I Hate Hamlet (Criticism)

Criticism

David Kelly

Kelly is an instructor of creative writing and literature. In this essay, Kelly examines the ways in which I Hate Hamlet weakens its dramatic impact by being unclear about how important the Shakespearean tradition really is.

Some people like Paul Rudnick's play I Hate Hamlet because it tries so hard to please its audiences, while others resent it for just the same reason. The play, a favorite of community theater and college productions, addresses serious issues about art and integrity, but it does not address them with much depth. With topics that range from high culture to television commercials, it has something for everyone, and little to offend anyone.

Critics have faulted Rudnick for taking such a superficial approach to his material, but it could just as well be said that the play is successful as a work of art, because it achieves exactly what it sets out to do. I Hate Hamlet aims to please, and loading it up with too much moral or sociological complexity would detract from its ability to do so. But being light does not mean the same thing as being free of content. As it stands, the play contains some clear contradictions. The question that arises is whether taking contradictory positions is a weakness or a strength of the play. Purists argue against taking contradictory positions in the same work, but the fact remains that an inconsistence stance can allow a writer to, at least potentially, be all things to all people.

The main thing about I Hate Hamlet is that it is a comedy. This means two things. The first is that the play must end on a happy note, with all of the problems solved, so that audiences can walk away from the theater focused on the good time they had, not on issues of greater importance. This is the comic tradition, though it is seldom enforced as powerfully and obviously as it is here. One would be hard put to find another play that practically forces audiences to applaud as a part of the script, as Rudnick does by having his two leads come out, face the audience, and bow, slowly and grandly.

The other ramification of being a comedy is that this is a play that wants laughs, and lots of them. It is a work where jokes, zingers, one-liners, witticisms and wise-cracks dominate over any other element. Rudnick is not afraid, or possibly not even unable, to have a character say something that would not be consistent with what they should be feeling if it means a chance to say something funny. Would the ghost of a Shakespearean actor, returned to earth to teach another actor to play Hamlet well, quip about how he would take the ridiculous television role that he has just seen the other actor turn down? Would the spirit of a dead mother respond to her daughter's psychic call only when she hears that "the rates have gone down?" Would any sexually frustrated lover complain that his girlfriend's desire to retain her virginity is like "show business for Mormons?" Unlikely as dialog like this would be in the real world, it is just the way people talk in the certain kind of light comedy that Rudnick has presented here. He can only be faulted for his jokes if they are inconsistent; as it is, however, the humor, far from intruding on the play, is the play. The rest — characters, situation, setting, action, and the other aspects — just serve to create a vehicle for delivering the jokes.

Some critics charge the play with a failure to be all that it should be, pointing out that its simple concept (ghost of Barrymore returns to help a struggling actor) and the action (modern actor learns to appreciate stagecraft) offer weak reasons for audiences to stay in their seats for two hours. Audiences, however, do not seem to mind. The jokes are frequent and clever enough to justify the night at the theater. To those seeking nothing more than amusement, the events and characterizations are only useful in that they make a play out of I Hate Hamlet; almost as good would be four or five comics, standing around on stage, trying to one-up one another. From an entertainment perspective, the trouble is not that the laughs get in the way of the play, but that the play gets in the way of the laughs.

But I Hate Hamlet is a play, after all. Regardless of how little audience members expect beyond mere entertainment, there are still dramatic elements that can heighten or flatten the experience. The first of these, of course, is a compelling lead character. In raising the ghost of John Barrymore, Rudnick has brought together elements that all — audiences, actors and writers — can appreciate. Rudnick's Barrymore is a charming rogue — a lover, a drunk, an artist. True to the actual career of John Barrymore, he is both a superb actor and a miserable failure. He has been through poverty and riches, critical success and the jeers that haunt a sellout. With all of these contradictions driving him, there is one fact that makes Barrymore such a prize role for any actor: he is noble.

That is, he is noble when the script calls on him to be. When the ghost of Barrymore focuses on what he has to offer to the living, following a tradition of Hamlet actors returning from the dead to pass the craft on to other actors, he has a sense of grandeur that one associates with the Shakespearean stage. He can duel with Andrew or seduce Deirdre, and audiences look up to him. He is otherworldly. The problem is that Rudnick is consistently on the lookout for ways in which the play can subvert expectations. For the sake of comic reversal, Barrymore is not always grand or even particularly supernatural. For example, having established him as one of the great artists of the stage, Rudnick seems unable to stop himself from showing Barrymore eating junk food and watching television, like any ill-bred slob, after having seduced the girlfriend of his protégé, which may or may not be a part of the lesson he brings to Andrew. It is not the witty dialog that causes this character's inconsistency: John Barrymore was a man of many aspects, but the play does not present him as a complex character, just as one who might be one thing or another at any given time.

Which is exactly the problem with the play's protagonist, Andrew Rally. Viewed simply, Andrew's problems are not at all difficult to understand. Professionally, he wants the wealth and fame that his television career offers him, but he also wants the self-esteem of playing Hamlet in Shakespeare in the Park. Personally, he wants to respect Deirdre's wishes, but his own wish is that she would not insist on saving herself for marriage. By the end of the play, both problems seem to be settled, but they really are not. Audiences leave the play feeling that Deirdre will give in to Andrew, but only because she has been sexually invigorated by the ghost of the great lover, Barrymore: Andrew can look forward to a love life with her, but not because they trust or understand each other any better. Also, in the end Andrew turns down a successful television career in favor of a struggling career on the stage. If this were clearly good for him, then this would indeed be a happy ending, but as it stands it is only an ending that seems as if it ought to be happy.

The play's seeming happy ending stems from the idea that Andrew will be a better man for devoting his life to understanding Hamlet. Rudnick makes this the preferred fate for Andrew by playing up the weakness of the alternative, acting in the ridiculous television series proposed to him by writer/director/producer Gary Peter Lefkowitz. Earlier, Andrew expressed his humiliation about acting in a television commercial that required him to converse with a puppet squirrel, then kiss it to make it feel better; presumably, the television series about a high school teacher with super powers would be at least humiliating to Andrew's professionalism. The moral of the play is that it is better to be poor with dignity than to be wealthy and self-loathing. This much is fine, assuming that a lifetime of playing Hamlet is a lifetime of dignity.

Obviously, there are people who feel that this is exactly the case. Some people live for art, and for some of those, there is no art greater than Shakespeare's. The distinction between people who appreciate Shakespeare and people who appreciate television is one of this play's central points. Where the play does audiences a real disservice is by assuming, without proving, that the Shakespeareans have it right.

This is a play constructed around wall-to-wall one-liners: in spite of the swords and tights, it has more in common with any situation comedy on television than it does with Shakespeare's comedies. It uses the over-earnest Elizabethan values for laughs, as Deirdre, in her gown and tennis shoes, dreams of a more spiritual existence than her own. Even John Barrymore, the great interpreter of Shakespeare's greatest role, rises to interest in the role only infrequently, focusing most of the time on women, champagne, and even television. As he explains when Andrew questions him about the years of his life that he spent away from the stage, "I faced the dragon." Audiences might take comfort at the end by believing that Andrew is sacrificing himself for art, but in fact what the play truly values is not the process of playing Hamlet. The real point of I Hate Hamlet is that it is best to get one's artistic notions over and done with, so that one can go on with a real, Shakespeare-free life.

Of course, audiences seldom notice this contradiction. They leave the theater knowing that Andrew is going to walk away from the foolishness of television and is going to continue to perform Hamlet, which the characters in the play (and, no doubt, the English teachers they remember) have consistently said is a good thing. Audiences leave feeling that Andrew is triumphant in the end because of the grand bow that he takes; they know that he really deserves to take this bow because the ghost of the great thespian told him he deserves it. The play ends on an upbeat note, and few people except the most jaded critics notice that, despite all that is said about the redemptive powers of performing Shakespeare, the play itself does not seem to have much use for Hamlet, other than as a comic situation.

I Hate Hamlet is an effective comedy precisely because its values are held so loosely: Rudnick is free to set up situations and support positions that he can later knock apart, humoring audiences with the unexpected. The play gives free reign to the playwright's wit and does not let plot constraints hinder that wit. In the end, though, the play resolves the tension between the modern worldview and the view of the Shakespearean dramatist by conceding that classic drama is more artistically legitimate: this is a safe position to take, but it is not consistent with the rest of the play.

Source:

David Kelly, Critical Essay on I Hate Hamlet, in Drama for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.

Laura Carter

Carter is currently employed as a freelance writer. In this essay, Carter focuses on Rudnick's lighthearted contemporary comedy and it's ability to speak to the magic of Shakespeare's Hamlet.

In keeping with one of the major themes of Shakespeare's Hamlet, Paul Rudnick's I Hate Hamlet is a contrast between both old and new, the value of Shakespearean theater versus the instant gratification of television fame. Rudnick draws on historical figure John Barrymore for his inspiration, an actor captivated by the role of Shakespeare's prince. A sentimental, lighthearted social commentary, Rudnick's Hamlet is not a tragedy, does not seek to redeem or preach a heavy handed message. But it does illuminate the value of the genre to which it speaks. Says the playwright: "I Hate Hamlet celebrates the theater, in all its artifice and happy dementia. May the Barrymore panache rule all productions."

Rudnick's play introduces Andrew Rally, an unemployed actor who has previously enjoyed great celebrity status in his role as a physician on television. When Andrew is offered the lead in Hamlet, his girlfriend swoons, his broker cheers and his agent campaigns for Andrew to take the part. But Andrew does not share the same enthusiasm. When girlfriend Dierdre tells him he must accept the honorable challenge, he responds: "But why? Just because it's supposed to be this ultimate challenge? Because everyone's supposed to dream of playing Hamlet ?" Dierdre, however, continues to push through Andrew's protests, ignoring his objections based on his short lived studies in acting school and his ultimate decision to leave to become a hack actor on a primetime series.

Dierdre's insistence on his participation in "the most beautiful play ever written" becomes part of a clever banter exposing the potential flaw in Dierdre's thinking. Her description of the play is one of heavy despair, of tragedy, "It's about how awful life is, and how everything gets betrayed," declares Dierdre. "But then Hamlet tries to make things better. And he dies!" Andrew responds humorously, "Which tells us," questioning the play's redeeming value. To Andrew, playing what is historically identified as Shakespeare's most challenging character is not necessarily the boost his career needs, it's potentially career suicide. Modern television did not demand any real talent, claims Andrew, "I had the right twinkle, the demographic appeal."

With Andrew, and with Gary, Rudnick's work offers an illuminating contemporary perspective on Shakespearean theater. Gary can only respond to Hamlet, commenting, "Whoa, God, other centuries. Like, people who weren't me." He is Rudnick's pop culture icon. Obnoxious, at times calculating, he is not remiss in playfully admitting it. He is completely self-absorbed, and primarily motivated by his own self interest rather than by Andrew's happiness. Playing devil's advocate, Gary reduces the production of Shakespeare in Central Park to "algebra on stage," calling it "snack theater" or "Shakespeare for squirrels." He continues to plead with Andrew to come to his senses, to realize that purchasing fine art is intrinsically more valuable than trying to emulate it, painting a portrait of his young protégé as one doomed to basement productions of Chekov scheduled between AA meetings.

In this clever juxtaposition of ideas of what is really art versus contemporary entertainment, Gary dismantles or tears apart tradition by challenging the idea that Hamlet, by virtue of its sophistication, is a higher, more noble art form. For as tactless, and as tacky as he is, Gary is plugged in, turned on, and tuned in to the entertainment demands of pop culture and what it means to be successful. He identifies happiness with materialism, and truly believes he is not only acting in his best interests, but in Andrew's as well. And he exposes the follies of dreamers, like Dierdre, who, spurred by sentimentality, live in a world of high-flying ideals, completely out of touch with reality.

Barrymore is Gary's alter ego and an advocate for the arts. After hearing Andrew declare his dislike for Hamlet, Barrymore appears, his mission to reform his understudy, to convince him to embrace the role he so covets. Unlike Gary, Barrymore detests modern theater. In a conversation with Andrew, Barrymore likens the "introduction of truth" into modern theater to such artifice as "synthetic fibers" and the "GE Kitchen of Tomorrow." He sees Andrew at a crossroads, having to make the choice between a timeless role as Hamlet or television's slick marketing hype, asking "What will you be — artist, or lunchbox?" And Barrymore sees, as Andrew begins to eventually believe, that implicit in such a choice is a challenge, to truly follow one's passion, to accept more difficult acting parts and truly master one's craft, or to succumb to the materialistic, easy money that to Barrymore equates to a career on television. Gary, however, is more impressed with the enormous television contract, hoping that Andrew's interest in Hamlet is short lived.

Gary and Barrymore are archetypes, examples Rudnick employs to drive a discussion about the value of Hamlet, and by extension, of art. And both characters make somewhat reasonable, if not believable arguments for both sides, expressing their views or understood notions of what authentic art is, and further, what is politically correct in the art world. Barrymore fervently condemns modernity in any form. Gary celebrates it. While Barrymore looks to the past for his inspiration, Gary embraces the future, claiming that theater "doesn't make sense," that television is "progress," or "art perfected." The idea that in addition to commanding less of his attention, he can eat, talk and view commercials makes television all the more appealing. "It's distilled" entertainment, Gary claims, never demanding an unnecessary amount of his time and energy.

For all of Barrymore's protestations and endless pontification or preaching on the subject of television, the audience discovers the dead actor is not as virtuous as his views suggest. In Act 2, Scene 1, in the midst of Andrew's struggle with stage fright, Barrymore calls Andrew a "sniveling brat." Andrew responds, claiming, "After you played Hamlet, you left the theater!" Barrymore attempts to absolve himself, putting Andrew even more on the offensive. It is during this scene the audience learns that Barrymore left for Hollywood, purchased a mansion in Beverly Hills, and made movie after movie, "most of them garbage," according to Andrew.

But, Barrymore admits that movies ruined him, made him a hopeless, unemployable drunk and eventually left him unable to perform. Admittedly, before his departure for Hollywood fame and fortune, his face "five stories high and six zeroes wide," Barrymore found more personal satisfaction in playing the role of Hamlet. In his estimation, during his acting stint as Hamlet, he was in his prime professionally, having "faced the dragon." Says Barrymore, "I accepted a role so insanely complex, so fantastic and impossible, that any attempt is only that — an attempt!"

What gives Barrymore great credibility is that he stood at the crossroads of Andrew's life, was given a chance at fame and fortune, or the opportunity to remain a Shakespearean actor playing what is considered to be the noblest of roles, and chose to forsake his talents for the instant gratification Hollywood has to offer. When it comes to Andrew, however, his motive is seemingly as self-serving as Gary's, the audience discovers in a conversation with Lillian. He admits that getting Andrew to accept the role of Hamlet was the sole purpose of his return. Barrymore claims he wanted Andrew to learn from his "sorry excuse for a life." And, he admits that although he was offered every conceivable opportunity, "Andrew is my last vain hope. My cosmic lunge at redemption."

Rudnick's play is in part about Barrymore's legacy. By most historical accounts, one would be hard-pressed to label him a Shakespearean actor. According to Gene Fowler, in Good Night Sweet Prince, Barrymore was enthralled with the role of Hamlet, "possessed. A voice clearly had challenged him from across three centuries. He would climb the highest of the magic mountains, the last great peak he was to scale in the fabulous domain of the theatre." (bard.org) Critics have been apt to point out that Barrymore, as any actor finding himself in any great role, identified with the Prince of Denmark in an intensely personal way. According to Fowler, the actor himself "declared the Prince to be 'the easiest role he ever played.'" (bard.org)

The play is also driven by strong Shakespearean undercurrents, leading one critic from Utah's Shakespearean Festival to comment that Rudnick's work "is a comedy and a very funny one," yet "under the surface laughter there is a strong Hamlet current that carries us along in the same way it carries Andrew Rally and in the same way it carried John Barrymore." (bard.org) The play resonates with the audience as the Prince of Denmark's character has been historically throughout the world, leading critics the likes of Harold Bloom to conclude, "No other single character in the plays, not even Falstaff or Cleopatra, matches Hamlet's infinite reverberations. The phenomenon of Hamlet, the prince without the play, is unsurpassed in the West's imaginative literature." (bard.org)

Fundamentally, Hamlet has fascinated the literary world for centuries as a Prince whose good intentions led to his ultimate failure. And throughout the centuries, the character, according to some, has come to personify humanity's most perplexing problems and dearest hopes. As did a long line of actors before him, Barrymore included, Andrew comes to identify with the character of Hamlet on many levels. Hamlet in the beginning is a challenge, a chance for Andrew to prove himself, but in the end, Andrew internalizes the role. Andrew took on the role with the intention of winning Dierdre's affections and sending Barrymore back to the afterlife, yet by the play's end the character Hamlet manages to reach right down to the very core of his being, changing his life.

Sifting through Dierdre's, Barrymore's and Gary's arguments, one is hard pressed to make a decision concerning Andrew's future as an entertainer. If Andrew is a mediocre actor, should he dare consider passing up a three-million-dollar contract with a major television network to suffer the embarrassment of playing Hamlet? Or will he eventually conquer the role, as Barrymore once did, and finally conquer his own private demons?

What Paul Rudnick's I Hate Hamlet does so well is to illuminate the schism between classic and contemporary; old and new; art and progress to provide a humorous glimpse into the life, the drama and the glory of the theater. It leaves the audience to ponder age old questions and unresolved arguments about the legitimacy of art in contemporary life. Ultimately, though, Rudnick's work is sentimental. It resonates with a desire all beings feel, that is, to reach for a dream and connect with it on the deepest level possible. For Andrew that dream is the stage, to meet and conquer the role of Hamlet, the greatest acting challenge of his career. Andrew is not alone. For many actors, the role of Hamlet goes beyond art for art's sake, it is the final vista, the ultimate challenge, the apex of their careers. It captures that one moment, that glimmer of hope, of supreme accomplishment that most of us continue to strive for, whether or not we have "8,000 lines to go."

Source:

Laura Carter, Critical Essay on I Hate Hamlet, in Drama for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.

David Remy

Remy is a freelance writer in Warrington, Florida. In the following essay, Remy examines the ways in which Rudnick's play comments upon popular culture.

As a play, I Hate Hamlet is a comedy, a melodrama, a send-up of tradition and grandeur, a contrast between high and low culture, yet as a commentary on many of the ideas that pervade contemporary popular culture, it remains a biting satire. From the opening scene, there exists a juxtaposition between the characters' expectations and their methods for realizing them, a dichotomy that makes for amusing, playful entertainment. Often, it seems that willpower alone is enough to communicate with the dead or transform the career of a TV actor into that of a theatrical star, but, alas, this is not so. To be fair, Rudnick satirizes not only the aspirations of his protagonist but those of the other characters as well. By exposing his characters' ideas about education, fame, and art, Rudnick creates a picture of a contemporary society that is influenced more by popular culture than it is by tradition and the eternal verities it represents.

In I Hate Hamlet, education is viewed as a means to an end rather than something worth pursuing to enrich one's life. Because society advances at an ever accelerating pace, an education now develops over the short-term, and any information that falls beyond the focus of an individual's immediate goals is discarded as useless or antiquated. In other words, an education should help one solve a particular problem, and it should do nothing more or nothing less than that. Solutions should be found easily so that one is able to devote one's time to more leisurely pursuits. For example, when Felicia, the real estate broker, fails to reconcile her feelings for her departed mother through counseling, she takes a course entitled "Spiritual Transcommunication: Beyond The Physical Sphere." Felicia becomes a medium practically overnight, avoiding a long apprenticeship that might interfere with her more urgent need of contacting her mother. As a result of having taken the course, Felicia enjoys a better relationship with her mother, whom she talks to regularly in the hereafter as though they were chatting over the telephone. Furthermore, even though Andrew expresses doubt about contacting the dead, he is willing to go along with the séance if contacting the famous actor John Barrymore will help him perform the role of Hamlet. Andrew would rather take a shortcut than study the performances of those who have played the venerable role before him.

Although his formal dramatic training (a mere two years) has left him ill-prepared for playing the role of Hamlet, Andrew believes, quite naïvely, that he can prepare for this role in much the same manner that he did for the episodes of LA Medical and the cereal commercial that made him famous. When the TV show is canceled, Andrew, acting on "a whim," decides to try his luck in New York City, the home of the American theatre. He assumes that all he needs to do to match his previous success is "[t]ake some classes, maybe do a new play, ease back in," as though such a challenge as performing Hamlet could be done in a paint-by-numbers fashion. In a popular culture where willpower ("attitude") and a penchant for self-promotion can carry one far, Andrew, in an ironic commentary upon both his profession and the times in which he lives, mistakenly believes that every acting assignment demands the same amount of preparation, whether it requires him to perform as a pitchman for a breakfast cereal or to assume the mantle worn by Barrymore and the august line of actors that preceded him in performing the role of Hamlet. However, by the time Andrew leaves for his opening-night performance, he understands that common sense favors a more traditional approach toward learning the part. "Instant actor! Just add Shakespeare! I don't think it works that way!" he says, filled with a sense of horror worse than any case of opening-night jitters could ever produce.

Fame is yet another aspect of popular culture that Rudnick satirizes at length within the play. Fame is a commonplace occurrence, something that is sought after and achieved by many through different means, though the context for one's fame may not always be flattering. Andrew feels the exhilaration fame brings when he sees his face on the cover of TV Guide at the supermarket checkout line, "right next to the gum." Nevertheless, he remains flushed with excitement, as though he celebrates his Bar Mitzvah whenever his associates and the adoring public smile back at him. "That's what California is," Andrew says, "it's one big hug — it's Aunt Sophie without the pinch." The medium of television broadcasts Andrew's image far and wide, making him recognizable and, therefore, famous. Within a context of popular culture, fame, Rudnick suggests, bestows notoriety at the same time it makes all achievements equal. For example, Andrew is known as much for a commercial in which he acts alongside a talking chipmunk as he is for playing the role of Jim Corman, "rookie surgeon," on LA Medical. When Felicia meets Andrew at the Barrymore apartment, one of the first things she does is remark upon how much she enjoys watching him act on television, his show and the Trail-burst Nuggets commercial receiving equal merit even though she cannot quite seem to recall the product he advertises. With his show now canceled, Andrew's fame, such as it is, comes down to his singing a few bars of a jingle to remind her.

In this way, fame, which the playwright suggests is fleeting and achieved all too easily, distinguishes itself from glory, which, as embodied by the ghost of John Barrymore, is far more enduring. Fame can last for as long as one thirty-second commercial or for the length of an entire broadcast season, perhaps longer if the show goes into syndication. Fame is regarded as superficial because one does not necessarily have to possess talent in order to be famous — at one point Barrymore refers to Andrew as a "hack" — and yet popular culture considers fame to be something worthy of attaining. Although Andrew may claim that he is "not that superficial" for being motivated more by fame than by money when he is offered the series Night School, he unwittingly undermines his artistic integrity when he remarks upon how many people will see the show "even if it's a bomb." As Barrymore observes, fame may make Andrew "admired, lusted after," but at the same time he will acquire "all the attributes of a well-marketed detergent." Fame and its attendant celebrity cannot compare with glory, which endures above and beyond such trappings as better pay, "beachfront property," and "body-guards," for glory is attained when an actor establishes a rapport with his or her audience and holds it spellbound, as Barrymore did many times throughout his long and illustrious career on stage and as Andrew does briefly when he recites his soliloquy. The moment becomes memorable because it is unique and cannot be reproduced ad nauseum as it can on film. Glory, at least the kind that performing the role of Hamlet can bestow upon an actor, transcends the ages.

While Rudnick espouses glory as the actor's supreme reward, a legacy that is handed down from one generation of actors to the next, glory's essential component, art, does not fare nearly as well in a society that values commerce and forms of entertainment designed for mass consumption. Art, when it is appreciated at all, is regarded as a money-making venture, a business proposition guaranteed to secure lasting value. "You don't do art," Gary says when Andrew announces his decision to play Hamlet. "You buy it." Rudnick provides an ironic commentary on drama in contemporary society when Gary confuses a live performance of Shakespeare in the park with Hallmark Hall of Fame, sentimental made-for-TV dramas that are sponsored by a popular greeting-card company. The connection between the dramas and their sponsor is so indelible that commerce and entertainment have become synonymous with each other. Furthermore, Gary embodies the pervading belief among his colleagues in the entertainment industry that a conscious decision to create art, such as the decision Andrew has made to perform Hamlet, diminishes an actor's "star power," his value as a commodity on the market. Thus, Gary warns Andrew that the Hollywood bigwigs will think he's "washed up" if he plays the Danish prince. Andrew has a reputation to consider; he should think twice before donning tights. To choose art over commercial value (and the potential to increase that value many times over) is tantamount, in Gary's opinion, to committing professional suicide.

Perhaps as a result of the entertainment industry's view of art, Andrew, in trying to perform his role with a dependable degree of accuracy and confidence, approaches the role of Hamlet with something akin to scientific investigation. Indeed, his preoccupation with concepts like "preparation," "substitution," "internalizing the role," and "finding an emotional through-line" — all aspects of the modern acting technique known as The Method — strikes Barrymore as "utterly appalling," for he, like the actors and actresses of his era, honed his craft during countless performances of the classics. One developed a role over time, learning the nuances that revealed themselves with each reading and performance of the play. Moreover, Barrymore discounts Andrew's ideas about "communication," which the veteran actor refers to as "[t]hat absolute assassin of romance." In sharp contrast to popular opinion, Barrymore dismisses modern acting technique as nonsense, inferring that performing the role of Hamlet cannot be reduced to an elaborate series of formulae. Rather, the role gives the actor "an opportunity to shine," to express in language and in deed the eternal verities of the heart, for this is how the role of Hamlet must be played, with passion and a generosity of spirit that knows no bounds.

Rudnick's I Hate Hamlet satirizes the ideas and opinions that serve too often as intellectual guideposts in popular culture, particularly as they influence the entertainment industry's view on art. However, the ghostly figure of John Barrymore reminds both the audience and the reader that, though these ideas and opinions may come and go, there will always be a need for the enduring art of Shakespeare.

Source:

David Remy, Critical Essay on I Hate Hamlet, in Drama for Students, Thomson Gale, 2006.

What Do I Read Next?

• Audiences who watch I Hate Hamlet without being familiar with William Shakespeare's play Hamlet will not be able to fully appreciate the humor, nor the depth of the characters' emotions about Shakespeare's tortured character. Written some time around 1600, Hamlet is considered by many to be the author's greatest work.
• Paul Rudnick's first novel, Social Disease, was published in 1986 and has recently been reissued by St. Martin's Press. It is a humorous commentary on life in Manhattan in the 1980s.
• After I Hate Hamlet, Rudnick's most famous work for the theater is his play Jeffrey (1993). Like the earlier play, Rudnick infuses a serious situation — in this case, a gay man coming to grips with the devastation that AIDS is causing around him — with humor.
• Jason Miller, a Pulitzer Prize winning playwright (for That Championship Season) and actor (he had one of the leads in the movie The Exorcist) wrote, late in his life, a short, one-person play called Barrymore's Ghost (1998), which gives a serious approach to the conceit that is treated lightly by Rudnick. The play is available from Dramatist's Play Service.
• Of the many biographies written about Barrymore, the most important is Gene Fowler's Good Night, Sweet Prince: The Life and Times of John Barrymore (1981). Fowler knew Barrymore and covered his Broadway career for the New York American. The book, published soon after Barrymore's death in the forties, is currently available from Buccaneer Books.