“Which room did Shakespeare write Hamlet in?”
An American tourist asked me this question at the entrance to Kronborg Castle in Helsingør.
It was July 2017, and I was rushing to begin a final rehearsal of our production of “Hamlet”marking Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary.
I was playing the role of Hamlet’s mother, Queen Gertrude, in a modern, thrilling version of the play, directed by Lars Roman Engel, the artistic director of HamletScenen.
I had no time to explain to the tourist that Shakespeare never visited Denmark.
Shakespeare never left England
In fact, unlike his famous contemporary, Christopher Marlowe, who wrote “Dr Faustus “ and was known as “the prince of poets“, Shakespeare never even left England .
The setting of the play in the rooms and courtyard of Kronborg Castle must have been based on Shakespeare’s imagination. Or was it?
I am not so sure.
In the course of researching my play “Shakespeare’s Ghost“, in which I raise the question of the authorship of the plays being Marlowe, I discovered some curious information about Kronborg Castle.
Somebody must have given the playwright an extremely detailed description of the castle.
Somebody knew that the chapel where, in the play, King Claudius prays, overlooked by a vengeful Prince Hamlet, is on the way to Queen Gertrude’s’s bedchamber. Here, Hamlet attacks his mother and sees the ghost of his father for the second time.
Who could have known these details unless they had actually been inside the castle?
Yes, Shakespeare wrote his plays
Those who angrily dismiss the possibility that Shakespeare did not write the plays, suggest that the popular actor, Will Kempe, who performed at the castle in 1586 relayed this information to Shakespeare in London.
However, not only was Kempe there 15 years before Hamlet was performed at the Globe Theatre, but also it seems far-fetched that a travelling player would, at the royal celebrations of a newly-rebuilt Kronborg Castle, be allowed inside to investigate the layout of the royal chambers.
Unless he was a spy. And, oddly enough, Marlowe was a spy for Queen Elizabeth.
But, let us put all that conjecture aside, as it is one of the many mysteries that surround Hamlet and ensure that the Shakespeare Festival has, since 1816, drawn some of the modern era’s most celebrated actors to play the title role.
Laurence Olivier, Derek Jacobi, Richard Burton, Kenneth Branagh, Jude Law, are among those who uttered the lines “To be or not to be” beneath the walls of the castle at Elsinore.
As mysteries go, there is one more that it is almost unbelievable.
In risk of getting shut-down
In August of this year, the City Council of Helsingør proposed to close down the Shakespeare Theatre Festival – forever.
Apparently they need money to solve other local economic problems.
The Festival is an annual event which attracts theatre-lovers from all over the world and has put the tiny town of Helsingør on the world map.
Incredibly, with only one week’s notice, Lars Roman Engel was informed that the City Council would break the recently-signed Community Theatre agreement.
A breach of trust that would mean the closure of the HamletScenen.
Fortunately, following a hasty and well-directed campaign, involving many theatre professionals, the City Council , at the last minute, was shamed into preserving the HamletScenen Festival at Kronborg.
Perhaps a spy like Marlowe would have been useful inside the corridors of the City Hall?
Come see something rotten
So “all’s well that end’s well“ and if mysteries are your thing, don’t miss our production of “Shakespeare’s Ghost“ at the Black Horse Theatre. Frederiksberg from November 7th.
I can guarantee that something rotten will be exposed…
