Hamlet's Dresser: A Memoir
Bob Smith, 2002
Simon & Schuster
288 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780684852706
Summary
The true story of a boy whose life was saved by literature, Hamlet's Dresser is a portrait of a person made whole by art.
Bob Smith's childhood was a fragile and lonely one, spent largely caring for his handicapped sister, Carolyn. But at age ten, his local librarian gave him a copy of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and it transformed him.
In Bob's first look at Shakespeare's penetrating language—"In sooth I know not why I am so sad"—he had found a window through which to view the world. Years later, when the American Shakespeare Festival moved into Stratford and Smith was hired as Hamlet's dresser, his life's passion took shape.
Blending tragedy and comedy, Smith gracefully weaves together his childhood memories with his experiences backstage and teaching the plays. The result is a gorgeous, tender, infectious book about the restorative powers of literature and art. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1942-43
• Where—Stratford, Connecticut, USA
• Education—High school degree
• Currently—lives in Stratford, Connecticut
Bob Smith is the American author of Hamlet's Dresser (2002), his memoir centering on his troubled family caring for a severely retarded sister. At the age of 10, Smith found solace in reading Shakespeare and by 16 began working in the summer months as a dresser for the American Shakespeare Festival in his hometown of Stratford, Connecticut.
Smith memorized lines from Shakespeare's plays and sonnets and was considered somewhat of an expert among his theatrical associates, including actors who would come to him for coaching. Eventually, however, Smith became a painter, making a living off the sales of his art.
Then, at the urging of his friends and associates, he turned from painting to teaching his beloved Shakespeare. Though he never went to college, Smith taught graduate and undergraduate students at Temple University and the State University of New York at Purchase. By the 1990s he decided to follow his other passion—working with the elderly at The Y at 92nd Street and The Stein Senior Center. Over the years hundreds of students, of varying ages, attended his classes, and it was a 1996 article about him in The New York Times that led to his contract with Scribner for Hamlet's Dresser.
Writing the memoir prompted Smith to close up his Booklyn Heights apartment and move back to his hometown of Statford to better immerse himself in memories. (Adapted from the New York Times.)
Book Reviews
That words have a healing power may be a cliche for some, but in this intimate, often wryly funny memoir, their ability to transform lives is demonstrable.
Toronto Globe and Mail
Smith depicts characters so vividly and orchestrates their interactions so poignantly that the memoir would work if Shakespeare were absent. His presence makes the book more moving still.
Chicago Tribune
Hamlet's Dresser is touching, mesmerizing, intelligent, poetic, fascinating, and beautiful—you will love it.
Book-of-the-Month Club
In this intimate, inspiring account, Smith concludes that words and ideas possess the ability to heal and transform a life no matter how dire and painful the circumstances, using his own difficult childhood and productive adulthood as proof.... Veteran memoir readers will find this book absorbing, refreshing and touching.
Publishers Weekly
Smith's memoir tenderly breaks your heart into pieces and, with the sagacious insight...weaves it into a resplendent crown of joy.... Smith is the teacher we all should have had to introduce us to Shakespeare. Fortunately, he has given us this bejeweled book. —Barry X. Miller, Austin P.L., TX
Library Journal
Disjointed memoir of a troubled family.... Smith's own passion for the Bard of Avon might have been more fully explained, not because a love of Shakespeare is so hard to understand, but because it is the memoir's primary conceit.... Alternately touching and informative, but it fails to cohere.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Countless people advised Carolyn's parents to "put her away." Were the Smiths' efforts to care for Carolyn at home noble or misguided? Should they have institutionalized her at a younger age? If they had, how might Bob Smith's life have been different? To what extent should parents care for a disabled child at the expense of other siblings?
2. Discuss the role of religion in Bob Smith's childhood. Why was Smith drawn to the priesthood as a boy? Why did Shakespeare eventually offer Smith more solace than God? If this memoir can be read as a vindication of art, can it also be read as a condemnation of religion?
3. How did Smith's childhood immersion in art and literature simultaneously alleviate and deepen his loneliness? Are children with anguished family lives more often drawn to the arts than those in less troubled circumstances? Why or why not?
4. "I was going to school those days and nights in the theater," Smith writes. "I never needed anything so much as what I needed then, and never has so much been given to me." What exactly was he given? Discuss how the "lessons" he learned at the American Shakespeare Festival Theater were different from those available in a conventional classroom.
5. Of his time at the theater, Smith writes: "I was being taught that poetry and beauty are not simply antidotes to horror, sometimes they are the horror. I was learning that art can be a brutal thing, not just some decoration placed over the truth, but...the truth itself." Discuss.
6. "I'm no scholar," the author tells us in the prologue. "I've got no formal education past high school." Smith's relationship to Shakespeare is more personal and heartfelt than academic, yet he has made a vocation of sharing his passion with actors, students, and seniors. Do you think he considers himself a teacher or simply an enthusiast? How do you think Smith would describe his approach to Shakespeare?
7. How does Smith's love of Shakespeare serve as a catalyst in his forming relationships? Recall, for example, the easy camaraderie Smith develops with the actors and directors at the theater and his later affection for his elderly "students." Does Shakespeare's work in particular facilitate friendship and intimacy? Or would such closeness result from the sharing of any enthusiasm or interest?
8. Recall and discuss Smith's relationships with elderly people, from his own grandparents to the seniors he teaches. Why does Smith cherish old people? What do they offer him that others can't or don't? Did this book alter your impressions of the elderly?
9. Throughout the book, Smith quotes passages from Shakespeare. What purpose do these excerpts serve? Did they prompt you to read Shakespeare yourself? If so, which of his works are you most inclined to revisit or explore for the first time and why?
10. Some may consider Shakespeare's writing formal or highbrow—even daunting. What are your own feelings or biases toward Shakespeare? Did Smith's memoir change your perceptions? If so, how and why?
11. "When I talk about the plays I unfold myself to myself," Smith writes. For him, reading Shakespeare elicits myriad memories and emotions. Why does reading Shakespeare afford us unique access to our inner selves, our pasts, and our humanity? Does Smith's memoir imply that reading Shakespeare can make us better people? If so, "better" in what sense?
12. Why, in middle age, does Smith move back to Stratford, Connecticut? What is he trying to recapture or come to terms with? Why have you returned to a particular place from your past? What did you hope to gain? Did you? What does Smith's decision to return to New York signify?
13. Do you blame Smith for withdrawing from his sister, Carolyn, for so many decades, or do you sympathize with his inability to face her? Why does he stay away for so long? Why do you think he finally decides to visit Carolyn at Southbury? What gives him the strength?
14. Although Smith attests that Shakespeare "saved his life," he still retains much of the "invisibility" of his childhood and writes that he has "never completely emerged from that darkness." What does Smith's memoir reveal about the power and limits of art's redemptive qualities?
15. Compare and contrast this memoir with others you've read. What makes a memoir unique or extraordinary? What scene or passage are you most likely to remember from Smith's account several years from now?
(Questions issued by the publisher.)