Percy MacKaye (1875–1956)

A surprisingly ambitious mediocrity.

There is nothing in this play which cannot already be found in Hamlet. Gertrude flirts with Claudius. Hamlet Jr plays with Laertes. Claudius kills Hamlet Sr, along with a few other people. Hamlet Jr goes to England. Hamlet Sr goes a little mad, to show that it runs in the family. There is a nice touch with Hamlet Sr walking in his sleep, such that the opening mirrors that of Hamlet: the King discovered on a battlement, walking like a ghost. Claudius has show more visions of a plotting spirit named Gallicus, probably intending to demonstrate a madness due to syphilis, although this is never made clear.

This makes it a nice tribute, in a way, and it would be if it were a single play. Mackaye, however, stretches this out into four plays: where an Act would be to The Bard, Mackaye places an entire play, generally composed of single-scene Acts (which could, therefore, be scenes). Mackaye has none of Shakespeare's economy, and the dialogue drags on and on and on.

Nor is the language very pretty. It reads like a pre-war play aping its classical predecessors: some well-heeled student of the arts fell in love with Literature amongst the polo and single malt of ivy league days, and decided to create some of his own without understanding or appreciating what makes the classics "classic" (hint: it doesn't have to do with when they were written).

There's a postscript of sorts which addresses this, claiming that Mackaye made no attempt to mimic Shakespeare's language. This just makes the choice of language all the more embarrassing: the author was not trying to sound like Shakespeare, he was trying to sound Theatrical. Of course MacKaye has read the Amleth of Saxo Grammaticus, asserts the postscript, even though there is nothing in the play that could have come from Ameth but not Hamlet. Might have been a better, or at least more insightful, play if he actually had.

The postscript mentions that this series of plays contains the romance of Mackaye and his wife, wrapped in the setting of Hamlet as a sort of dramatization. This may be true, in the sense that much of the awful verse could have been lifted from the vast reams of equally-awful poetry that Mackaye wrote to, for, and about his wife. I doubt, however, that MacKaye and his jester friend were murdered by his younger brother, and in any event, Mackaye outlived his wife.

All in all, not worth the trouble of tracking down a copy, even for the Hamlet completist. show less

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