ACQUISITION: WHAT & WHY.
This is a photograph of the first production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” that I took part in. It was at the University of Texas, my junior year, 1955. I was playing Hamlet — that's me on the right — and my sword is aimed at Jim Weir, who played Horatio. I have an idea that B.Iden Payne, who directed the production — the Shakespeare was the big event of the year at Texas — chose Jim precisely because he was, along with being a good actor, my best friend. It was a good place to start for finding our lives in the play.
You're never done with Hamlet, neither the man nor the play, not if you're an actor. I did it eight more times through the years. The last time was in Washington, DC, in 2007. Jeffery Carlson was Hamlet, and I was the Ghost, the First Player, and the First Gravedigger. In between I had played the Ghost elsewhere, Laertes twice, Polonius and Claudius.
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I was to have played Hamlet a second time in New York, off Broadway, in 1972, but the production never materialized. It was based on the critical understanding of the play written by Eli Siegel in his “Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Revisited” which, in turn, was based on a lecture Siegel had given in 1951. At the heart of it was this sentence: "Hamlet could not revenge his father because he did not care for his father entirely." It was a revolutionary idea. It still is.
The point is this: in the seven or eight opportunities I had to consider Hamlet anew, each time and every time, I found out more about the play and the characters that people it. I acquired knowledge. I won no prizes – I won enough on other occasions —nor was I made wealthy, though I have managed to live, comfortably, within reason.
I have had a full, rich life as an actor. Approaching 91, and very much in the midst of a dramatically changing world which has faithfully produced the material explored by the theatre as an art form for several thousand years, I am in possession of knowledge I would not exchange for anything.
Elon Musk and I have this in common — when we are gone we will both be gone. Which of us will have left the wealthier? It’s not asked with sour grapes, but for information. I believe the answer determines the difference between a successful life and one that missed the point. Surely every life is determined by acquisition but acquisition of what?
I consider it an open question. Never was there a better time.
