David Rotenberg - The Hamlet Murders

“That being the case,” Geoffrey prompted, “the king wouldn’t waste the time of real soldiers to guard the walls so he’d . . . ”

“ . . . enlist the clerk and the night-soil collector.”

“Very good, Fong. I think of them as the tinker and the tailor myself,” Geoffrey said, indicating the small man onstage who stood very still for a moment then whirled around. His large spear dropped to the ground with a clang. He fell to his hands and knees trying to find it in the darkness but couldn’t. Then, as if he heard something, he rose slowly and peered out into the darkness. Geoff leaned in close to Fong and said, “And here it comes . . . ”

“Who’s there?” the poor man whispers.

“As I said, the first line of the play.”

“So you do know your Shakespeare, Fong.”

“Thanks to Fu Tsong.” The moment he said it he realized it was the very first time he had ever spoken his wife’s name in her lover’s company. It was as if he’d allowed two separate parts of himself to bleed together. It was as if he’d moved to the other side of a mirror where his image lived.

From the depths of the stage darkness the new watch comes to replace the old. With them is a nobleman, Horatio. The man questions the guard about the sightings of the ghost. Fong immediately liked the young man playing Horatio. Modest, honest and straightforward. But he didn’t like his insights:

“In the most high and palmy state of Rome, A little ere the mightiest Julius fell, The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets: As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood, Disasters in the sun; and the moist star Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse . . . ”

“If only evil were mirrored by a cantankerousness in nature, my job would be easier,” Fong thought. But he’d often found the reverse. A sadistic father’s savagery could as easily take place on a beautiful spring day when the cherry blossoms are scenting the city as in the midst of a torrential sky letting.

The new guards, Marcellus and Bernardo, lead Horatio to the place they last saw the ghost. Horatio sees nothing and is about to leave when he senses something and turns. That single violin note again from the back of the auditorium. There is nothing there that we can see but clearly Horatio sees something. He staggers back.

“The darkness speaks to him,” Geoffrey says into Fong’s ear.

Fong thought about that. Darkness can most assuredly speak.

Hamlet makes his first entrance. The light strikes the man’s face and for a fleeting instant he looks oddly like a younger Asian version of Geoff. Fong’s breath catches in his throat. Then the violin note again and he too is addressed by the darkness. This time we hear the darkness speak too. The voice comes from somewhere high in the rafters of the old building.

Geoff’s staging was spare, almost entirely devoid of props. Only the most essential elements were used, but it had a real elegance – a grace that was present in all of Geoff’s work.

The dreadful message of murder by a brother is delivered and received. But the ambiguity of Geoff’s staging leaves it unclear as to the nature of this message. Is it honest? A message from the darkness that your uncle killed your father and that you are to avenge the murder. Hard to swallow in the light of day let alone in a voice from the darkness. Fong played with the phrase voice from the darkness for a moment. It reminded him of something. Finally he asked, “Is ‘a voice from the darkness’ from your Bible?”

“I’m not sure. I know there is a voice from a burning bush.”

Fong turned around to look at Geoffrey. “From a bush?”

“From a burning bush, actually.”

“Was it important what the bush said?”

“Well, it was God speaking . . . ”

“From a bush? A hedge? Not even a tree or the sky? What god would choose to talk from a shrubbery? Surely no one of any importance bothered to obey this voice.”

“No one important, just Moses, patriarch of Jews, Christians and Muslims.”

“That explains a lot.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Jews, Christians and Muslims have lots of problems. Maybe they stem, excuse the pun, from listening to bushes.”

Geoffrey laughed.

Fong had never heard him laugh before. Despite himself, he liked the sound. He didn’t know what to do with that. When he looked up, Polonius’s farewell to his son, Laertes, was taking place.

Fong listened to Polonius’s advice to his son:

“Beware of entrance to a quarrel; but being in, Beaer’t that th’ opposed may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice.”

Fong turned to Geoff, “Why is this man thought of as a fool? His advice is sound.”

“I agree, Fong. His outside may be foolish but he is no fool. Remember, he managed to keep his position under two different administrations. Not always an easy thing to do but something that I assume someone like yourself who works for a Communist dictatorship would be able to appreciate.” Before Fong could protest, Geoff continued, “I think Polonius is stupid like a fox. In fact, I have him supplying the poison that Claudius puts in Hamlet senior’s ear.”

“Is that in the play?”

“It’s implied if you follow the logic of the events.”

Fong thought about that too. Events do have logic. They even sequence themselves. He had noticed of late that his life had an odd logic to it. Like a play in three acts. And here he was just finishing his second act, watching Hamlet. He finished his first act watching Twelfth Night with his first wife, Fu Tsong, playing Viola. That production had been directed by Geoffrey Hyland as well.

Geoffrey was still talking. Fong hadn’t been listening but picked up just the very end of Geoffrey’s statement: “ . . . you have good eyes, Fong. You can see, really see.” Geoff put a hand on Fong’s shoulder by the collar of his summer-weight jacket. Fong couldn’t believe he would do that but before he could protest, Geoff continued, “I don’t know about in your work, Fong, but in mine something odd happens when you achieve a certain level of skill. Your life slips into your work. Not obvious. Not open. But absolutely there, for those with good eyes, to see. When I was in drama school, an entire lifetime ago, I assisted the single most talented director I’d ever seen work. He was my only teacher, Fong. He was the reason I went back to school. One rehearsal, he arrived late – really not like him – and he set right into working on a scene. He worked on it with incredible energy, almost frenzy. Then he ran it. When he finished, he turned to me and said, “So what d’you think?”

“Well, I was a student. Stupid. So I told him. ‘It looks like a car crash.’ His face sort of opened up and he began to laugh. ‘What?’ I asked. Then through his laughter he said, ‘I just totalled my car on the way to rehearsal. That’s why I was late.’ It really wasn’t until years later that I realized what was going on. He was so hooked up, so in touch with himself that everything he put onstage was a response to the reality of his life. I always wanted to get that close to myself. I worked at it, Fong, and now somehow it’s happening. Everything important in my life is up there on that stage. Everything that’s happening in my life is right there for anyone to see, so long as they have the right eyes, like yours, Fong.”

Geoff removed his hand from Fong’s shoulder. Fong turned to look at him. Then Fong saw two Caucasian women approaching them. One was small and pinched and clutched a red zippered binder to her chest. The other was tall, dark-haired, older and may have at one time been attractive in a coarse kind of way. Were these some sort of Western keepers? The older, taller woman stood back and brooded. She was the kind of person who leached light from a room. The smaller one strode forward as if she owned the place.