Vysotsky first played Hamlet at the stage of the Taganka theatre on November, 29, 1971. That was a double great event for him - on that day his elder son Arkadiy was 9.
In April, 1972 Vladimir Semyonovich grew ripe to put forth his own interpretation of Hamlet:
Ya tolko malost objasnyu v stikhe -
Na vsyo ya ne imeju polnomochij.
Ya byl zachat kak nuzhno, vo grekhe,
V potu i v nervakh pervoi brachnoi nochi...
Joseph Brodsky - a russian poet in America - said: "If one knows a piece of poetry by heart, it means he has created it himself".
Gul zatikh, ya vyshel na podmostki,
Prislonyas" k dvernomu kosyaku,
Ya lovlyu v dalyokom otgoloske,
Chto sluchitsya na mojom veku...
Volodya did know "Hamlet" by heart, which means he was a real Hamlet with a guitar himself.
Having played Hamlet brought Vysotsky the additional popularity to that he had enjoyed before. He became welcome in too many places at once. On May, 18, 1972 in a show for TV in Tallynn he said: "To have played Hamlet at the stage is like having defended a thesis in science".
The realization of the fact that I"ll be Hamlet in Vysotsky"s terms very soon gives me much physical and moral strength and, besides, bright hopes for the future.