A new film version of Hamlet, utilizing the stage cast of the 2021 Theatre Royal Windsor production and transforming the theater into Shakespeare’s Elsinore Castle, opens in Prague cinemas today. Promoting the film to local audiences, star Ian McKellen recalled the last time he was in the Czech capital—in 1991, on stage in front of then-President Václav Havel.
“Last time I was in Prague I was on stage in front of President Havel with the Royal National Theater of Great Britain [performing] Shakespeare’s King Lear,” McKellen says in a taped message from London, referring to the theater’s 1991 world tour, led by himself and Brian Cox, that included a stop in then-Czechoslovakia.
“Now I’m back in cinemas in the Czech Republic in a new version of Shakespeare’s most famous play, I think—Hamlet, written over 400 years ago. Many, many versions in the theater, of course, in many, many languages—this is in English, the original—but now on screen, and there have been remarkable screen versions of Hamlet in the past but none quite like this one, I think, with an 80-year-old Hamlet.”
The unique production was conceived during the Covid pandemic, when live audiences were prevented from attending the play at the Theatre Royal Windsor. Instead of simply filming the stage version, however, director Sean Mathias and his team re-staged the play to make use of the entire building, from the basement to the rooftop.
Hamlet was released in UK cinemas last year before making its way to the Czech Republic, with limited screenings across the country booked over the next two weeks including at Prague’s Cinema City Slovanský dům, Kino Světozor, Kino Lucerna, and Edison Filmhub. Alongside McKellen, the cast of British theater veterans includes Jonathan Hyde, Jenny Seagrove, and Steven Berkoff.
McKellen’s journey to Prague in 1991, and his brief meeting with Havel, was recorded in his personal diary, which offers some interesting perspective on a country that broke free from communist chains just 18 months prior—but was facing significant hurdles in adapting to capitalism:
“[Prague’s] National Theater, where we did our shows, will be protected from the harsh and variable winds of commerce.” McKellen wrote in a 1991 diary entry originally published in The New York Times. “It was built 100 years ago by public subscription and preserved by state money as a potent symbol of the Czechoslovak national identity.”
“But need the theater worry for its future when the very popular President is a playwright? Václav Havel and his theater cronies nurtured, launched and carried through the revolution. His plays, once banned, are now everywhere, slightly to his embarrassment. Backstage, in our theater, his photos were ubiquitous, next to pinups of the Pope and President Bush. When President Havel came to see our King Lear, the audience rose to greet him. At the end, he leaned forward from his box to catch the tulip I had thrown from our on-stage bouquet.”
“Václav Havel is still writing — speeches now, instead of plays. The revolution has postponed his own re-working of the Lear story. He was much taken by the current relevance of Shakespeare’s king, who like Mr. Havel himself, battles with a new tripartite constitution.”
Havel’s version of King Lear would come to life more than 15 years later in Leaving, his first play in two decades and his final one, which was inspired by both Shakespeare’s work and Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard. Havel would direct a film version in 2011, also titled Leaving.
In his diary, McKellen also included a quote from Havel proffered during a press conference for the production of King Lear in Prague. It’s especially relevant in today’s political climate.
“After my year as President, I realize again and again what I didn’t know before—that personal relations, sympathies, jealousies, and rivalries play such an important role among nations,” Havel said, as relayed by McKellen. “It’s a bit frightening when you realize this. In King Lear, this is demonstrated in a very drastic way, how in history people will kill and nations fight, all because of personal rivalries.”
One Response
Long live Havel 🇨🇿