HAMLET AGAIN
The curtain falls. The silence lasts
too long. For the actors, it is a perilous journey through the hot desert.
Then thunderous applause. Eyelids shut fast, hands clenched into fists,
smiles and sighs of relief. The silent screams and tears are concealed in
deep bows. Wondering glances through the space born of the clamor. The
multicolored evening dresses create the illusion of a breaking sunrise. The
glances melt in the painted azure glass.
Irion does what he should. He knows every movement is planned
in advance. He bows, blows kisses for the flowers presented, expresses
thanks with restrained words, bows again. How many times? It would not
matter if not for the pain in his spine. The thunder endures. The clamor
grows louder and louder. He receives the plaudits and withdraws into the
iron armor of thought. Everything happens around him. Events run away from
him, he cannot follow the words. The show never ends. The flashes in the
reception hall blind him. A crowd. A mixture of expensive perfume and
biting alcohol vapors. Kisses and pats on the back, professionally
measured, cunningly spiced with malice and envy. He is breathless. An
asthmatic pain in his chest pushes him toward the exit. Farther from the
flashes, farther from the hoopla. The glass gate smiles at him.
To be or not to be Hamlet? It all began with that magic
question. With mad counting in his head, with cramps, sleepless nights. The
dilemma that every actor hides somewhere in his dreams, thoughts that carry
much stronger feelings than the eternal striving to reach the top, the
thirst to fulfill the dream. And hope easily turns into fear. The minutes
pass, the decision has to be made. In the acting trade there should be
rules, there are characters such as Hamlet, which need at least one year of
contemplation, enumeration. Every actor requires time to ponder before
finally deciding to accept the role. Irion lacked the necessary time. He
was not given even a single day. For him the minutes tolled like bells.
Once he made the decision it did not come with the anticipated relief. The
first rehearsal pushed aside the dilemmas and fears; only a quiet whisper
remained, inhabiting his mind…
The world in the palm of his hand. From one rehearsal to
another Irion had greater trust that he had made the right decision. With
visible impatience he anticipated the finale of the project. He could do
it. He knows it, desires it. The whisper is a tedious virus. As if he had
become bodiless, lifted to the airless space where his body, and his soul,
became the universe. It was he who was given the magic power to display the
strength of the eternal, the beauty that lasts beyond time and space, for
the world to see, and to be moved. The eternal is immutably enduring. Irion
was touched, after the meeting his fingers burned, his blood was colored
with the chosen colors of the unchangeable. The eternal is in the moment,
in the breath, in a twinkling, a heat that frees it from its own darkness.
As he was following the road home, Irion felt that the
opening night was much more than successful. He could predict the articles
in all the editions of the next day’s papers. He could provide the words:
brilliant, flexible, characteristic, exceptional… blah, blah… words
speaking of his interpretation of the eternal. Words deprived of their
essence. Poor observers, they always miss the essence. Hamlet remains
misunderstood.
In orange, with a black, heavy hose and its powerful jet of
water, the night worker washes the street. The water cleans the sidewalk,
and the streetlight’s beams seem to bath in it. Small dancers of light
follow its steps. Irion approaches the orange man. He hands him his flask.
His black fingers press the metal part of the hose.
-- I know you from somewhere, brother.
-- Maybe we've been drinking together.
-- Until now, no…
On the marble doorstep of the bank, the whiskey was emptied
for the health and in honor of the Minister of Culture, and cigarettes were
consumed on behalf of the city’s community enterprises. Suddenly the night
became quite different, with singing, gypsy sadness.
-- I know you. I've seen you in the papers… you're that
actor, oh fuck, Shakespeare.
-- That's me.
And Hamlet? The stories are not eternal, they are just a
powerful weapon in the hands of the revolutionaries. Only soft dreams,
which can tear apart tough times, are eternal; the whispers of truth that
lay all bare are eternal; the clamor in the whiteness of the bones is just
a passing conceit of our senses.
Irion crossed the border. Looking for a likeness, living
through the text, he stepped over the line. His thoughts, the way he took
in air, the pain, all became a realm of decay in which the Prince of
Denmark suffers. Here it happened. He accepted the truth. It is not taken,
it chooses and settles itself. The truth is not the words, nor the tears.
Truth is the lightning of silence, the defeat that inhabits all pain. The
chosen one should just carry it, differentiate it, give it fire. Irion
lacked strength. Those hot snakes remain in his fingers, squirming and
spreading their poison. He returns to the public. He senses their typing,
he endures the eyes that follow him as a burden, the deep sadness of
Ophelia’s flowers, over which dead horses gallop. He throws off the fire, a
hot redness strikes their impregnable, stony skin, and the fire returns to
his fingers, to its warm home.
Every next appearance before the public was a new, stronger
blow. Truth has no influence on the uplifted, delighted fans and
connoisseurs of theater. The message remains sealed. Hamlet is cursed with
eternal misunderstanding. Is the world in error? Irion started doubting
himself, his power to live within the character. No one understood the
truth, no one even tried to understand him. Their eyes were filled with
tears, they suffered because of the ill-fated game of the witches who took
everything from the young prince and his beloved, and a longing awoke in
them to become involved in the performance, to deliver him from the
poisonous sword. No one sensed the whispers of truth. And no one sensed the
fetor that rose from the new, current, Slavic decay. Every day the
bitterness lingered longer and longer, as if he had swallowed an ashtray
full of unfinished cigarette butts. Like a deceit that nightly entered his
room. The nights stopped being a comfort for his lost soul. The appearance
of the eyes in his room did not scare him, he simply ascribed it to his
disturbed consciousness. Yet another ghost. He closes his eyes, he is
getting used to the darkness, he recognizes it. In his room is a ghost,
eyes and hands… eyes on four sides, a sword in one hand, a horn full of
mead in the other. It is too late for panic; only his fingers betray his
hysteria, they lack power to stop shaking.
Irion repeats the well-known formula calling upon the saints
and angels to protect his soul. The ghost is quiet. As if offering a drink.
Irion ponders too long, the ghost is lost; like smoke it leaves the room
through the pores of the wall.
The curtain falls. The applause does not stop. The excitement
of the public does not decrease. As if they sense that something more is
coming, as if the play has another act, so many people attend several
times. They are anticipating. The theater critics do not stop filling the
newspapers with Irion, with Hamlet, who leaves a greater and greater
impression with each performance. Outstanding. Each time it is considered
the height of acting achievement, but he topples their judgments with each
new performance. All the praise, the congratulations, the envious comments,
the infatuated glances--they do not impress the actor, except to make him
angry… nobody sees what is obvious.
Irion rushes into the darkness of his home. Maybe this
evening it will appear. A ghost or God? Maybe a lost soul that has been
landing like a speck of dust in the darkness, unable to stop its travels,
to separate itself from memories. Maybe it brings a message. The ugly
secret that painted his image so it would interpret the wanderings of
accidental passers-by throughout eternity.
Irion goes over his memory, waits. Maybe it is a flash of
memory of ancient northern forests, of forgotten oaths and blessings. Maybe
they have awakened, having been buried in memory for a long time, to
enlighten him to protect their descendants. Only the supreme being sees on
all four sides, only he knows all visible secrets. The sword brings
confusion. A threat or the possibility of defense?
His nights pass in expectation. The new meeting should bring
the truth as well. Somewhere in the genetic codes memory carries the
message. Only the gods had the gift of prognostication. The goblet reveals
the truth. As ancient beliefs state, the future is read in the dregs of
mead. Fever tortures his troubled mind. Only the ghost can assuage the
poison that courses through his body.
A smell of rotten marsh plants enters the room on the breeze.
The ghost takes shape before his eyes. In his hand he carries the goblet,
the horn that contains the message, the interpretation of the prophecy.
Without fear he approaches the proffered hand, he that looks at the world
from all angles, offering him the solution to all dilemmas. Prepared to
drink the potion, he raises the horn to his parched lips. The empty bottom
of the ancient goblet ominously records the truth. A dried sea echoes in
his palms. The song of ugly Mogusha, which lures innocent souls into the
black vessel. She looks for the four-sided eyes of the newcomer. The
darkness echoes emptily. Everything has been a deceit, from the first day.
Treachery. It should be said, to open the eyes. The spotlights are
powerless, the covering of the sun should be heated until white-hot.
Silence in the audience. The red dress lies in the first row.
Nights in emptiness, days in emptiness… The red dress is empty. Kisses in
emptiness. The whisper of silken breasts that harden under the heat of the
wounded lips in the empty dress. Years of empty hopes, painful fallings in
love. The marsh festers attack. His skin is covered. The building is
rotten. Water loses its soothing influence on his inflamed skin. Everything
is infected. The leprous lesions multiply in his warm body and spread their
festering fingers toward the brain, they mutate in a second, and they
become toothy parasites and gnaw, turning the brain in a slimy lesion.
Escape is impossible. The stronger the desire, the stronger
the invisible ropes become, and they bind him to the source of pain. A war
is coming, a long and a futile one. It is the Slavic fate,
self-destruction. The painful fires are extinguished in muddy waters. Irion
is preparing for war. He does not know the tactics or the plans, he has no
allies and collaborators. His heated blood vessels issue commands.
The guard tower. Horatio indicates the ghost. Hamlet does not
follow his words, his glowing eyes pour fire at the audience.
-- Deceit, everything is treachery. Empty costumes and
leprous lesions that swallow the mind, the soul. Upon whom should I lift a
sword, empty costumes uplifted in a wretched existence? I love the gods.
But Claudius, he is a mere plaything, a lesion with worms that looks ugly
to the flies as well. Everybody is Claudius and Gertrude, blood is thicker
than water.
Behind the stage a mix-up.
-- What's wrong with him?
-- Be quiet, he knows what he’s doing.
-- He doesn't know a thing. As if he thinks he’s really
Hamlet.
-- I said be quiet. He shook up the audience. This play will
be remembered. Pay attention to his improvisations and follow them, let the
ghost be prepared, I'm telling you… this play will be remembered.
Hamlet draws his sword.
-- I love the gods. I draw my sword; instead of using a white
glove, I rub my nose with a sock. Come to fight, Creator.
The audience is on its feet. They hold their breath, so as
not to miss a word. Hamlet waves his sword, slicing the air. Suddenly, he
jumps off stage and with great speed runs toward the stairs that lead to
the roof. He appears in blue light, an airy light. His white beard hides
his age, his body is strong, youthful. Hamlet approaches with sword drawn
and a menacing expression. He in fact does not know what to do, and some
strong hand pulls on him. The flashing metal is a weapon.
Voices move toward him. They want to stop him, to take his
weapons. The day of truth. They must not stop him.
-- Tell me, white-bearded one, have you created us according
to your own image?
The white-bearded one smiles, his teeth are visible. He
smiles meekly, as if a newborn baby is before him, and he speaks with his
expression. Knowledge is a fabrication of the weak, as are wars. Swaying,
in his bodiless power he shakes the sword in the hands of the prince. The
voices come closer and closer; he feels warm breath behind his back. The
white-bearded one fades away from the balcony. Gray light carries him. He
is close enough, a strong reflection, a well-measured blow. The empty space
opens for Hamlet's body. Revenge. In fact, Don Quixote is Hamlet.
Disguised.
