Chapter 4: William Shakespeare's Naked Hamlet by Joseph Papp
This is an excerpt from Latinx Shakespeares: Staging U.S. Intracultural Theater (2023) by Carla Della Gatta. To read it in its full context, click on the link. The book can be purchased on all major sites that sell books and it is FREE to download.
HAMLET IN NEW YORK: JOSEPH PAPP’S NAKED HAMLET
In 1968, Joseph Papp directed a now-notorious production of Hamlet that he developed and later published under the title William Shakespeare’s “Naked” Hamlet, more commonly referred to as the Naked Hamlet. For the production—which starred Martin Sheen as both the title character and his alter ego, the Puerto Rican Ramon—Papp cut the text significantly and pared down the set and dramaturgy, leaving a “naked” play and performance. Nobody was actually naked on stage, but that scandalous notion has stuck with this production all the same, in part because of the scathing review from New York Times critic Clive Barnes, who saw the production as “an almost pitiful attempt at avant-garde theatrical devices,” and who wrote with disdain that “the play opens with Claudius and Gertrude in bed, and Hamlet, seemingly naked and clearly handcuffed, trapped in a coffin at their feet.” (p.112)