I see them, sitting alone in the prop room’s far corner—scuffed brown leather, toes curving upward, brass buckles pleading for a shine. Four hundred years old, if the playbill is to be believed. Unlikely. Still, it’s obvious these shoes have seen way more Hamlet performances than I have or ever will.
Now, it’s my turn to slip them on. Tradition, I’m told. Whoever plays Hamlet with this troupe must always wear these shoes. And in the wearing, each leaves something of their performance behind.
‘They’re too tight,’ I complain, but the costume mistress merely smiles.
‘They always are… at first,’ she says. ‘You’re too new to know, but they’ll… stretch. Always do.’
At least the first dress rehearsal butterflies distract me from their discomfort as I hit my marks and lines as if I’ve played this role for years.
The director interrupts, pen tapping his bottom lip. ‘You’re hitting your marks, but pausing in unexpected places,’ he says. ‘It’s unsettling… but somehow, it works.’
I nod, unsure what he’s talking about, hitting the next mark, the next line without conscious thought. The shoes, I notice, no longer pain me—their worn leather as relaxed as a once reluctant horse finally accepting its rider.
Memories, not my own, hover just out of reach as I belt out my lines: a taller man, favoring his right leg; a shorter one rushing through soliloquies; another kicking the floorboards before exiting stage left—pursued by a bear.
Opening night, the stage manager finds me staring at my feet. ‘Nervous?’
‘They still hurt,’ I say, which isn’t quite true anymore. It’s the shoe’s memories, not pain, that bother me. I can’t tell him that, of course, but he knows.
The house lights dim. My left heel catches on a nail head as I cross to the stage— But instead of stumbling, I find myself in a drafty church basement. Plaster dust. Wet wool coats. Bombs exploding nearby. A baby crying. The London Blitz, though how I know this is unclear.
‘To be,’ I swallow wrong. Cough. Try again. ‘Or not to be.’ And I’m back.
The Times will say I “deliberately mangled the most famous line in theater to jolt the audience awake.” The stage manager will smile knowingly.
After our final curtain call, I remove them one last time and place them again in their solitary spot to await the next Hamlet. How many feet have they shaped? How many actors have they guided?
‘He had bunions, you know,’ the costume mistress breaks my reverie.
‘Who?’
‘Shakespeare, silly.’ She points to a shoe. ‘Left big toe. Made him walk funny. He had these made to help with that. Never had an issue on stage again.’
‘Hmm,’ I reply, picking them up again. Turning them over, I noticed stitching I hadn’t seen before—as if the soles had been replaced—stretched just enough to keep me from stumbling on stage.
About the author
Ken is a retired civil servant who hasn’t yet figured out what retirement means. In turns, he consults, mopes around, and crafts wildly varying types of fiction—literary, horror, humor, as well as many things undefinable. He often plies Virginia’s backwaters on his kayak, searching for both fish and inspiration.
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