Two tired old clowns reprise moments of Shakespeare’s Hamlet beside a grave. They play many roles, mostly gravediggers, but also Guards, Hamlet himself, and a Donkey. Of all the plays by Shakespeare, Hamlet is one so often reimagined by theatre-makers wanting to interrogate the Bard’s texts – perhaps self-evidently. It is a play which is so much about “play,” performance; as is this proposition by theatre company Ridiculusmus. It seems that their Alas Poor Yorick! is using one of the more physically demanding performance types — Clown — to interrogate why it is we do the things we do.
Due to the nature of British theatre, I feel almost obligated to comment that Alas Poor Yorick! has very minimal tech and set. The sombre lighting never changes state, the set is nothing more than a few elements, the most important of these being earth representing a grave. This can be the ideal space in which to construct theatrical propositions – every element is chosen specifically to serve the actoral performance, which should always be front and centre. John Gorick, a founding member of Ridiculusmus and one of the show’s performers, begins out of character, requesting the audience close their eyes when he shouts “Close” and opens them when he shouts “Open,” so that they can give the effect of tech without having to stress the programmer. The performance is therefore aware of its own performativity and forces the audience to engage with this too, although this interjection could have been placed later in the play — simply because audiences had become so immersed in the physical rhythms that by that the moment came, where we had to close our eyes, it was easy to forget what was meant by shouts of “Open! Close!”
The physicality of the work was indeed engrossing. Jon Haynes and John Gorick are accomplished physical performers, and they have that quality of the truly great actor wherein every movement seems chosen and deliberate. Much can be made of Gorick’s Donkey, probably because it is the most “out there” bit of the show, but they are just as interesting performers when they’re playing their human characters: particularly Haynes’s insufferably snobby Hamlet. Still, the Donkey is the highlight — what an engrossing metaphor it is. It begins like an animal, of course, but as the routine drags on it becomes to take on the quality of a human, and it is a human, not a donkey… it is a brilliant bit of meta-theatre where you’re seeing two clowns who started work in the ‘90s confronting themselves as to why it is they continue what they do in the 2020s. This is made explicit later on, when a character asks if they’re being paid — of course not! It’s been years since anyone funded arts, let alone theatre (what a useless one!) in this country adequately — and here we are pretending to be Donkeys as a symbol for the worker — and here we are not being paid for it, so why is it at all that we carry on?
It is a shocking question — and one that maybe is not quite responded adequately by the play’s second half, which very quickly turns into a “I know that bit of the Bard” romp. The presentation of Hamlet as a snobby privileged adolescent, opposed to the resigned Beckettian gravedigger, was certainly captivating, and I do think that the modern theatre has never really escaped the allegations of being a bourgeois art form (although, of course, it can and should be more egalitarian). Still, very quickly after this interesting juxtaposition, the play launches into an “Alas Poor Yorick” bit where the ol’ classics such as “to be or not to be,” “Romeo Romeo” and all the clichés are rolled out by Haynes, while Gorick groans “not that speech!” This might be a meta “Are you not entertained?” choice, trying to satirise a banality so many ambitious theatre-makers fall into when “reimagining” the Bard, but it ultimately comes across like placating “the unhealthy craving for laughter” the British audience so often has (as described by Howard Barker in “Arguments for a Theatre: Fourth Edition”).
Still, despite this Alas Poor Yorick!, as a reimagining, does not fall into such banality. It is ultimately an accomplished routine where art, work and the monotonous silent trudge of modern life are confronted through the brilliantly physical form of Clown. Aside from the obvious Beckett nod, the show’s copy on the Ridiculusmus website mentions “cinematic elegance” and the heights of this show do indeed have the brilliant political visuals of Marceau and early Chaplin. Resemblances between Gorick’s Donkey and Chaplin’s 1915 short Work are noticeable, which pulls off a similar coup of the body, albeit without the meditations on art that Ridiculusmus so beautifully develops here. Like so much clown, it is a show about life in the face of death, the physical bodies subjection to routine, the triumph when expression can soar from confinement. And it is on tour! So if you’re reading this whilst wondering whether to buy a ticket, support independent art! It is worth your time.
Image via Ridiculusmus Theatre