STARTING HAMLET WITH “NATURE BOY”. Matt Truman in this review in Variety tells how the Cumberbatch Hamlet began on opening night after the director decided to move the “To be or not to be” monologue back to the context in which Shakespeare placed it. In this version, the play opens with Hamlet sitting on the floor as Nat King Cole sings “Nature Boy†on a recording.
Here are the lyrics to “Nature Boy”:
There was a boy
A very strange enchanted boy
They say he wandered very far
Very far, over land and sea
A little shy and sad of eye
But very wise was he
And then one day, a magic day
He passed my way, and while we spoke
Of many things, fools and kings
This he said to me
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return”
“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn
Is just to love and be loved in return”
Trueman says this is “almost daring us to impose [Nature Boy’s] pat moral — just to love yadda yadda — onto Shakespeare’s play.”