Let’s Explore… Hamletmachine by Heiner Müller

WARNING: Grotesque imagery and swearing.

 

Note: Hamletmachine was originally written in German with some English phrases, these phrases will be marked in blue.

 

Hamletmachine

by Heiner Müller (1977)

 

1

Family Scrapbook

 

I was Hamlet. I stood at the shore and talked with the surf BLABLA, the ruins of Europe in back of me. The bells tolled the state-funeral, murderer and widow a couple, the councillors goose-stepping behind the highranking carcass’ coffin, bawling with badly paid grief WHO IS THE CORPSE IN THE HEARSE/ABOUT WHOM THERE’S SUCH A HUE AND CRY/’TIS THE CORPSE OF A GREAT/GIVER OF ALMS the lane formed by the populace, creation of his statecraft HE WAS A MAN HE TOOK THEM ALL FOR ALL. I stopped the funeral procession, I pried open the coffin with my sword, the blade broke, yet with the blunt reminder I succeeded, and I dispensed my dead procreator FLESH LIKES TO KEEP THE COMPANY OF FLESH among the bums around me. The mourning turned into rejoicing, the rejoicing into lipsmacking, on top of the empty coffin the murderer humped the widow LET ME HELP YOU UP, UNCLE, OPEN YOUR LEGS, MAMA. I laid down on the ground and listened to the world doing its turns in step with the putrefaction.

I’M GOOD HAMLET GI’ME A CAUSE FOR GRIEF

AH THE WHOLE GLOBE FOR A REAL SORROW

RICHARD THE THIRD I THE PRINCE-KILLING KING

OH MY PEOPLE WHAT HAVE I DONE UNTO THEE

I’M LUGGING MY OVERWEIGHT BRAIN LIKE A HUNCHBACK

CLOWN NUMBER TWO IN THE SPRING OF COMMUNISM

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN IN THIS AGE OF HOPE

LET’S DELVE IN EARTH AND BLOW HER AT THE MOON

Here comes the ghost who made me, the ax still in his skull. Keep your hat on, I know you’ve got one hole too many. I would my mother had one less when you were still of flesh: I would have been spared myself. Women should be sewed up—a world without mothers. We could butcher each other in peace and quiet, and with some confidence, if life gets too long for us or our throats too tight for our screams. What do you want of me? Is one state-funeral not enough for you? You old sponger. Is there no blood on your shoes? What’s your corpse to me? Be glad the handle is sticking out, maybe you’ll go to heaven. What are you waiting for? All the cocks have been butchered. Tomorrow morning has been cancelled.

SHALL I

AS IS THE CUSTOM STICK A PIECE OF IRON INTO

THE NEAREST FLESH OR THE SECOND BEST

TO LATCH UNTO IT SINCE THE WORLD IS SPINNING

LORD BREAK MY NECK WHILE I’M FALLING FROM AN

ALEHOUSE BENCH

 

Enters Horatio. Confidant of my thoughts so full of blood since the morning is curtained by the empty sky. YOU’LL BE TOO LATE MY FRIEND FOR YOUR PAYCHECK/NO PART FOR YOU IN THIS MY TRAGEDY. Horatio, do you know me? Are you my friend, Horatio? If you know me how can you be my friend? Do you want to play Polonius who wants to sleep with his daughter, the delightful Ophelia, here she enters right on cue, look how she shakes her ass, a tragic character. HoratioPolonius. I knew you’re an actor. I am too, I’m playing Hamlet. Denmark is a prison, a wall is growing between the two of us. Look what’s growing from that wall. Exit Polonius. My mother the bride. Her breasts a rosebed, her womb the snakepit. Have you forgotten your lines, Mama. I’ll prompt you. WASH THE MURDER OFF YOUR FACE MY PRINCE/AND OFFER THE NEW DENMARK YOUR GLAD EYE. I’ll change you back into a virgin mother, so your kind will have a bloodwedding. A MOTHER’S WOMB IS NOT A ONE-WAY STREET. Now, I tie your hands on your back with your bridal veil since I’m sick of your embrace. Now, I tear the wedding dress. Now, I smear the shreds of the wedding dress with the dust my father turned into, and with the soiled shreds your face your belly your breasts. Now, I take you, my mother, in his, my father’s invisible tracks. I stifle your scream with my lips. Do you recognize the fruit of your womb? Now go to your wedding, whore, in the broad Danish sunlight which shines on the living and the dead. I want to cram the corpse down the latrine so the palace will choke in royal shit. Then let me eat your heart, Ophelia, which weeps me tears.

 

2

THE EUROPE OF WOMEN

 

Enormous room. Ophelia. Her heart is a clock.

 

OPHELIA (CHORUS/HAMLET):

 

I am Ophelia. The one the river didn’t keep. The woman dangling from the rope. The woman with her arteries cut open. The woman with the overdose. SNOW ON HER LIPS. The woman with her head in the gas stove. Yesterday I stopped killing myself. I’m alone with my breasts my thighs my womb. I smash the tools of my captivity, the chair the table the bed. I destroy the battlefield that was my home. I fling open the doors so the wind gets in and the scream of the world. I smash the window. With my bleeding hands I tear the photos of the men I loved and who used me on the bed on the table on the chair on the ground. I set fire to my prison. I throw my clothes into the fire. I wrench the clock that was my heart out of my breast. I walk into the street clothed in my blood.

 

3

SCHERZO

 

The university of the dead. Whispering and muttering. From their gravestones (lecterns), the dead philosophers throw their books at Hamlet. Gallery (ballet) of the dead women. The woman dangling from the rope. The woman with her arteries cut open, etc…. Hamlet views them with the attitude of a visitor in a museum (theatre). The dead woman tear his clothes off his body. Out of an upended coffin, labeled HAMLET 1, step Claudius and Ophelia, the latter dressed and made up like a whore. Striptease by Ophelia.

 

OPHELIA: Do you want to eat my heart, Hamlet? Laughs.

 

HAMLET: Face in his hands. I want to be a woman.

Hamlet dresses in Ophelia’s clothes, Ophelia puts the make-up of a whore on his face, Claudius-now Hamlet’s father-laughs without uttering a sound, Ophelia blows Hamlet a kiss and steps with Claudius/HamletFather back into the coffin. Hamlet poses as a whore. An angel, his face at the back of his head: Horatio. He dances with Hamlet.

 

VOICE(S): From the coffin. What thou killed thou shalt love.

The dance grows faster and wilder. Laughter from the coffin. On a swing, the madonna with breast cancer. Horatio opens an umbrella, embraces Hamlet. They freeze under the umbrella, embracing. The breast cancer radiates like a sun.

 

4

PEST IN BUDA/BATTLE FOR GREENLAND

 

Space 2, as destroyed by Ophelia. An empty armour, an ax stuck in the helmet.

HAMLET:

The stove is smoking in quarrelsome October

A BAD COLD HE HAD OF IT JUST THE WORST TIME

JUST THE WORST TIME OF THE YEAR FOR A REVOLUTION

Cement in bloom walks through the slums

Doctor Zhivago weeps

For his wolves

SOMETIMES IN WINTER THEY CAME INTO THE VILLAGE

AND TORE APART A PEASANT

He takes off make-up and costume.

 

THE ACTOR PLAYING HAMLET:

I’m not Hamlet. I don’t take part any more. My words have nothing to tell me anymore. My thoughts suck the blood out of the images. My drama doesn’t happen anymore. Behind me the set is put up. By people who aren’t interested in my drama, for people to whom it means nothing. I’m not interested in it anymore either. I won’t play along anymore. Unnoticed by the actor playing Hamlet, stagehands place a refrigerator and three TV-sets on the stage. Humming of the refrigerator. Three TV-channels without sound. The set is a monument. It presents a man who made history, enlarged a hundred times. The petrification of a hope. His name is interchangeable, the hope had not been fulfilled. The monument is toppled into the dust, razed by those who succeeded him in power three years after the state funeral of the hated and most honored leader. The stone is inhabited. In the spacy nostrils and auditory canals, in the creases of skin and uniform of the demonished monument, the poorer inhabitants of the capital are dwelling. After an appropriate period, the uprising follows the toppling of the monument. My drama, if it still would happen, would happen in the time of the uprising. The uprising starts with a stroll. Against the traffic rules, during the working hours. The street belongs to the pedestrians. Here and there, a car is turned over. Nightmare of a knife thrower: Slowly driving down a one-way street towards an irrevocable parking space surrounded by armed pedestrians. Policemen, if in the way, are swept to the curb. When the procession approaches the government district it is stopped by a police line. People form groups, speakers arise from them. On the balcony of a government building, a man in badly fitting mufti appears and begins to speak too. When the first stone hits him, he retreats behind the double doors of bullet-proof glass. The call for more freedom turns into the cry for the overthrow of the government. People begin to disarm the policemen, to storm two, three buildings, a prison a police precinct an office of the secret police, they string up a dozen henchmen of the rulers by their heels, the government brings in troops, tanks. My place, if my drama would still happen, would be on both sides of the front, between the frontlines, over and above them. I stand in the stench of the crowd and hurl stones at policemen soldiers tanks bullet-proof glass. I look through the double doors of bullet-proof glass at the crowd pressing forward and smell the sweat of my fear. Chokin with nausea, I shake my fist at myself who stands behind the bullet-proof glass. Shaking with fear and contempt, I see myself in the crowd pressing forward, foaming at the mouth, shaking my fist at myself. I string up my uniformed flesh by my own heels. I am the soldier in the gun turret, my head is empty under the helmet, the stifled scream under the tracks. I am the typewriter. I tie the noose when the ringleaders are strung up, I pull the stool from under their feet, I break my own neck. I am my own prisoner. I feed my own data into the computers. My parts are the spittle and the spittoon the knife and the wound the fang and the throat the neck and the rope. I am the data bank. Bleeding in the crowd. Breathing again behind the double doors. Oozing wordslime in my soundproof blurb over and above the battle. My drama didn’t happen. The script has been lost. The actors put their faces on the rack in the dressing room. In his box, the prompter is rotting. The stuffed corpses in the house don’t stir a hand. I go home and kill the time, at one/with my undivided self.

Television The daily nausea Nausea

Of prefabricated babble Of decreed cheerfulness

How do you spell GEMÜTLICHKEIT

Give us this day our daily murder

Since thine is nothingness Nausea

Of the lies which are believed

By the liars and nobody else

Nausea

Of the lies which are believed Nausea

Of the mugs of the manipulators marked

By their struggle for positions votes bank accounts

Nausea A chariot armed with scythes sparking with punchlines

I walk through streets stores Faces

Scarred by the consumers battle Poverty

Without dignity Poverty without the dignity

Of the knife the knuckleduster the clenched fist

The humiliated bodies of women

Hope of generations

Stifled in blood cowardice stupidity

Laughter from dead bellies

Hail Coca Cola

A kingdom

For a murderer

I WAS MACBETH

THE KING HAD OFFERED HIS THIRD MISTRESS TO ME

I KNEW EVERY MOLE ON HER HIPS

RASKOLNIKOV CLOSE TO THE

HEART UNDER THE ONLY COAT THE AX FOR THE

ONLY

SKULL OF THE PAWNBROKER

In the solitude of airports

I breathe again I am

A privileged person My nausea

Is a privilege

Protected by torture

Barbed wire Prisons

Photograph of the author.

I don’t want to eat drink breathe love a woman a man a child an animal anymore.

I don’t want to die anymore. I don’t want to kill anymore.

Tearing of the author’s photograph.

I force open my sealed flesh. I want to dwell in my veins, in the marrow of my bones, in the maze of my skull. I retreat into my entrails. I take my seat in my shit, in my blood. Somewhere bodies are torn apart so I can dwell in my shit. Somewhere bodies are opened so I can be alone with my blood. My thoughts are lesions in my brain. My brain is a scar. I want to be a machine. Arms for grabbing Legs to walk on, no pain no thoughts.

 

TV screens go black. Blood oozes from the refrigerator. Three naked women: Marx, Lenin, Mao. They speak simultaneously, each one in his own language, the text:

 

THE MAIN POINT IS TO OVERTHROW ALL EXISTING CONDITIONS…

 

The Actor of Hamlet puts on make-up and costume.

 

HAMLET THE DANE PRINCE AND MAGGOT’S FODDER

STUMBLING FROM HOLE TO HOLE TOWARDS THE FINAL

HOLE LISTLESS IN HIS BACK THE GHOST THAT ONCE

MADE HIM GREEN LIKE OPHELIA’S FLESH IN CHILDBED

AND SHORTLY ERE THE THIRD COCK’S CROW A CLOWN

WILL TEAR THE FOOL’S CAP OFF THE PHILOSOPHER

A BLOATED BLOODHOUND’LL CRAWL INTO THE ARMOR

 

He steps into the armor, splits with the ax the heads of Marx, Lenin, Mao. Snow. Ice Age.

 

5

 

FIERCELY ENDURING

MILLENIUMS

IN THE FEARFUL ARMOUR

The deep sea. Ophelia in a wheelchair. Fish, debris, dead bodies and limbs drift by.

OPHELIA:

While two men in white smocks wrap gauze around her and the wheelchair, from bottom to top.

This is Electra speaking. In the heart of darkness. Under the sun of torture. To the capitals of the world. In the name of the victims. I eject all the sperm I have received. I turn the milk of my breasts into lethal poison. I take back the world I gave birth to. I choke between my thighs the world I gave birth to. I bury it in my womb. Down with the happiness of submission. Long live hate and contempt, rebellion and death. When she walks through your bedrooms carrying butcher knives you’ll know the truth.

The men exit. Ophelia remains on stage, motionless in her white wrappings.

 

END

Synopsis:

The structure of the play arguably follows the same structure of Hamlet with five acts.

1. Hamlet’s father has died, Claudius and Gertrude are together and Hamlet is questioning the motives of the people around him.
2. Ophelia rejects the misogynistic world.
3. Hamlet and Ophelia trade places.
4. The actor playing Hamlet brakes his role and envisions the drama in a revolution riddled with Marxist qualities, it ends with him killing figures that represent Marx, Lenin and Mao.
5. Ophelia enters and claims to be Electra before absorbing the world back into her womb.

 

Major Themes and Motifs:

• Feminism (and misogyny)
• Revolution
• Oedipus/Electra complex
• Death
• Impossibility of certainty
• Corruption
• Appearance vs reality
• Madness

 

Characters:

(In order of appearance)

Hamlet-

Hamlet is loosely based of the protagonist of Hamlet by William Shakespeare. He interrupts his father’s funeral before carving up his body and giving it to the mourners to eat. His father reappears as a ghost, but Hamlet shows little interest towards him. He is shown to have great anger towards his mother, much like the original character. When Horatio enters, he compares him to Polonius and questions his motives. Hamlet thinks that Ophelia’s heart weeps his tears for him and he wants to eat her heart. When the set becomes the university of the dead, Hamlet examines the dead women similar to a visitor in a museum. There, he exchanges clothes with a flirty Ophelia and dances with Horatio. Afterwards, his actor breaks character.

King Hamlet-

A character loosely based of the character with the same name in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. His state-funeral gets interrupted by his son, then his flesh gets cut up and eaten by his mourners. When he reappears as a ghost, his son has little interest in him.

Claudius-

A character loosely based of the character with the same name in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. He has sex with Gertrude on top of King Hamlet’s coffin. He reappears out of a coffin to see Hamlet dressed as a whore before climbing back.

Gertrude-

A character loosely based of the character with the same name in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She has sex with Claudius on top of King Hamlet’s coffin. Hamlet’s anger is directed towards her, hinting to an Oedipus complex.

Horatio-

A character loosely based of the character with the same name in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. A friend of Hamlet’s whose motives are questioned. He’s compared to the sycophant, Polonius. When he reappears at the university with his face on the back of Hamlet’s head, he then dances with Hamlet who is dressed like a whore.

Polonius-

A character loosely based of the character with the same name in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. He is compared to Horatio.

Ophelia-

The arguable protagonist of the play. She is loosely based of the character with the same name in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. She is described as a tragic character by Hamlet. According to him, her heart weeps his tears. He heart has also been described as a clock. She’s shown to be conscious of misogyny, she rejects and fights against it. Ophelia has been with multiple partners who “used me on the bad on the table on the chair on the ground.” She reappears with Claudius, dressed like a whore, and she flirts with Hamlet. Eventually, she gives him her clothes and applies makeup on him. When she returns, she is confined to a wheelchair as two men tie her up with gauze. Ophelia declares herself as Electra and decides to turn against humanity and absorbs the world back into her womb. She rejects being confined and threatens mankind.

The actor playing Hamlet-

He originally plays the part of Hamlet before breaking his role. He envisions a revolution and playing the part of both parts and talks about the vile nausea he gets from watching T.V. While talking, he repeatedly mentions the drama and thinks about times when it could be staged. Eventually, his ramble simmers down to disgust with humanity and a desire to become a machine. He murders the women playing Marx, Lenin and Mao.

Marx, Lenin and Mao-

They reappear while the actor playing Hamlet is monologuing to himself about his disgust with the human body. They are three women who appear naked and represent the historic figures. While on stage, they repeat Marx’s words in their own language before their heads are striked with an axe by the actor playing Hamlet.

 

Detailed Description of the Events Within the Play:

1

• A self declared Hamlet enters.
• A state-funeral is taking place and Hamlet begins to ask who is the corpse in the hearse.
• He stops the funeral and opens the coffin with his blade.
• The body belongs to King Hamlet.
• Hamlet cuts up his father’s body and passes out pieces for the mourners to eat.
• Claudius and Gertrude have sex on the coffin.
• Hamlet lays down to the ground and he talks about the sorrow and rotten elements of the world.
• Hamlet’s father returns.
• Halmet talks about his mother and the idea of a world without mothers.
• He asks what his father wants from him as his world begins to spin.
• Horatio enters and Hamlet questions his motivations and whether he’s a sycophant like Polonius.
• Ophelia enters and Hamlet describes her as a tragic character.
• Hamlet acknowledges that they are all actors stuck in a prison, Denmark.
• Polonius exits.
• Hamlet talks about his mother’s lines and his mixed feelings towards her: “A MOTHER’S WOMB IS NOT A ONE-WAY STREET.”
• He describes Gertrude as a whore for ignoring her husband’s death and for turning to Claudius.
  • He goes so far to say, “I stifle your scream with my lips. Do you recognize the fruits of your womb?” Most likely referring to theorised Oedipus complex in the original play.
• Hamlet expresses his anger towards the royal family: “I want to cram the corpse down the palace will choke in royal shit.”
• He wants to eat Ophelia’s heart that weeps for him.

 

2

• Ophelia enters and talks about all of the women who have committed suicide.
  • She begins to reject her fate.
  • “Yesterday I stopped killing myself.”
• She smashes her confined world.
• With her cut hands, she tore apart photos of all the people who used her.
• Ophelia destroys her clothes.
• She wretches out her heart and walks out into the streets.

 

3

• Scene changes to the university of the dead and Hamlet looks at all of the women that Ophelia described before.
• The dead women take his clothes.
• Ophelia and Claudius appears.
• Ophelia is dressed like a whore and performs a stiptease towards Hamlet.
• He responds that he wants to be a woman.
• Hamlet dresses in Ophelia’s clothes and makeup.
• Claudius returns to his coffin.
• He poses as a whore before dancing with Horatio.
• The voices of the dead say, “What thou killed thou shalt love.”
  • The dancing intensifies and on the swing is a madonna whose breast cancer radiates.

 

4

• Hamlet envisions about a revolution.
• He takes off the makeup and costume.
• The actor makes it clear that he is no longer Hamlet.
• He talks about the implications of the original play and what it means to people.
  • He isn’t interested in playing his part anymore.
• The scene changes with the inclusion of technology to the stage.
• He talks about Hamlet’s unchangeable name but now his monument has fallen.
• Now, at the time of the uprising, the drama will take place again.
• The actor playing Hamlet describes the uprising; the chaos of the streets and the armed pedestrians sweeping away the police.
• The drama would occur on the front lines of the revolution.
• He sees himself both a soldier and as a member of the crowd.
  • The actor playing Hamlet vividly describes the two sides of the revolution.
  • He describes killing all of the ringleaders, including the his other self.
  • He rambles about death.
• The drama doesn’t happen, the scripts are lost and the actors have retired for the day.
• The actor playing Hamlet goes home.
• Television is the daily nausea.
  • He rambles about the lies that are broadcasted.
• He walks through the streets and talks about dignity and poverty, the bodies of women, cowardice and stupidity, the Kingdom of Coca Cola.
• The actor playing Hamlet declares himself as once being Macbeth.
  • He knew the King’s third mistress well.
  • He references the protagonist of Crime and Punishment.
• He goes on to describe how his nausea is a privilege.
• The actor playing Hamlet doesn’t want anything anymore.
• With disturbing imagery, he describes that he doesn’t want to have a vulgar human body but rather a machine.
• Three naked women arrive each with the persona of either Marx, Lenin and Mao.
  • They quote Marx’s work in their own language.
• The actor playing Hamlet puts on a costume and makeup.
• He foreshadows the end while distastefully describing Hamlet.
• The actor playing Hamlet splits the heads of Marx, Lenin and Mao with an axe.

 

5

• Ophelia enters in a wheelchair while two men wrap her in white smocks wrap gauze.
• She calls herself Electra; a greek character that commonly occurs in tragedies, she is the source of the Electra complex (the female version of the Oedipus complex).
• Ophelia rejects the sperm she has received and fertility.
• She takes the world back into her womb.
• “Long live hate and contempt, rebellion and death. When she walks through your bedrooms carrying butcher knives you’ll know the truth.”

 

Significance of the Text:

 

This is a prime example of a postmodern piece. While taking a well-known story, Müller condenses the plot before shattering it into five fragmented pieces that all contribute to the overarching story. Each section could be staged in isolation and make just as much sense as when they are grouped together, but the flow suggests that there is a greater message that depends on the staging. One of the core ideas of postmodernism that can be seen in the structure of the play is shown by the disconnecting nature of the fragments. They appear like words on a page rather than an intellectual interpretation of Hamlet, leaving directors room to interpret the play in a vast amount of ways.

 

Another fundamental aspect of the play, that is important to consider, is the time it is produced and the identity of the author. Müller was from East Germany and was highly involved with the government after one of his pieces got censored for the public. East Germany was communist and Müler’s political opinions about communism are riddled throughout HAMLETMACHINE. His choice for using Hamlet to represent his political opinions comes from his own opinion that Hamlet feels like a German character.

 

One final aspect to consider is the allusions to other pieces of literature and mythology. This includes: Electra, Raskolnikov, Doctor Zhivago, a multitude of works by Shakespeare, etc. This makes the play appear more universal, especially with the political messages involved.

 

Interesting Tidbit:

 

The name Hamletmachine was an accident. After being inspired by the name ‘Shakespeare’s factory’, Müiller tried to think of a smart equivilant and he wanted an illustration from a book called Duchamp; this resulted in Hamletmachine. Many interpreted the play’s name as taking the initials H.M. from the author but this is a misconception and purely incidental.

 

Where more of Müller’s work can be found:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hamletmachine-other-Texts-Stage-Books/dp/0933826451/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

 

http://www.amazon.com/Hamlet-Machine-Other-Texts-Heiner-M%C3%BCller/dp/0933826451/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1454177934&sr=1-1&keywords=heiner+muller

 

Sources:

Müller, Heiner. Hamletmachine. London: Almeida Theatre, n.d. Print.

Words: 4328

Simply Explore… HAMLETMACHINE will be posted on Wednesday, February 3.