If mankind were limited to only one existential question, surely it would be either: To Be Or Not To Be? or, Is There Anything Billy Shakespeare Didn't Think Of?
Here are several versions of Hamlet's most famed soliloquy performed by some of the most celebrated thespians of the past century, all pondering the same questions; all sans answers.
Which among them, one may ask, is the greatest performance? 'Tis a resolution devoutly to be wished.
There is something crass, cynical and vulgar about using great actors reciting epic poetry to pitch banks (in this case, The Union Bank of Switzerland).
In this 1988 attempt to appeal to a wealthier clientele, the use of insipid elevator music to underscore the narration is needlessly trivializing, but after all, this was John Gielgud, who may not have invented English stage recitation, but certainly perfected it.
Here, he recites a selection from Lord Alfred Tennyson's Ulysses.
Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in the old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are,
One equal-temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Ulysses (excerpt)
Alfred Lord Tennyson
PS The Tag line to this commercial was, "Union Bank of Switzerland. Here today. Here tomorrow". Now, if that ain't anti-poetry, it will do until something uglier comes along. And look-y, look-y. Here it comes now.
Update: I understood when an international bank used famous actors to recite classic poetry over insipid music followed by tasteless, anti-poetic tag lines (e.g., "Union Bank of Switzerland. Here today. Here tomorrow.") as an attempt to attract wealthy and presumably highly cultured investors.
But wedding professional wrestling - or whatever the hell is being sold here - to a spectral voice reciting Dylan Thomas' poetry over primordial swamp music as rapid fire scenes of hormonal goons contemplating the physical mayhem each is about to wreak on the other assaults the senses.
This is truly a marriage of the sacred and profane.
I trust Mr. Thomas' estate has been properly compensated.
The abdication and surrender of King Richard II to Henry Bolinbroke, with Derek Jacobi as King Richard and John Gielgud as John of Gaunt, Act IV, scene i, in one of the most heart wrenching performances in the Shakespearean canon.
"I'll give my jewels for a set of beads" - Richard II by Derek Jacobi
"Let us tell sad stories of the deaths of ings" - Richard II
"Tell Bolingbroke that every stride he takes upon my land is dangerous treason". - Richard II
