
Hamlet
which
seizes this inconsecutiveness and makes of it an image of suffering, of
the failure to feel steadily, to be able to compose a continuous pattern,
which is the most harrowing experience of man. Hamlet, a puzzle to
himself, is seen by Olivier as a boy, whose immaturity is both his grace
and his frailty. The uncertainty as to what is real, the disgust, the
impulsiveness, the arbitrary shifts of mood, the recklessness, the high
spirits, all incomprehensible in those middle-aged, speechifying Hamlets
to whom our stage is habituated, here become suddenly irradiated. The
play appears to be not so much a drama but a kind of initiation cere–
mony, barbaric like all such rituals, in which the novice is killed.
Already, in his first scene, Hamlet is grieving for the death of his fa–
ther, but woodenly, uncomprehendingly, bitterly, as a child grieves who
refuses to countenance that such things can happen in the world. The
Ghost's appearance is to him almost an adventure. He rushes down from
his interview full of jokes and wildness; his boredom is gone-at last
he has something to do. But the Ghost's commission is not really Quixotic.
The enterprise loses its zest with Hamlet's recognition that it is an actual
man he must kill, his uncle, whom he knows very well, a sleazy piece
of the old, tedious reality. Bored, sullen, and angry, he diverts himself by
tormenting Ophelia, whom he suspects of being One of Them. He baits
her father, pretends to be mad, and then promptly sloughs his ennui
when the players come, gives them a lecture on acting in the patronizing
tone that comes easily to precocious, gifted young dilettantes, loses inter–
est shortly, and sends them off for the night. Thoughts of suicide engage
him; he wishes himself dead. Meanwhile, a marvelous phm has occurred
to him; he will trap his uncle with the play. He draws Horatio into
the game, but before the play is over, he has ceased to care about the
result. Repelled by the sight of his uncle playing, he lets pass his oppor–
tunity and instead makes a row with his mother, kills Polonius and two
minutes later has forgotten about
him
in the interests of a new idea–
to get his mother to promise not to go to his uncle's bed. At this point,
the forces of reality-middle-age, and cunning-themselves take charge
of the action, and Hamlet, who has provoked them, is done for.
Whether or not this is the authentic creature of Shakespeare's im–
agination, it is impossible to say. Behind the gesture and the impulse is
there a Hamlet at all? That is the question which in Olivier's unique
performance is kept open and aching, like a wound.
Mary McCarthy
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