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Hamlet in Africa 1607

Why this performance of Hamlet?

Obviously someone on board the Red Dragon loved theatre. After they had left Sera Lyoa, Captain Keeling's journal records that on September 29, becalmed along the western coast of Africa, "Captain Hawkins dined with me, where in, company acted King Richard the Second." Six months later the expedition was sailing north up the eastern coast of Africa; on March 31, 1608, becalmed near the equator, Keeling notes that he "invited Captain Hawkins to a fish dinner, and had Hamlet acted aboard me: which I permit to keep my people from idleness and unlawful games, or sleep." [60] (Is that why millions of students have been required to read Hamlet? To keep them from idleness, video games, or sleep?)

Actually Keeling's explanation quotes from the commission he had been given by the East India Company: "ITEM that no blaspheming of God, swearing, theft, drunkenness, or otherlike disorders be used, but that the same be severely punished, and that no dicing or other unlawful games be admitted, for that most commonly the same is the beginning of quarreling, and many times murder." The ban on "unlawful games" has an entirely pragmatic justification: the recognition that certain behavior will "most commonly" divide the crew, and that in the confined and vulnerable community of a ship at sea on a long voyage such "quarreling" may be disastrous for everyone. The success of the East India Company, the very lives of Keeling and his men, depended upon collective effort, which in turn depended upon the maintenance of social unity. The first item in the commission, after the appointment of the expedition's leaders, was the instruction that, because "religious government and exercise doth best bind men to perform their duties, it is principally to be cared for that prayers be said morning and evening in every ship, and the whole company called thereunto, with diligent eyes that none be wanting." [61] This is not an environment that encourages dissidents or (what so many recent critics claim to find in Shakespeare) the subversion of authority. Louis Montrose cites Keeling's defense of these shipboard performances as evidence that Elizabethan theatre did not threaten the status quo in England. [62] I don't know that Keeling's journal entry permits us to generalize about all Renaissance plays, but if Hamlet in particular had seemed subversive, Keeling would never have permitted it to be performed once, let alone twice.

Nevertheless, Keeling felt it necessary, in his journal, to justify the fact that he "permitted" such performances. He knew that they were unorthodox, and that the management back home might not approve. The East India Company did recognize that something had to be done to keep sailors from getting into trouble during idle time - inevitable, especially, on the outbound voyage. Historian K. N. Chaudhuri has called attention to the fact that "The total number of men in the outward bound ships was often more than what was actually required to man them; for the company shipped extra deckhands, fearing that the ships on their way home might be weakly manned." Even on "successful" voyages, mortality could be as high as 85 percent. Keeling himself would later abandon and burn the Hector, because he only had enough surviving crew to man a single ship safely for the return voyage to England; on his next voyage, in 1617, he lost half his crew. [63] Sailing around Africa, Keeling had too many men, with too little to do, and the London headquarters would understand his need to keep them occupied. But the kind of diversion the Company had in mind is suggested by their commission to a later voyage, in 1611: "ITEM for the better comfort and recreation of such of our factors as are residing in the Indies, we have sent the Works of that worthy servant of Christ Master William Perkins to instruct their minds and feed their souls, with that heavenly food of the knowledge of the truth of God's word, and The Book of Martyrs in two volumes, as also Master Hackluyt's Voyages to recreate their spirits with variety of history." [64] Hamlet and Richard II provide "variety of history" - but not the variety the London office had in mind.

Naval historian N. A. M. Rodger notes that reading was a common recreation at sea, and as early as the 1550s English seamen voyaging to Africa carried books with them. [65] Reading the sermons of William Perkins or the printed text of Hamlet, silently to yourself, in your cabin or your bunk (or your condo), is a solitary, individuating activity: it creates, and makes you conscious of, a difference between yourself and others. But performing Hamlet, or watching a live performance of Hamlet, has a conspicuously different effect. Like the sailing of a 600-ton wooden ship, theatrical performances depend upon communal effort; they require interaction and mutual trust; they will succeed only if each participant pulls his own weight-and each participant is motivated in part by a fear of disapproval or even ostracism, if he lets his companions down. This communal imperative is heightened when the performers belong to the same small community as their audience. Members of any audience of course remain individuals, but they become individuals-suspended-in-solution, laughing or crying or clapping or booing together, for the most part, collectively focused upon the same stimulus, and reciprocally influenced by each other's responses, in a massive feedback loop, which can itself create a powerful sense of community. [66] And when every performer knows every spectator, when cast and audience have already been confined in each other's company for months, the pressure on each individual to do his best, not to let his fellow actors down, not to embarrass himself in front of his work-mates, can become extraordinarily compelling.

Performing plays did not just give Keeling's "company" something to do; it gave them something to do that they might have enjoyed rather more than the compulsory praying sessions morning and evening. In Sera Lyoa he recorded in his journal not only the performance of Hamlet, but also, on August 16, "1 licensed our weekly workers to recreate themselves with me ashore"-a pleasure obviously appreciated by the "good number of men" who joined him in "our large walks." [67] Keeling was chosen, in 1614, to command the Company's operations in Asia for five years because of his skill at "merchandizing," but also because of his "good command ... over his men abroad (whom they loved and respected for his kind usage of them)." [68] Keeling's "kindly treatment" of his men-what one modern study describes as his "concern for the minutiae of life on board"--seems to have included permitting his men to perform plays. [69] Unlike gambling, production of plays required collaboration and created community - a community like that of an acting company. Shakespeare himself, after all, belonged to such a community. Although "Shakespeare in Business" would not attract as many moviegoers as "Shakespeare in Love," the life of England's favorite playwright is more conspicuous for loyalty to a company than for romantic passion. Shakespeare was a founding member of the King's Men, a long-lived and cohesive group of coworkers, founded in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and organized as a joint-stock company. The East India Company, also founded in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was also a joint-stock company. These two enterprises were arguably the two most successful businesses in British history. Certainly our global village is still living with the legacy of both.

But the performance of Hamlet in the estuary of Sera Lyoa on September 5, 1607, suggests that the rehearsing and performing of plays on board the Red Dragon had at least one other motive. When Lucas Fernandez and his entourage came on board, "he with the rest" was given "very kind entertainment." [70] He was treated, in other words, as a visiting dignitary. In England it was entirely normal for such dignitaries, including ambassadors, to be entertained by a command performance, at court, of a play or masque. [71] Indeed, as many critics have remarked, masques differed from plays primarily because some of the court "audience" also became performers, thereby breaking down the barriers between illusion and life, in a collectively willed image of communal sociability; on board ship, although the formal and expensive conventions of the court masque could not be reproduced, the performance of a play by members of the crew before members of the crew might have had some of the same effect.

Of course, Keeling had not originally intended to make landfall in Sera Lyoa, or to entertain an African dignitary. But he might easily have anticipated that it would be useful, on this voyage, to be prepared to give impressive theatrical performances. Most Anglo-Americans associate the colonization of the New World with the Puritans of New England, who were of course programmatically hostile to all forms of theatre. But other European colonists enthusiastically imported plays as part of the culture they wanted to display to indigenous peoples. Spanish-American theatrical performances took place as early as 1530, in what is now Mexico City, only five years after Cortez overthrew the Aztec empire. In the Great Lakes in the seventeenth century, French Jesuit missionaries organized a performance of Corneille's Le Cid. And in between these Spanish and French performances, in 1583, an English colonial expedition to Newfoundland, led by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, found space for such "toys" as "Morris dancers, hoby horse and May-like conceits" and "music in good variety," which was brought along for the "solace of our people, and allurement of the savages." [72]

If North America provides evidence of how natural it seemed to European voyagers and colonists to take their drama with them, recent English experiences in Asia gave them particular and potent motives for doing the same. On the second East India voyage, the English (including Keeling) had witnessed a spectacular theatrical festival of "pageants" and "triumphs" and "shows," which went on "every day for a month" at the royal court in Bantam. These are described in detail in a book written by a member of that earlier expedition, Edmund Scott's An Exact Discourse of the Subtleties, Fashions, Policies, Religion, and Ceremonies of the East Indians, as well Chineses as Javans, there abiding and dwelling. One day, for instance, "a crew attired like masquers ... before the King did dance, vault, and show many strange kinds of tumbling tricks." On another occasion, "amongst some of these shows there came in junks sailing, artificially made, being loaden with cashews and rice. Also in these were significations of historical matters of former times ... of chronicle matters of the country and kings of Java. [73] The Europeans at court in Bantam were expected to participate in this festival honoring the local king, and the Dutch and Portuguese spectacularly obliged. The English were not so well prepared or equipped. [74] The English offering included an apologetic speech, declaring that they "would have presented his Majesty with a far better show," if they had been able. [75]

As the events in Java demonstrate, when alien cultures encounter each other, both sides almost inevitably resort to theatre -- a complex semiotic performance that can, without language, communicate power. For their return voyage, the English were better prepared to engage in such competitive theatrical displays. Keeling's journal records that on September 13, 1609, while he was anchored in the bay at Bantam "upon the King's request, I sent five-and-twenty armed men to make him pastime, which he willed in honour of his having the last night made conquest of his wife's virginity. " [76] We don't know what kind of "pastime" the English troupe provided, but it was certainly something spectacular and performative. And it was not only in Java that such skills might be needed. Keeling carried with him a letter from King James to "the king of Surat"; this was the first English diplomatic mission to the Indian subcontinent. [77] One of the Company's objectives was to impress India's rulers, and thereby persuade them to grant the English commercial access to their ports, which had been until this time a Portuguese monopoly. In the event, this task fell to Captain Hawkins and the Hector, but what Keeling might have planned in 1607 is suggested by his voyage of 1615, when he transported Sir Thomas Roe as an ambassador from King James to the Mogul Emperor Jahangir, who ruled two-thirds of the subcontinent. When Roe landed at Surat, by order of Keeling "the ships in their best equipage" fired "their ordnance as I passed; with his trumpets and music ahead my boat in the best manner." A shipboard observer recorded "48 pieces great ordnance discharged from our fleet; this day our ships were all handsomely fitted with their waistclothes, ensigns, flags, pendants and streamers." Sir William Keeling appreciated the political usefulness of theatrical spectacle. And Sir Thomas Roe, Keeling's partner in this enterprise, also displayed English artistic skill as an index of the splendor of the civilization he represented. As a gift from King James, Roe gave the governor of Surat "a very large fair map of the world." [78] When he reached the emperor, Roe's gifts included an English cornet player and an English painting. [79] Under Keeling's command, the English sailed to Asia armed with their art. Sera Lyoa gave them, unexpectedly, their first opportunity to show off.

Of course, by the standards of modern criticism the shipboard performance of Hamlet on September 5, 1607, may not have been entirely satisfactory. Indeed, in 1950 one English critic, Sydney Race, derided the idea that "a crew of rude sailors" could have performed the play at all. "What unnamed man of genius played the part of Hamlet, and who was the young sailor who took the part of Ophelia? Was the play performed with or without costumes, scenery and properties? The Dragon had indeed an unusually docile crew if in the heat of Sierra Leone they were prepared to listen to Hamlet." [80] Race was obviously a sarcastic snob, and his hysterical attack on the authenticity of the records of this performance has been magisterially refuted by some of the most respected (and cautious) scholars of the twentieth century. [81] But Race does raise an interesting question:

How was Hamlet performed on the Red Dragon in the bay of Sera Lyoa?

We don't know who played Hamlet, but the Dragon had a crew of 150 men; depending on whether they used the short text of the 1603 "bad" quarto or the long text of the 1605 "good" quarto, and on what they omitted, Hamlet could have been performed easily by 17 or 18 actors. [82] Although by the social criteria of the day most of the crew were indeed "rude mechanicals," the status of actors in 1607 was hardly higher than that of sailors. Moreover, the ship's company included well-educated merchants and officers of the East India Company. Although they may not have been "the best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral," any Englishman with a grammar school education would have "taken part in the school plays which were so prominent a feature of Tudor life." [83] Indeed, in 1582, during the last extended stay of a group of English ships in this bay, a ship's chaplain had compared various members of the expedition to the dramatis personae of "an elegant and witty comedy." [84] In 1631, aboard another East India Company ship, Walter Mountfort actually wrote a play, The Launching of the Mary, which was performed in London when he returned. [85] in the centuries since 1607, Hamlet has often been performed by amateur companies, and the crew of the Red Dragon would have had the advantage of not being inhibited by the belief that their script was a sacred classic, far beyond mere mortal comprehension. For them, it was just a popular new play.

It was also a play designed for playing conditions surprisingly similar to those on board ship. [86] Indeed, the two great joint stock companies of early modern England, the King's Men and the East India Company, both did their business in large, multistory, rope-worked, hollow, resonating wooden structures, designed and built by London carpenters. A wooden stage is indistinguishable from a wooden deck, a trap door resembles a ship's hatch, a tiring house facade is remarkably similar to a forecastle, a theatre's "cellerage" is structurally parallel to below-decks. The stage, like the deck, is open to the weather, and dependent on sunlight for illumination; the company at the Globe performed Hamlet in the afternoon, but Sera Lyoa is hotter in the afternoon than London, so the company on the Red Dragon performed Hamlet in the morning, while it was still cool. The company at the Globe, being dependent on ticket revenue, performed rain or shine; the company on the Dragon often faced terrible weather, but September 5 was (as we know from the shipboard journals) a fine clear day, perfect for an outdoor theatrical performance. [87] When Hamlet said "I am too much i'th' sun," the meteorological pun would have been unavoidable; no doubt, whatever Osric said, the audience could feel that the air was indeed "very sultry"; the actor could literally point to "yonder cloud," shaped "very like a whale," and gesture toward "this most excellent canopy the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmanent, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why it appeareth nothing to me but a foul and pestilent congregation of vapors." Moreover, the Red Dragon, being an unusually large ship for the time-600 tons according to some accounts, 700 tons according to others-provided a playing space comparable in size to those in early modern theatres. [88] On the outbound voyages to India, merchant ships were not heavily laden, and the deck would have been uncluttered, resembling the "bare stage" of Renaissance playhouses. [89] Admittedly, the Red Dragon did not have a proscenium arch-but then neither did the Globe.

Actually I should specify which "Globe" I mean, because early modern London carpenters produced at least two structures with that name: the East India shipyards built a 350-ton vessel called the Globe, which left London for Asia on January 5, 1611. [90] That was about the time the King's Men began performing, at their wooden structure called the Globe, a play called The Tempest, which begins with a scene in which the audience has to imagine that the stage is a ship at sea. Indeed, while Keeling's men were performing Hamlet in the course of circumnavigating Africa, the King's Men were performing Pericles, a play that repeatedly depends upon the structural similarity between stage and ship. [91]

Sydney Race is right to suspect that a shipboard performance of Hamlet would have had to do "without ... scenery"-but there wasn't painted scenery at the Globe, either. The King's Men's costumes almost certainly made no attempt at historical or Danish accuracy; their chief function would have been to indicate variations of social rank, and such variations were clearly signaled by the clothing worn on board. The Red Dragon was armed for combat at sea; it could easily provide armor for Hamlet's ghost, military accessories for Fortinbras's army and Laertes's uprising, artillery sounds for the first and last act, swords for the duel, lanterns to indicate a night watch. On the Red Dragon as at the Globe, flour was on hand to produce a ghostly pallor, boys were available to play Ophelia and Gertrude and the Player Queen, hoboys and trumpets stood ready to create impressive sound effects. [92]

Keeling's men performed Hamlet in conditions that the King's Men would have recognized, and approved. But how did Keeling's men interpret the play?

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