''Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth'' are two plays by
Tom Stoppard
Sir Tom Stoppard (born , 3 July 1937) is a Czech born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and politi ...
, written to be performed together. This was not the first time that Stoppard had made use of Shakespearean texts in his own plays or even the first time he had used ''
Hamlet
''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...
'' although the context is far different from that of his earlier ''
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
''Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead'' is an absurdist, existential tragicomedy by Tom Stoppard, first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966. The play expands upon the exploits of two minor characters from Shakespeare's ''Hamle ...
''. Stoppard would return to the theme of artistic dissent against the
Communist Party of Czechoslovakia
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (Czech and Slovak: ''Komunistická strana Československa'', KSČ) was a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Czechoslovakia that existed between 1921 and 1992. It was a member of the Cominte ...
in ''
Rock 'n' Roll
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm an ...
''.
It was performed on Broadway for 28 performances and 2 previews at the
22 Steps
"22 Steps" is a song covered by Australian singer-songwriter Damien Leith and was the first single from his first studio album ''Where We Land''. The song was released on Australian radios on 22 June 2006, with a physical release on 21 July. Th ...
opening October 3, 1979 and closing October 28, 1979.
''Dogg's Hamlet''
In ''Dogg's Hamlet'' the actors speak a language called Dogg, which consists of ordinary English words but with meanings completely different from the ones normally assigned them. Three schoolchildren are rehearsing a performance of ''Hamlet'' in English, which is to them a foreign language. ''Dogg's Hamlet'' was initially inspired by a scenario proposed by philosopher
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...
in his work ''Philosophical Investigations''. In this illustrative passage, which plays out in the play, a builder, A, is building something using differently shaped building stones. As A calls out "slab!" "block!" "pillar!" or "beam," the appropriate stones are brought to him by his assistant, B. An observer might assume that the words name the objects, but Wittgenstein suggests another interpretation: that the co-worker already knows what pieces to toss and in what order, but that the words are rather signals that A is ready for the next piece. Wittgenstein also suggests a scenario in which one worker understands the words to mean the shapes of the wood and the other understands the words as the signification of readiness, in other words: The two workers speak different languages without being aware of this fact.
The performance of ''Hamlet'' is a highly edited version that was performed as ''The Dogg's Troupe 15 Minute Hamlet''.
''Cahoot's Macbeth''
''Cahoot's Macbeth'' is usually performed with ''Dogg's Hamlet'', and shows a shortened performance of ''
Macbeth
''Macbeth'' (, full title ''The Tragedie of Macbeth'') is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. It is thought to have been first performed in 1606. It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those w ...
'' carried out under the eyes of a secret police officer who suspects the actors of subversion against the state. The piece is dedicated to the playwright
Pavel Kohout
Pavel Kohout (born 20 July 1928) is a Czech and Austrian novelist, playwright, and poet. He was a member of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, a Prague Spring participant and dissident in the 1970s until he was not allowed to return from Au ...
whom Stoppard had met in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...
,
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
in 1977. Because Kohout and some fellow actors had been barred from working in the theatre by the
communist
Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...
government due to their involvement with
Charter 77
Charter 77 (''Charta 77'' in Czech and Slovak) was an informal civic initiative in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from 1976 to 1992, named after the document Charter 77 from January 1977. Founding members and architects were Jiří Něm ...
, he had developed an adaptation of ''Macbeth'' to be performed in living rooms.
Links between the two plays
The character of "Easy" appears in both plays. He arrives in ''Dogg's Hamlet'' to deliver the planks, slabs, blocks, and cubes necessary to build the platform, but is the only character who speaks normal English instead of Dogg, and as such no other character can understand him. When he appears in the living room audience in ''Cahoot's Macbeth'' the reverse is true: he is the only character who speaks Dogg on a stage full of normal-English speakers, and once again completely baffles characters (as the homeowner puts it, "At the moment we're not sure if it's a language or a clinical condition") until several of them, most notably Cahoot, are revealed to also speak Dogg. However, while Cahoot and others can switch between Dogg and English at will, Easy speaks Dogg exclusively until the closing line of the play.
At the end of ''Cahoot's Macbeth'', by which time the audience has been taught numerous meanings of Dogg words, a speech from ''Dogg's Hamlet'' is repeated verbatim. In ''Dogg's Hamlet'' it was simply an absurdist, hilarious speech with no meaning, where English words were used in unexpected ways baffling to normal syntax as well as meaning. When it is repeated in ''Cahoot's Macbeth'', under the eyes and ears of a secret policemen, we now understand it to be the voice of Resistance, subversive and in opposition to the powers-that-be. It is a thrilling demonstration of a coded language developed and used by artists in a totalitarian state, apparently innocuous, but full of meaning and inspiration to those who have learned to understand the coded language: a tribute to Kohout and others forced to live in such conditions.
Adaptation
In 2005 the plays were adapted into a film by
Joey Zimmerman
Joseph Paul Zimmerman (born June 10, 1986) is an American actor known for his role as Dylan Piper in '' Halloweentown'' franchise.
Early life
Zimmerman was born in Albuquerque, New Mexico to Kat and Harry Zimmerman, a Los Alamos-based actor. Hi ...
. The shooting location was the Knightsbridge Theatre, the same theatre which put on a production of ''Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth'' in 2000.
References
External links
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{{Macbeth
Plays by Tom Stoppard
1979 plays
Plays and musicals based on Macbeth
Plays and musicals based on Hamlet
British plays adapted into films