Canadian
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Gallery Denmark and Elsinore
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| Woe is Me music video from Denmark and Elsinore |
Debora Grant had the seeds of her 2002 multimedia Shakespearean adaptation, Denmark and Elsinore, planted when during a conversation with her musician brother Marlon, said, “You know what would go great with music? Shakespeare.” The production opened on February 17 and ran until the 25th in Montreal, reviewer Amy Barratt stated, “This city has seen a fair number of Hamlets in the past few years, in English, French and even Lithuanian … but this is something new” (Get Thee to a Dance Floor). The reason behind this newness lies in Grant’s unique adaptation that combines unusual visual components, creativity, casting, and location. Performed at Le Swimming, a well-known, hip, downtown nightclub downtown, Denmark and Elsinore was built around the premise “that everyone present––cast and audience alike––is attending a private party celebrating a shift in power” (Denmark and Elsinore is a hip hop Hamlet). Yet, as in Shakespeare’s original, everyone except for Hamlet is celebrating the new royal order. Hamlet, then, is left with the question, “what’s he going to do about it?” (“One Wild Night of Theatre”). The actors in this adaptation were situated in three main sections of the nightclub, with the audience seated around them. The small venue, and the blending of the audience into the contexts of the play, created a highly interactive feeling to the staging. The production, deeply embedded in the twenty-first century media aesthetics also features “video paintings” developed by Grant’s brother, Clement, who created a constantly shifting screen composed of images, videos, music from pop culture, and screen versions of Hamlet.
The project evolved with many rare adaptive aspects. The majority of the production is a musical, featuring a full soundtrack, with hip hop, trance, deep house, and salsa beats that enmesh the audience in the nightclub atmosphere. This musical setting is further compounded by dance sequences, a “mind blowing martial arts sequence,” and a “professional-looking music video” (“One Wild Night of Theatre”). The text of the original Hamlet was edited substantially, with a narrator present to bridge the large gaps while keeping the audience aware of the developing storyline. Denmark and Elsinore also featured an all-Black cast of primarily female performers that were cast by Grant through open auditions at the Black Theatre Workshop and the Montreal School of Performing Arts. Grant states in a review, that she made the choice for an all-Black cast because “there wasn’t a lot of work for them in theatre, especially Shakespeare” (hip hop Hamlet). This lack of roles for Afro-Canadians was echoed by Quincy Armourer, who played the leading role, when he stated “I can’t describe what it means to play this role” (hip hop Hamlet). Like Djanet Sears’s adaptation of Othello, Harlem Duet, which also features an all-Black cast, Grant’s work addresses issues of racism and ethnic exclusion from Canada’s mainstage theatres. In both cases, adaptation of the canonical figure of Shakespeare permits the playwrights to create a performance space alternative to these exclusionary stages. Adaptation, in this Canadian context, explicitly takes on issues of the ideology of theatrical spaces that have been less than welcoming to diverse elements of Canada’s population, including Afro-Canadians and First Nations peoples.
The theme of participatory theatre, that includes the audience as part of the stage-work, was mirrored in the way in which Denmark and Elsinore was funded, largely through collaborative community funding and a DIY (Do It Yourself) aesthetic. Grant states that the budget was put together with “whatever I have in my pocket this week,” and that theatre companies, like Black Theatre Workshop, members of the community, and corporations like Zicon Records, Fubu and Guess, were all generous in contributing money, equipment, expertise, and sponsorship (hip hop Hamlet). This collaborative production was acknowledged when it was awarded the Montreal English Critics Circle “revelation” award, for “surprising with something fresh and new … multimedia Hamlet using actors of colour” (MECCA Thumbs Up).
Debora Grant’s adaptation is an ideal adaptation for CASP in that it reflects on issues of Canadianness even as it pushes boundaries related to classical Shakespearean theatre. Her use of multimedia––including the full soundtrack, with songs like “to be or not to be,” “those lips,” and “my offence is rank”––combines traditional Shakespearean language, and re-positions it within an urban, multicultural, bilingual centre. This aesthetic holds great appeal to young demographic groups, in terms of both audience and performers, who may have had little previous experience with Shakespeare, or may have difficulty in relating to the lengthy monologues and theatrical traditions of the sixteenth century. Grant’s use of multimedia, music videos, and pop culture in the background, are not gratuitous or superficial, but rather serve as an astute commentary on the shifting aesthetic culture-scape evident in Canada in the early twenty-first century.
Danielle Van Wagner
Audio Clips:
Denmark and Elsinore
KAV Productions, 2002
The play's the thing - Joyful'
Music Video:
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Fischlin, Daniel. Canadian Adaptations of Shakespeare Project. University of Guelph. 2004. <http://www.canadianshakespeares.ca>.
