Hamlet with a Hangover

Christopher Plummer says he did it “many times,”
back then, awash in boon companions,

sex, and devastating wit. And when he did, the play
would speed up: three and a half to four hours

became two. His Alpine leading lady, no Ophelia,
had a freehold on My Favorite Things (see Andrews, Julie;

John Coltrane turned that trill right on its ear,
absent kittens, absent roses, absent things).

Plummer’s talking up his memoir on the morning radio.
Alcohol, Shakespeare, Austria, The War.

It all fits in a thimble with standing room to spare.
The prop skull of a jester is even there somewhere.

About whom the young Richard Burton
once declaimed to a full house at the Old Globe:

“Poor Yorick! We played horse, he made me laugh.
Chapfallen, what? He’s dead, Horatio, can’t go to pieces.”

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