Voices
read Hamlet and a summary of Mr.
Stoppard’s play, so I understood the
gist of things: this was a re-imagining of the great Shakespearean
tragedy, but not as seen through the
eyes of Hamlet. Rather, we watch
the action unfold from the bewildered perspective of Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern, two insignificant
and foolish functionaries in the
original drama. In Hamlet, these
two have no lives of their own. In
Mr. Stoppard’s rendering, they are
the lead players.
Well before the curtain came
down, I was mesmerized and helplessly in love. Not with the young
woman who accompanied me,
but with the art of the theater. It
was electric — the audience, the
actors, the music and, most of
all, the power of Mr. Stoppard’s
words to transport me and create
an exquisite and temporary moment in another time. The next
day, I told my mother about all
these feelings. I know it gave her
happiness. Or maybe it was satisfaction that she expressed. She
never told me why she chose that
play, except to say, “I thought it
was the perfect gift for you.”
Since that night I’ve read many
reviews of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and I know as a teenager
JOHN
MONTORIO
HUFFINGTON
05.12.13
I missed a lot of its deeper meanings about identity and alienation
and self awareness (though I’m sure
that’s not the kind of understanding
my mother hoped I’d gain).
And since that night I’ve enjoyed
many plays in many cities, and I
have been to the ballet and to the
opera and I have listened to Chopin.
Reading the diary I
asked her to keep in the last
six months of her life was all
the proof I needed that, in
another time, another place,
she would’ve been a novelist.
Or a poet.”
But nothing can compare to that
night, now long ago and far away,
when I sat in the audience at the
Alvin Theatre and was first struck
by the notion that there was a
magical world out there just beyond
the small horizons and modest
ambitions of my blue-collar neighborhood. And I could reach those
worlds if I only tried.
So thanks, ma.
John Montorio is the editor of
Huffington and the executive features
editor of The Huffington Post.