2010 Conference: Hoffman, or Hamlet without the Prince
This one-day event took place in the Grove Auditorium,
Magdalen College, Oxford on Saturday 25th September 2010. The
charming venue was made available thanks to Laurie Maguire and
Magdalen College. Dr Emma Smith (Hertford) ensured that the
event enjoyed sponsorship by the Oxford English Faculty as well
as by the Malone Society. She played a major role in its overall
management, and arranged for it to be filmed (see below!). The
staging benefited visually from the loan of two ‘teaching’
skeletons from the Oxford Medical School’s Clinical Skills
Department. The programme consisted of a staged and costumed
reading of Henry Chettle’s The Tragedy of Hoffman, or, A Revenge
for a Father (written 1602/3) in the morning, followed, after a
sandwich lunch, by sessions of discussion and short presentations.
Participants included Professor Manfred Draudt, Professor Andrew
Gurr, Professor Brian Gibbons, Professor John Jowett, George
Opitz-Trotman and Dr. Tom Rutter.
Harold Jenkins’s 1950 Malone Society edition of Hoffman, a
play surviving only in a poor and apparently incomplete text
printed in 1631, has priority. But for the purposes of performance
the text used- with some cuts- was that prepared by John Jowett –
now a member of the Society’s Editorial Committee - for
Nottingham Drama Texts in 1983. Among various clarifications,
Jowett restored what appear to have been the original names of
some key characters, and added useful stage directions.
Several Malone Society Council members took part in the
reading. Richard Proudfoot doubled brilliantly as Rodorick the
Hermit and the serio-comic Old Stilt, father of the play’s Clown,
Stilt. The latter was ingeniously performed by Stephen Longstaffe
(University of Cumbria), who also, as those who attended the 2008
Malone Society conference will remember, did terrifically well in
the much more substantial Clown role of ‘Sparrow’ in the
Society’s staged reading of Guy of Warwick. John Creaser brought
gravitas to the role of John, Duke of Saxony, one of the small
group of virtuous characters still alive at the play’s close.
Katherine Duncan-Jones was among four non-speaking women
who appeared first as rustic recruits to Stilt’s regiment, then as
black-clad ladies attendant on Martha, Duchess of Luningberg
(Edwina Christie). The performance as a whole -which felt like a
full performance, although technically only a reading- benefited
from a subtle and richly expressive delivery of the title-role by
Dominik Kracmar, a LAMDA- trained professional. He was
strongly supported by Dr. Nicholas Shrimpton, a member of the
Oxford English Faculty, as Lorrique, Hoffman’s resourceful and
blackly comic hit-man. Another outstanding performance was that
of Kelley Costigan as Duke Ferdinand’s foolish heir Prince
Jerome.
Like the very successful staged reading of Guy of Warwick
in 2008, Hoffman was directed by Dr Elisabeth Dutton. Not only is
Hoffman a considerably longer text: it proved far more challenging
to stage. Indeed, so demanding and complex was it that despite
heroic dedication by the director, the performers, and the technical
supporters, most of whom worked until midnight on 24th
September, it proved impossible to rehearse the play as a
continuous whole in advance. What the audience saw on the
morning of 25th was in effect the first full dress rehearsal.
Nevertheless, everything came together extraordinarily well, with
few noticeable slips. Technical difficulties with the play’s ‘burning
crowns’ – which turned out to be too small to fit snugly on the
heads to be lethally ‘crowned’ – were so inventively handled by
the performers – Nick Shrimpton early on, and Kelley Costigan at
the end – that narrative drive was never lost, and excitement,
comic but horrific, was if anything heightened.
The performance received a full and enthusiastic review
online by Pete Kirwan, a doctoral student at the University of
Warwick.
The afternoon session fell into two halves. In the first, both
panellists and audience members had an opportunity to discuss the
performance with its director, Elisabeth Dutton, before offering
short presentations on the play. For instance, Manfred Draudt
provided helpful background data concerning the various
principalities that figure in the play, while John Jowett made some
original suggestions about the (supposed) locations of the hermit’s
cell and Hoffman’s horrid cave. In the second session George
Oppitz-Trottman connected Lorrique with other hired hit-men in
plays of the period; Tom Rutter explored links between Hoffman
and other Lord Admiral’s Men plays of the period; and Emma
Smith touched briefly on ‘Hamlet, Hoffman and Antonio’.