III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Zeffirelli '90

Despite his adaptation's many cuts, Zeffirelli acknowledges this scene's importance by not only showing a good part of the play-within-a-play as written, but by collapsing parts of various other scenes into it. For example, Polonius is here part of the show, gives a cue to the musicians and introduces the players on stage with the "pastoral-historical" speech from Act II Scene 2. He makes a meal of it too, enjoying the laughter he gets from the audience, sincere in his praise but also over-egging the pudding to get a reaction. Hamlet then has good reason to ask about Polonius' university days, coming around with a cup of wine and an inebriated step. Claudius, already in high spirits, laughs at Hamlet's Brutus pun (which is ironic given that like Julius Caesar, he's to be murdered by an adopted son - I'm surprised I never saw the connection before), but is puzzled by the "promise-crammed" comment. He's still trying to figure Hamlet out.

Ophelia is at once impatient and hurt by Hamlet's words and actions, rolling wet eyes at the ceiling. It's a small moment, but one of Bonham-Carter's best. Before the play, we're offered acrobats, clowns and jugglers, during which time Hamlet and Ophelia have part of the Nunnery scene (as already described in a previous article; Zeffirelli is also a juggler, of scenes). It's their one private moment in the scene, as otherwise, Hamlet lets the King and Queen overhear things just to make them squirm, treating them as if they weren't there. In fact, during the play, Ophelia is mostly forgotten and some of her lines are given to others. The Queen says of the Prologue "T'is brief, my son" so Hamlet an direct his barb straight at her. Later, Claudius gets "You are as good as a chorus, cousin" as the director wants this to be a duel between the two men.
After the Prologue, rather big and clownish because Hamlet never instructs the Players in this version, the play starts without the dumb show and cut down to essential lines. The important lines are intact, but this collapse does hammer the point home aggressively, giving Gertrude, all forced smiles and gritted teeth, reason to opine that the lady doth protest too much. The Royals immediately feel targeted, and a satisfied Hamlet, grins eagerly at their reaction. His plan is working and he can't help but participate by mouthing words he apparently wrote, or talking out of turn, mischievously pushing a patron back so he can slip the King a comment or two. Claudius can't be sure Hamlet knows the truth and the way he pitches his question about whether or not he knows the argument, you can tell he finds it strange Hamlet already knows the story. By this point, Claudius is avoiding Hamlet's eyes, sweating, gulping down wine nervously. This Hamlet may be hyperactive, but he doesn't shout his less-than-veiled accusations at the whole assembly, he takes the Royals into his confidence, in a hushed voice, manically pulling at threads on his clothes as the story and Claudius' composure unravel. He doesn't tell "Gonzago" what to do, though that player does lose his lines and simply enacts the murder (an echo of the dumb show). We instead focus (as Hamlet does) on Claudius' reaction.
At first he leans in, then rises, holds his head in pain and drops his cup. On stage, the Player King has dropped down hard enough to dislodge his crown, a nice piece of stagecraft and mirror to Claudius' own loss of control. Hamlet steps all over the audience to follow the advancing Claudius, fixed on his expression. Claudius points at the murderer who looks positively dumbstruck, then begins to laugh insanely, turning towards the audience. No one seems to know how to take this, least of all the Players, and he runs out of the castle to get some air, chaos in his wake. The verdict definitely points to Guilty.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - BBC '80

Hamlet begins the scene in a cloak and skull mask which makes Claudius laugh and Gertrude smile. The staging, in which Claudius immediately recognizes Hamlet under the mask is ironic. What Claudius actually recognizes is that Hamlet will be the death of him. In fact, everyone who interacts with Hamlet-as-Death will be dead by the end of the play.

Hamlet's initial interaction with Ophelia shocks and grieves her, so he corrects his intent and puts the shame on her, acting disgusted that she thought of "country matters". To him - because of her recent betrayal, or possibly simply because of her gender - she is a whore and a deviant. He reiterates the idea when he says woman's love is brief, pointing it at her rather than his mother. Is there a difference in his mind, or does he paint all women with the same brush?
The play is well-realized through stagecraft that creates an optical illusion of depth in the set, and a lot of time is spent on the mime show. As it plays out, the clown versions of the King, Queen and murderer make the real King, Queen and murderer laugh. Hamlet acts like he's evaluating the events the play is based on for the first time, but also seems disturbed at how much fun Claudius is having with it. The King doesn't clue in that the murder is an image of the one he committed, and roars with laughter. The mime show ends with the murderer quelling the Player Queen's grief with a rich gift of jewels. She's essentially being bought, another reference to her being a whore in Hamlet's eyes.

The play itself appears in slightly abridged form, but nothing major is lost and it moves along quite nicely. It's only at "wormwood" that Hamlet finally attracts the attention of the Royals - all previous accusations were made in Ophelia's confidence alone - and it is perhaps only then that the King and Queen realize the play might be about them. Up to that point, they were fresh teenagers on a date, but now there are more silence and squirming. After the first scene, Gertrude is so caught up in her own thoughts, she almost forgets to applaud, and does only awkwardly, with too much enthusiasm. She's the one who "protests too much". Hamlet puts the accent on "her" in "She'll keep HER word", a veiled accusation, and by this point, though Claudius is far less easy to read, he's lost all of his cheer.

With the Player King confused by Hamlet's interruption and attempt to spoil the play's ending, the prince waves the murderer onto stage. Jacobi shows Hamlet's impatience quite well here, losing his temper when the player doesn't immediately start speaking the lines. And finally, Hamlet loses it altogether, in a rush to see Claudius' reaction, interjecting just as the Player King is poisoned and wracked with pain. He makes sure to mention the garden, so that no detail of the accusation is lost. He over-eggs the pudding. This adaptation makes us realize that though the play is designed to catch the conscience of the King, Hamlet never lets it do that. He wants to rumble Claudius himself. Does he succeed? From the staging, it's really not clear he does. It's not even clear he's guilty of the crime he's accused of.
Though he accuses Claudius of being "frighted", the King's reaction is really to stand and approach Hamlet, bringing a torch too close to his eyes. It's a stand-off. He asked for light not because he struggled with his own darkness, but because he wants to expose Hamlet's. Violence almost breaks out before the King catches himself. Hamlet starts to giggle insanely, giving Claudius the chance he needs to turn around and smile at the assembly. He sends everyone home and it's understood that this evening's diversion has been just another of mad Hamlet's shenanigans. We're left wondering if anyone really did catch the King's conscience or even if there was anything to catch in the first place.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Olivier '48

Trumpets sound, everyone enters, Hamlet in darkness in the center. First, courtiers and players, showing deference, and only then do the Royals come down the stairs. Hamlet goes up to help his mother come down. Is he lulling her into a false sense of security? That would be coherent with the whole idea of putting on a show (the play and his high spirits). His first shot at her, choosing to sit by Ophelia instead of her, seems even more mercurial from her point of view, and calculated cruelty from ours. The courtiers gasp at this slight. The idea that this sequence scandalously upends Denmark's hierarchy is something today's audiences might not at first get. Not that Ophelia is kindly treated. Hamlet grabs her by the wrist and pushes her down into a chair. Though this is a violent gesture, her father Polonius is rather pleased that it seems to confirm his still-held theory. The poor man is completely oblivious in this version, the only one to laugh when Hamlet publicly humiliates him. Ophelia's own humiliation in this scene is more private. Gertrude and Claudius don't even hear Hamlet's loud accusations before the play starts, so as if we were watching it as a play, the actors are projecting their voices, but intimacy is nevertheless retained. This Ophelia is an innocent, naive girl, so the references to her lap do shock her.
Of The Mouse-Trap, only the Prologue and mime show are in the film. The Prologue seems almost embarrassed at how short the text is, though he may just be intimidated by the royal audience. Did Hamlet write this? Since there's no dialog, where are the lines he inserted? If he did write the prologue, we might believe he set himself up for his "As woman's love" line. The "mischief" is definitely Hamlet's. On stage, the orchard is represented by a sickly-looking cactus-like tree and the camera stays mobile as if to show a shared point of view. With no words spoken, we're allowed to focus on the audience's reactions. Ophelia catches Hamlet looking at the King. Horatio is also looking in that direction. And there's something to look at. Even Polonius notices the King having difficulty, though he assumed Claudius to have taken ill. The play continues regardless, with the Player Queen finding her dead husband and being comforted by the murderer. There's a lot of gossip in the crowd, but it looks strange without Hamlet's more public accusations, as is the fact the King is moved in such a fashion.
Though he melodramatically asks for light, he acts as if blinded by the images in his mind. Hamlet brings a torch much too close to his face and he flinches and runs off. Olivier follows this up with utter chaos. The Queen looks at Hamlet with a "what have you done" kind of look, while everyone else runs in every possible direction, as in a scene from a monster movie. The natural order has been completely destroyed. As the King loses all control, so does the populace, and though Olivier doesn't explore every aspect of that idea, in the text it does thematically lead to, first, the peasants proclaiming Laertes potential king, and second, the invasion of Denmark by Norway. In a sense, Olivier covers the cut of those plot elements with this scene which does something similar through visuals.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Branagh '96

We enter the scene on a kiss between Claudius and Gertrude before the camera pans down to the stage even as a chandelier rises and the audience applauds. It doesn't applaud in the stage's direction, however, but in the royal couple's. What is actually the show, here? Even to the audience within the film, Hamlet's play is probably less important than the Courtly soap opera of the couple so quickly nuptialed after the death of the old King and the mad ravings of the Prince. Like Horatio, they'll be watching Claudius and Gertrude. In fact, Branagh cuts to Horatio and the gossiping Court often, reminding us of this public scrutiny. When Hamlet appears on stage, a spotlight is immediately lit. He is the country's beloved Prince - as Claudius mentions elsewhere in the context of not being able to easily dispose of him - and the audience laughs at all his jokes. At least until they become too cruel. Claudius' voice is strained when addressing Hamlet, while Gertrude is happy to see him in good spirits. It seems likely Claudius has not shared what he heard Hamlet say in the previous act. Ophelia, for her part, seems quietly sad, even embarrassed. She was no doubt the object of gossip even before this night, and Hamlet's public cruelties would make this a very difficult evening to bear. And then there's Polonius, who grits his teeth and takes Hamlet's humiliating him by dragging him on stage. Here, Branagh shows how showing the audience's reactions can influence our understanding of the play. The way people roll their eyes and smile when Polonius says he once played Julius Caesar resonates with them. The King's chief courtier playing an emperor? Perfect casting for someone the Court probably sees as a brown-nosing opportunist with too-elevated ambitions.

As Hamlet plonks himself down next to Ophelia, he mocks her and his mother openly, shouting his lines so that everyone can hear, letting his rising anger drive the scene. The Court actively ignores him, though he does set them to whispering. Hamlet even manages to make his mother blush at the shortness of her grieving period. Though Claudius may be guilty of murder, Gertrude is guilty of not loving her first husband enough, and she is just as caught in the "Mouse-Trap". Branagh continues to mix the play on stage and the play in the audience together, having these early mockeries end on applause. It sounds like they're applauding Hamlet's bit, but they're really cheering for the Players who have just come on stage. Eventually, Hamlet will be on stage too and it won't matter what's in or out of the play.

Hamlet's mischief gives way to the dumb show's, which is played so broadly and quickly that it doesn't give away the plot of the play. That's the advantage with doing the whole play - many versions will use the dumb show and nothing else to save time - as it allows for a more mysterious dumb show. Here, Ophelia doesn't seem stupid for asking whether the show contains the argument of the play, just as it's reasonable for Claudius not to see the image of his murder in the action as yet.
The Players' costumes set the play in the Middle Ages, contrasting well with the more Napoleonic look of the film's events while winking at the period in which Hamlet is actually set. The Players give an intimate and very emotional performance, in keeping with Hamlet's instructions and the First Player's qualities from his earlier monologue. It's powerful stuff that should connect with the Royals. But Hamlet is anxious because the King and Queen aren't always watching the play, instead feeding each other bits of Turkish Delight, kissing, or drinking (we're often reminded that it is Claudius' vice). Will Hamlet miss his chance to show the King's guilt? It helps explain why he later jumps on stage to draw their attention. When they do watch the play, they empathize with the wrong things. The love between the Player King and Player Queen, for example, makes Claudius and Gertrude get closer and publicly cuddle. Their reaction tells us they really are in love, no matter what has happened before. At the mention of the "second husband", however, the Court starts looking back at them. The play is suddenly quite scandalous, and the Royals' point of view heightens the paranoia.

The Player King is so kind and loving - an idealized Hamlet Sr. - that he gives the Player Queen permission to wed again, but it's her that swears she won't. It is in moments like these that Hamlet seems more intent to show his mother as an unfaithful whore, than his stepfather as a murderer. Or perhaps it's a feint, letting the Court (and the King) think he's going after his mother, to hit them with a surprising revelation about Claudius. In the play, the Player Queen does not betray the Player King, she betrays HERSELF. Is this at cross-purposes with Hamlet's intent and opinion? Or is betraying oneself worse than betraying others? Let's not forget the theme of the play can be found in the line "To thine own self be true". Hamlet's true self is not a murderer-avenger, which is what delays the action of the play and causes the tragedy. Here, he accuses Gertrude of not being true to herself, or to the image he has of her (the wife of his father). During all this, Ophelia seems quite taken by the play. Again, Branagh makes a lot of inferences through reaction shots. Is Ophelia seeing there the image of the relationship she wishes she had with Hamlet? Does she idealize, perhaps, the unseen relationship between her father and dead mother? Polonius may well tell his stories of suffering much for love around the house. As the scene runs its course, Hamlet slowly creeps down to the stage...
He gets the Royals' reactions to the play and starts to play the chorus. In another cruel exchange with Ophelia, he plays on her "better/worse" remark, linking it to wedding vows (for better or for worse). Does Branagh's pronunciation create an additional layer of pun? The line is "So you must take your husbands", but I hear "So you mistake your husbands", a potential dig at his mother's swinging allegiances. Savage with his own potential wife and with his parents, Hamlet, by osmosis, is the same with the Player Murderer on stage, an image of his stepfather. The accusation is not so much in the play as it is in Hamlet staring up at Claudius from the stage. It is implicit, verging on explicit, and people start to squirm in their seats. Slow zoom on Hamlet and the King as the editor cuts in with scenes from Hamlet Sr.'s murder. Are we seeing Hamlet's imagination, or Claudius' memory? The edit seems to infer the latter. If the King is moved to stand, it is likely not because the play holds a mirror to his own actions, but rather that Hamlet seems to know what happened. Claudius shows restraint however. "Give me some light" and his bitter "Away" are said in a low, menacing voice that communicate that he has been insulted, but not that he's been rumbled.

The Court leaves in a hurry, probably fearing for their lives if the King catches them in the wrong expression. Will the events of this evening spread like wild fire and cause the almost-revolution during which the rabble at the gates proclaim Laertes king? Quite possibly. Gertrude's reaction is of interest as well. She keeps her eyes on Claudius all the way through... in anger? Outrage? Hard to say. Later, she'll blame Hamlet for offending the King, but in this moment, she wonders if it's all true, and if the man she loves today killed the man she loved the day before. Ophelia holds her head, ever closer to a breakdown. Ophelia's story is one of disillusionment, of a young girl who probably saw the best in everyone finding out reality is a much more cynical and corrupt place.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap

The next sequence contains both the play-within-the-play and the conversations held by the audience during its presentation. I wonder if it's a mirror of how audiences behaved in Elizabethan times, perhaps special presentations for the Court in particular. Hamlet's behavior is especially appalling and disrespectful to the Players. Are noisy audiences supposed to see themselves in this mirror? The staging may reveal each director's opinion on the subject. It is not their only challenge however. Though large parts of the play are often cut for time, it must still convincingly reveal the King's guilt. Directors and actors must juggle time and emotional impact, the Players' drama and Hamlet's cruel comedy, and Players and Audience to create an effective whole. No small order. Let's first look at the text itself (in italics) and see what resonates, staging unseen.

Danish march. A flourish. Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, GUILDENSTERN, and others

KING CLAUDIUS: How fares our cousin Hamlet?
HAMLET: Excellent, i' faith; of the chameleon's dish: I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons so.

Words well chosen. Hamlet eats of the chameleon's dish because he is in fact a chameleon, changing in this very scene from director to sincere friend to actor to madman before our very eyes.

KING CLAUDIUS: I have nothing with this answer, Hamlet; these words are not mine.
HAMLET: No, nor mine now.
[To POLONIUS] My lord, you played once i' the university, you say?
LORD POLONIUS: That did I, my lord; and was accounted a good actor.
HAMLET: What did you enact?
LORD POLONIUS: I did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i' the Capitol; Brutus killed me.
HAMLET: It was a brute part of him to kill so capital a calf there. Be the players ready?

An inside joke, since Shakespeare himself has a play called Julius Caesar. It also presages Polonius' own stabbing. Hamlet jokes about Hamlet's "brute part", much he will later sincerely apologize to Laertes for killing his father, claiming that his madness was guilty, but he was not, divorcing the murderer from the part of himself that committed the murder.

ROSENCRANTZ: Ay, my lord; they stay upon your patience.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: Come hither, my dear Hamlet, sit by me.
HAMLET: No, good mother, here's metal more attractive.
LORD POLONIUS: [To KING CLAUDIUS] O, ho! do you mark that?
HAMLET: Lady, shall I lie in your lap? [Lying down at OPHELIA's feet]
OPHELIA: No, my lord.
HAMLET: I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Do you think I meant country matters?

My pocket edition, obviously meant for the classroom, omits this lascivious exchange.

OPHELIA: I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET: That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA: What is, my lord?
HAMLET: Nothing.
OPHELIA: You are merry, my lord.
HAMLET: Who, I?
OPHELIA: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: O God, your only jig-maker. What should a man do but be merry? for, look you, how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within these two hours.
OPHELIA: Nay, 'tis twice two months, my lord.
HAMLET: So long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I'll have a suit of sables. O heavens! die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there's hope a great man's memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by'r lady, he must build churches, then; or else shall he suffer not thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is 'For, O, for, O,the hobby-horse is forgot.'

The "hobby-horse" was a traditional pantomime in which two men dressed as a horse danced to a tune, died a "magical death", and rose again when the music changed. As a metaphor for the revenant Hamlet Sr., it is appropriate, as it is for the context of the dumb-show we are about to see. The contraction of time ("out of joint" as it is) is a theme that repeats throughout the play.

Hautboys play. The dumb-show enters
Enter a King and a Queen very lovingly; the Queen embracing him, and he her. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King's ears, and exit. The Queen returns; finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner wooes the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love
[Exeunt]

OPHELIA: What means this, my lord?
HAMLET: Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
OPHELIA: Belike this show imports the argument of the play.

We should wonder, if all the details of the murder are in the dumb-show, why Claudius doesn't react right then and there. Directors may stage the scene so that he isn't paying attention in this moment, but that's hardly satisfying. What the text seems to indicate is that the text of The Mouse-Trap is an important component in making Claudius relate the play's events to those of his own life, or else that his conscience is "caught" less by the play's incidents than by Hamlet's rather clear accusation at the end of it.

Enter Prologue
HAMLET: We shall know by this fellow: the players cannot keep counsel; they'll tell all.
OPHELIA: Will he tell us what this show meant?
HAMLET: Ay, or any show that you'll show him: be not you ashamed to show, he'll not shame to tell you what it means.
OPHELIA: You are naught, you are naught: I'll mark the play.

Here, Hamlet accuses Ophelia of herself putting on a show, that her love was false, etc. though at the same time intimating that she is a whore unashamed to expose herself. Her retort sounds like a pun on "naughty" and "naught" to me. She returns the insult of being "nothing" by signifying his words are meaningless (or that she refuses to acknowledge their meaning).

PROLOGUE: For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
[Exit]

Whereas Shakespeare's worlds already take place in a heightened, poetic reality, he gives the play-within-the-play some extra height by making the verses rhyme.

HAMLET: Is this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?
OPHELIA: 'Tis brief, my lord.
HAMLET: As woman's love.

Enter two Players, King and Queen

PLAYER KING: Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart gone round
Neptune's salt wash and Tellus' orbed ground,
And thirty dozen moons with borrow'd sheen
About the world have times twelve thirties been,
Since love our hearts and Hymen did our hands
Unite commutual in most sacred bands.
PLAYER QUEEN: So many journeys may the sun and moon
Make us again count o'er ere love be done!
But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,
So far from cheer and from your former state,
That I distrust you. Yet, though I distrust,
Discomfort you, my lord, it nothing must:
For women's fear and love holds quantity;
In neither aught, or in extremity.
Now, what my love is, proof hath made you know;
And as my love is sized, my fear is so:
Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear;
Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.
PLAYER KING: 'Faith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too;
My operant powers their functions leave to do:
And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,
Honour'd, beloved; and haply one as kind
For husband shalt thou--

Whether or not this is part of Hamlet's addition to "The Murder of Gonzago" (and the Player Queen's lines that follow almost assuredly are), it draws an idealized picture of his parents' marriage and of the country of Denmark ("this fair world"). In the play, the family and national environments are the same, and we get a glimpse of how things were before Hamlet Sr.'s murder, if from a biased point of view.

PLAYER QUEEN: O, confound the rest!
Such love must needs be treason in my breast:
In second husband let me be accurst!
None wed the second but who kill'd the first.
HAMLET: [Aside] Wormwood, wormwood.

"Wormwood" has a double meaning we can almost certainly be sure is exploited by Shakespeare. On the one hand, it is a plant with emetic properties, and he is trying to use the words to force Claudius to vomit up his guilt. Wormwood is also the name of a star from the Book of Revelations related to the Apocalypse, which Hamlet might invoke (as a pun, his frequent idiom) as a metaphor for the end of his journey, the end of Claudius' kingship, the coming end of all their lives. Either way, it supports the notion that these lines in particular were inserted by the Prince.

PLAYER QUEEN: The instances that second marriage move
Are base respects of thrift, but none of love:
A second time I kill my husband dead,
When second husband kisses me in bed.
PLAYER KING: I do believe you think what now you speak;
But what we do determine oft we break.

Compare to Claudius' "wick or snuff" when he tries to ascertain if Laertes really has it in him to kill Hamlet even once he's cooled off.

Purpose is but the slave to memory,
Of violent birth, but poor validity;
Which now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree;
But fall, unshaken, when they mellow be.
Most necessary 'tis that we forget
To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:
What to ourselves in passion we propose,
The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.
The violence of either grief or joy
Their own enactures with themselves destroy:
Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;
Grief joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.
This world is not for aye, nor 'tis not strange
That even our loves should with our fortunes change;
For 'tis a question left us yet to prove,
Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

Note how several stylistic figures create mirror effects in the play's text. "Grief joys, joy grieves" and "Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love", for example. Thematically, these support the idea that the play itself is a mirror of the Court. The rhyming scheme may also be part of the effect.

The great man down, you mark his favourite flies;
The poor advanced makes friends of enemies.
And hitherto doth love on fortune tend;
For who not needs shall never lack a friend,
And who in want a hollow friend doth try,
Directly seasons him his enemy.
But, orderly to end where I begun,
Our wills and fates do so contrary run
That our devices still are overthrown;
Our thoughts are ours, their ends none of our own:
So think thou wilt no second husband wed;
But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.
PLAYER QUEEN: Nor earth to me give food, nor heaven light!
Sport and repose lock from me day and night!
To desperation turn my trust and hope!
An anchor's cheer in prison be my scope!
Each opposite that blanks the face of joy
Meet what I would have well and it destroy!
Both here and hence pursue me lasting strife,
If, once a widow, ever I be wife!
HAMLET: If she should break it now!
PLAYER KING:'Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile;
My spirits grow dull, and fain I would beguile
The tedious day with sleep.
[Sleeps]
PLAYER QUEEN: Sleep rock thy brain,
And never come mischance between us twain!
[Exit]
HAMLET: Madam, how like you this play?
QUEEN GERTRUDE: The lady protests too much, methinks.

In other words, Gertrude did not protest as much and sees the performance as a flawed mirror of her own life. Consequently, her own guilt (for betraying a dead husband) is NOT revealed. She does not see herself in this. The promise made by the Player Queen is the fruit of Hamlet's imagination and Gertrude was never bound by it.

HAMLET: O, but she'll keep her word.
KING CLAUDIUS: Have you heard the argument? Is there no offence in 't?
HAMLET: No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest; no offence i' the world.
KING CLAUDIUS: What do you call the play?
HAMLET: The Mouse-trap. Marry, how? Tropically. This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke's name; his wife, Baptista: you shall see anon; 'tis a knavish piece of work: but what o'that? your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade wince, our withers are unwrung.

Hamlet seems to give the game away here, basically telling Claudius to confess if his soul be not free, or rather, NOT to confess if he doesn't want to get caught. Note also that the murder on stage is the image of a real murder in Vienna. Hamlet is skirting the truth. The play is actually based on two true stories.

[Enter LUCIANUS] This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.
OPHELIA: You are as good as a chorus, my lord.
HAMLET: I could interpret between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.
OPHELIA: You are keen, my lord, you are keen.
HAMLET: It would cost you a groaning to take off my edge.

Another pair of lines censored in my pocket edition. The violent image of Hamlet's erection as a sword may prove fodder for other critics than I when we get to the sword fight between Hamlet and Laertes.

OPHELIA: Still better, and worse.
HAMLET: So you must take your husbands. Begin, murderer; pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come: 'the croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.'
LUCIANUS: Thoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit, and time agreeing;
Confederate season, else no creature seeing;
Thou mixture rank, of midnight weeds collected,
With Hecate's ban thrice blasted, thrice infected,
Thy natural magic and dire property,
On wholesome life usurp immediately. [Pours the poison into the sleeper's ears]
HAMLET: He poisons him i' the garden for's estate. His name's Gonzago: the story is extant, and writ in choice Italian: you shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago's wife.
OPHELIA: The king rises.
HAMLET: What, frighted with false fire!
QUEEN GERTRUDE: How fares my lord?
LORD POLONIUS: Give o'er the play.
KING CLAUDIUS: Give me some light: away!
ALL: Lights, lights, lights!

Exeunt all but HAMLET and HORATIO

The play is interrupted by the King's exclamation, but it's up to each director and actor to decide what makes him rise, ask for light and leave. Is it his conscience playing a trick on him despite Hamlet's obvious goading? The light is for the darkness in his soul. Certainly, he would be surprised that Hamlet knew such specific details as the ear poison (a distinctive way to administer poison, surely). Or he might be outraged at the inferred accusation in open Court and want to remove himself from Hamlet's scandalous spectacle. The interpretation may differ from adaptation to adaptation, as we'll see in the coming weeks.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Classics Illustrated

The original
The bottom of page 15 shows how the comic restructured the sequence leading up to the play:First, Hamlet thinks up his Mouse-Trap plan. The very next panel shows Hamlet seeking out Horatio to ask for his help. It's all very brisk, and not surprisingly for the pacey comic, omits the instructions to the Players. In a way, we have the off-stage scene, often inferred in performances, in which Hamlet first reveals his plans to Horatio. As often played, Hamlet seems to be reminding Horatio of the plan, with the only new information being what role Horatio will play in it. The artist has drawn them out of the way (Elsinore is in the background), creating a more conspiratorial feel, though the harsh, bright white does work against this. The bottom panel goes back one scene to reveal, in a caption, that Rosencrantz & Guildenstern have been unsuccessful, though it seems like they didn't work very hard at it because we haven't seen them AT ALL since they bowed their heads in front of the King and said they'd give it the old Wittenberg try. Though the caption back tracks, the image pushes us forward to the play, with the audience already in their seats (or sitting on the floor, or standing). Hamlet is most definitely NOT in Ophelia's lap, lounging on the ground with Horatio, neither particular well placed to catch Claudius' expression. Polonius and R&G are left standing, servile.

The Berkley version
Tom Mandrake's adaptation also omits the instructions to the Players, but does set the Hamlet-Horatio scene backstage, with the players getting ready. In a reversal of the expected staging, Hamlet finds Horatio there, rather than the opposite. So it's not possible to imagine a time skip that would have allowed Scene ii to have occurred between panels. It's fairly understandable for both comics adaptations to do away with the sequence, and not just for space reasons. Comics cannot do sound or movement in traditional terms, which would make directions as to voice and gesture difficult to gauge later when the play begins. Concentrating on Horatio then:
Mandrake has cut into the compliments section of the speech, but retains the longer text of Horatio's mission. He also sets the scene in among the Players, and keeps it confidential through the tried and true method of a dotted line around the speech bubble (as well as slightly smaller lettering). As the Royal party appears, they are in shadow, a darkness Hamlet means to dispel with his play, one that ends when Claudius will shout for light.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Tennant (2009)

One of the things David Tennant is very good at as Hamlet is making his lines sound fresh and unrehearsed. Somehow, when his Hamlet speaks, it's like neither he nor you have ever heard the words before. Where other Hamlets seem to give the Players instructions with a prepared speech (or at least holding a discourse he's had before, say with his school chums), Tennant's is entirely motivated by his plans against the King. He hesitates, searches for words, and is less "on text" than in any other scene, and in a sense, he must be at his most naturalistic in this speech about "holding a mirror up to nature". While asking actors to play true, he (Tennant/Hamlet) must be at his most human. And it's a reactive performance too. His notes to the Players are motivated by their actions. One mouths, one saws, and when a clown seems to be fooling around, Hamlet entreats the First Player to keep him under control - it's a confidential aside, not a public accusation. In this directorial request, Hamlet's obsession with proving Claudius' guilt shows through. Outrage and impatience at the idea that his trap might not work because of some "villainous" distraction. And Hamlet is funny too. He tells seasoned professionals how to do their jobs - though they keep silent respect, it shows that they're being condescended to - and then realizes what he's doing and apologizes with his "Be not too tame neither." Not a further command, but a concession that though he's going a little crazy with anxiety just before the show, he does trust their judgment.

We've seen how there's much mirroring in the play as written, but Gregory Doran's direction amplifies this element. On stage, there was a mirrored wall, and on film, there's a mirrored floor, to remind you of the theme. When Hamlet here talks about holding a mirror up to nature, he does so with a mirror in hand, shining reflected light on each Player in the company. (On stage, he aimed the mirror at the audience instead.) It's a strong, even poignant punctuation to the scene, giving each Player their little moment, either smiling, ignoring him, or in the case of the Player King, wincing. That last reaction foreshadows Claudius' guilt being exposed by the human mirrors that are the Players. Doran's other trope is hyper-surveillance, and it shows up at the very top of the scene when Hamlet films one of the players with a hand-held film camera. Since this is the point in the play where Hamlet takes control, it makes sense for him to symbolically take ownership of the thing that has been plaguing him, the ever watchful eyes of the Court. It's the film within a film that mirrors the play within a play concept.
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are still trying to ingratiate themselves to Hamlet, to some hilarity. They show up with a punchy "ta-tannn!" and some champagne - party boys to the last - and immediately get dismissed as common servants (an irony when you remember their introduction). Hamlet's complete disinterest in them in a highlight. They leave to "hasten" the Players, Hamlet sits on the throne, his stepfather's seat. Trying to imagine Claudius' point of view? A reminder of the broken Danish succession? More mirrors? Horatio rushes in, late, fixing his tuxedo and gets the usual sincere compliments, but hyperactive Hamlet is quick to change the subject (minor cuts help him get to the point). The way Horatio plays it, he wasn't aware of the Mouse-Trap plan before this moment. Again, the 2009 Hamlet moves away from rehearsed formal speech (Hamlet telling Horatio what he knows for the audience's benefit) to a more naturalistic place (Hamlet delivers new information to his friend). Tennant's energy carries through to the next part of the scene as the trumpets sound and it's almost panic that sets him into action.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Fodor (2007)

Fodor actually weaves three sections of the scene together into a whole through the use of voice-over. The play has been turned into a film (one that must have been made very quickly, since we only just met the players), the projection of which is intercut with the faces of the people watching it (essentially, conspirators on both sides). None of the dialog is spoken during the film, but rather heard over the film (which is itself, if not silent, at least muted). We'll speak to that strangeness when we get to that part of the text, but for this section, it's simple enough. The only lines retained are an abbreviated version of Hamlet giving Horatio her mission, and her accepting. The voice-over acts as a memory from just before the projection as the two of them share secret, confident smiles, like the one above.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Hamlet 2000

Because Hamlet presents a film, not a play, the scene is drastically reduced. We now pick it up from somewhere in the middle of Hamlet's talk with Horatio, as the two welcome and occasionally shake hands with guests at the theater's door. The staging is comical even if the text is not, as the Prince is continually interrupted by passers-by (including Rosencrantz & Guildenstern). It's a most public arena in which to give Horatio a secret mission. As patrons come in to humor the Prince by seeing his highly experimental short films, viewers who know the play well may be reminded of Hamlet's speech about false shows of love, the "absurd pomp", that is usually part of this scene. Sadly, nothing remains of it but the idea. Instead, we start at "Give me that man...". Hamlet still compliments Horatio, but he does not feel the need to compare it to common fawning. The nature of their relationship survives the cut, but is given in brief.

When Hamlet says he must be idle, he puts on wacky yellow-tinted glasses, an outward sense of his madness. There's an awkward moment (or two!) when Ophelia walks in and the modern recontextualizing of the play creates a big change there. In period staging, it's assumed Ophelia must come to the play, along with the rest of the Court. Her father is there, so she is there. She lives within Elsinore's walls, is part of the community. Here, it's a movie being shown in a private theater, but the characters are not really organized into a Court, and move around New York, often outside the walls of the Elsinore building. In other words, she CHOSE to come. It's not to say the text's Ophelia didn't make a choice, but it's assumed she didn't. Ophelia's choice - if there is one - opens another avenue of analysis. Does she believe she can still move Hamlet to sanity? Does she wish to show her independence? (Ophelia tries to give as good as she gets during the play.) Is she simply a fan of theater/film? (This might be a common interest that brought them together in the first place.) Or is it a false choice and she is still being coerced by her father? Giving Ophelia an option and somehow showing it may be a worthy and fruitful exercise.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Kline '90

The scene is prefaced by a "Part II" title card, no doubt where Kline's stage play broke for intermission, and it's notable that Part II is when Hamlet actually starts to act in response to his father's murder. Not coincidentally, it's when people start to die. As the scene starts, candles and chairs a brought in to support what looks to be an intimate performance. On stage, that's what we'd always get, a few characters sitting around a small stage ON stage, though the play's audience may act as the play-within-a-play's audience as well. A filmed stage presentation omits this meta-audience and restores the image of small affair. Big film productions allow the Mouse-Trap to act as a scandalous reveal of Claudius' guilt (or at least Hamlet's attempt to publicly flush out the King's culpability), but the realities of the theater rarely allow for this take.

Hamlet's directions are corrective ones, as he catches the Player sawing the air with his hands, for example. And as in the BBC version, the directions to the clowns are omitted. Is this common practice for Hamlets who are more on edge than others? The more clownish and mad Hamlet is, the less appropriate his warnings to the clown players become? It does rob the play of one of its ironies. While giving direction, the Prince sits on the stage, and so this is another performance, one in which the Players become the audience. It's a nice reflection of the royal audience that will be translated into the Players once the play begins. Hamlet directs both, and performs in both, and is audience to both. If the world's a stage, Hamlet is the one who plays all the parts, both on and off stage. He's even the usher, completing the mirror image of audience/Players by moving the "thrones" in the audience center to the stage, turning the Claudius and Gertrude's seats into the Player King and Queen's.

The portrayal of the Hamlet/Horatio relationship follows the usual conventions. Hamlet is sincere and calmer than normal, and Horatio is touched by his show of affection. In speaking to Horatio, Hamlet finds a stable rock to perch on, up and above his madness. The performance here highlighted one line I've usually glossed over, and that's "we will both our judgments join". Not only is Horatio considered an equal despite his lower birth, one whose opinion is equivalent to a Prince's, but it's also Hamlet's attempt at corroborating the information he got from the Ghost. Hamlet doesn't trust his father's spirit, but more importantly, he doesn't trust himself. If he's going mad, the accusations leveled at Claudius may be a product of his diseased mind, even if the Ghost is real. He trusts Horatio to confirm (as we, the audience, must) that he isn't imagining it. Horatio acts as the moral compass of the play, but also as a psychological gauge for Hamlet.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Zeffirelli '90

In Zeffirelli's adaptation, the scene has been slashed to shreds. From "the play's the thing", we cut directly to the Player Queen putting on his/her wig, pipe music blaring, and Hamlet running through the backstage area with made-up lines like "'Tis almost time". He's checking scripts, adjusting crowns, giving silent approval, but not giving any kind of verbal instructions. Even his talk with Horatio is brief and to the point, explaining briefly his plan, not giving his friend a single compliment or task, and then stating he must be idle and get you a place. No wonder Horatio looks so sombre.

In cases such as these, the question to ask is what effect these cuts have on our understand of the play. Obviously it is impoverished by the lack of relationship between these characters and Hamlet, and by the innate ironies of the scene. The story isn't changed, though from Horatio's expression, he might be thinking Hamlet's indeed gone mad and has about as much patience for his antics as everyone else. And would he have more when he's apparently kept out of the loop like this? Cutting out Horatio's part would make Hamlet more alone, but he's there just enough for that not to be the case. And yet, Horatio's not present enough to really make an impact in the prince's life. Like the Players who have suffered the most cuts, Horatio is merely an accessory to Hamlet's plans, advancing the plot but not the relationship.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - BBC '80

As we come into the scene, Hamlet is doing the make-up for the (cross-dressing) Queen. In addition to the allusion to the "painted queen" of the text, there's also an irony here. Hamlet has just rejected Ophelia in the previous scene, in effect unmaking her as potential queen. The First Player comes in to wash the hands of the manic prince. Whether an act or real - and Jacobi's Hamlet is madder than most - the performance makes use of that manic state in Hamlet's directions to the players. Don't saw the air with your hand, but don't be too tame neither - Hamlet moves between extremes according to his own mercurial nature. As in Branagh's staging, it's the actor playing the murderer who gets the direction, as the First Player made too good an impression in his first scene. Even if the comments aren't directed at him, he's still a little testy about this royal amateur's interference with his troupe's work. While other actors stand and listen, he dares sit next to Hamlet, an equal in the theatrical arena. He even mocks the prince, and when Hamlet realizes he's being condescended to, he laughs with the First Player. This is not a subservient character, imbued as he is with the essence of the King he will soon play. The role given to the First Player is such that he provides a noble alternative to the corrupt Claudius, even if his blood is not technically royal.

One of the rare cuts in this adaptation occurs here: Hamlet no longer advises the clowns. Is there an effect produced by losing this part of the speech? Not really, though it strikes me that a further irony is lost. In this scene, Hamlet normally tells the clowns not to distract the audience from the play, and yet, his own antics during the play do exactly that.

As Polonius walks in, Hamlet grows even more agitated and the staging makes his commands even more absurd. He's just talked at length with the players, and he's only a couple feet from them, and yet he asks a third party to hasten them. Polonius walks off, leaving Rosencrantz & Guildenstern to do it. No one's taking Hamlet very seriously in this scene, are they? Even Horatio, sitting in another corner of the room, visibly finished reading a paragraph before truly acknowledging the prince.
Even after he closes the book, it takes a while before he becomes attentive and realizes Hamlet's sincerity. Hamlet calms down from his madness when speaking to his friend, and that's Horatio's role as discussed in these very lines - a stabilizing influence. Horatio is the only uncorrupted link to Hamlet's past, and being with him is like a return to a former, saner Hamlet. So it is from a non-idle moment that Hamlet must return to idleness. He puts on a cape and skull mask and prepares for his next performance.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Olivier '48

As the camera moves around the stage, from the props, to the troupe, wider, then back to the the props, the point of view also changes from Hamlet's to third person when he walks into frame. It's part of the film's camera strategy, flitting from POV to POV, apparently free to roam, drop and fly. The Ghost's POV, perhaps, able to enter (and even possess?) other characters. In this version, Hamlet is actively correcting the Player's performance, a true director. For example, the Player saw the air with his hands before Hamlet gives him a direction not to. The Players have a variety of reactions to Hamlet. Some stand afeared, others relax and read their scripts, not really distracted by the princely director. Horatio is also present, and much of the speech might be directed to him, like his musings about the state of theater, replacing the conversation with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern in the text, but not this film. There's a poignant moment when Hamlet puts a wig on a boy, and we're instantly reminded of Ophelia's hair. A look of regret fleetingly crosses Hamlet's face, an awkward silence results. When Polonius enters, the Players grab every available prop and run backstage.
Hamlet lingers center stage, this is his big moment. Others will play the roles, but he wrote it. That's him on stage. And in crafting that meaning to the moment, the loss is Horatio's. He doesn't get the praise he deserves in the text, nor even the task of watching Claudius like a hawk. One might wonder why he's even included as Hamlet's lieutenant in this scene.

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Branagh '96

The front part of this scene is another of Branagh's oners, taking us around the upper balcony and into a small room that serves as the Players' dressing room. In so doing, we get to see the curtains and theatrical machinae, but also Hamlet at his sanest. We're behind the scenes for BOTH plays, in a sense. The Players are themselves, not yet made-up as their characters, and Hamlet is too, not yet "idle" as he is before the Court. The Players would do well to listen to his acting tips, because his method HAS convinced all of Elsinore that he is indeed mad. For the most part, the speech is spoken not to the First Player but to the Second (who plays the murderer). It works, especially after the reverence given Charlton Heston's character during "Aeneas' tale to Dido". Hamlet also singles out the clown, a boy, and has fun with him. Might we here see a mirror of Hamlet's own childhood relationships? As we discover later in the play, he was raised more by the Court jester Yorick than gone-to-wars Hamlet Sr. His affection for the clown here, both kissing and mock strangling him (read what ironies you will) may be typical of the father-son relationship between Hamlet and Yorick. Of course, as soon as Polonius walks in, Hamlet reverts to a manic disposition, sending Rosencrantz & Guildenstern on a useless errand (they do not obey him).

Branagh continues to upkeep Horatio's presence by inserting him in an invented moment before this scene, in which he stands outside reading the newspaper and news of Fortinbras' advance on Poland (dissolves into shots of Fortinbras himself also help to remind us he is in this play), and then in the scene proper, having brought Hamlet his coat in preparation for the play. Having just escaped R&G, Hamlet goes into his study where he makes a declaration of his love and friendship to Horatio. And the latter could not look more awkward, even in the staging of it.
As someone delivers a script to Hamlet, the prince uses it to underscore his point about insincere fawning to contrast his own true admiration of Horatio. It's also another indication that regardless of class, Hamlet does not view Horatio as a servant or anything less than an equal.

III.ii. Instructing the Players

Act 3 Scene 2 is again too long for a single set of entries, so we will be dividing it in four parts. The first, Instructing the Players, is of great interest because it presents Shakespeare's idea of what acting and theater should be. In Hamlet's instructions, we'll discover what going to see one of his plays in the late 16th and early 17th centuries would have looked, sounded and felt like. Since he advises them about the play within the play, I've thought it appropriate to also include in this section Hamlet's instructions to Polonius, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, and Horatio, players - or rather, "players" - all. Before heading into cinematic waters, let's look at the text. As usual, Shakespeare is in italics:

SCENE II. A hall in the castle.
Enter HAMLET and Players

HAMLET: Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings, who for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise: I would have such a fellow whipped for o'erdoing Termagant; it out-herods Herod: pray you, avoid it.
FIRST PLAYER: I warrant your honour.

Shakespeare's first acting tip entreats the actors not to play "too big". For people who don't know or care about Shakespeare, his plays are synonymous with the very bombast he warns against here. Plainly, Shakespeare didn't like "shouty" acting, or big, unnatural gestures. It is part of theater's natural paradox that one must play to the rear of the audience without undercutting the story's intimate moments. And so:

HAMLET: Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure. Now this overdone, or come tardy off, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure of the which one must in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly, not to speak it profanely, that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.

Here he tells us that the purpose of theater is to represent humanity, something that is certainly true of his writing, whereas the kind of presentational, bigger-than-life, winking-at-the-audience style he advises against takes us away from a true representation. Bad actors are human beings who, ironically, cannot portray human beings believably. It would seem that Shakespeare would have been happy with the idea of his plays being turned into films, where the actor can actually play quiet moments QUIETLY, in close-up. In a way, Shakespeare wants to do away with the artifice of theater, which is distracting. Note also how much of Hamlet's personal idiom is religious (Herod, Christians), relevant to an easy to support Puritan vs. Hedonists reading of the play.

FIRST PLAYER: I hope we have reformed that indifferently with us, sir.
HAMLET: O, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that's villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. Go, make you ready.

Something I know all too well from 25 years of improv: The player's anxiety about silence. When a crowd is silent, the player starts to fear he is not entertaining enough. Laughs are vocal reactions and instant gratification for the player, one he might be tempted to indulge, play into, steering the attention away from the point the play is making, or even other actors. It takes a more mature player to realize silence can represent a gamut of reactions, most more relevant to the play than laughter - philosophical interest, fascination, delight, sadness... these may manifest relatively silently. What you don't want to hear are scraping chairs, people talking or going to the bathroom. Here, Shakespeare warns the players about clowning and giving in to that instinct to panic and throw in some laughs.

Exeunt Players
Enter POLONIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

How now, my lord! I will the king hear this piece of work?

LORD POLONIUS: And the queen too, and that presently.
HAMLET: Bid the players make haste.

Exit POLONIUS

Will you two help to hasten them?

ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN: We will, my lord.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

After talking to the actual players, Hamlet moves the bit players of his greater play (the Court) around, a precursor to how he is about to manipulate them with his play and in its aftermath. Hamlet is the play's director as well as the play within a play's. R&G's errand seems particularly useless, just a way to get them out of the room so he can talk more privately with Horatio.

HAMLET: What ho! Horatio!

Enter HORATIO

HORATIO: Here, sweet lord, at your service.
HAMLET: Horatio, thou art e'en as just a man
As e'er my conversation coped withal.
HORATIO: O, my dear lord,--
HAMLET: Nay, do not think I flatter;
For what advancement may I hope from thee
That no revenue hast but thy good spirits,
To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flatter'd?
No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp,
And crook the pregnant hinges of the knee
Where thrift may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?
Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice
And could of men distinguish, her election
Hath seal'd thee for herself; for thou hast been
As one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,
A man that fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks: and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commingled,
That they are not a pipe for fortune's finger
To sound what stop she please. Give me that man
That is not passion's slave, and I will wear him
In my heart's core, ay, in my heart of heart,
As I do thee.--Something too much of this.--

This is our best description of Horatio's relationship to Hamlet, one that gives munitions to the theory that Horatio is a fragment of Hamlet's personality, the part of himself that "is not passion's slave". In that interpretation, it makes sense that Horatio is a separate character, one divorced from the passionate, "idle" Hamlet. As written, Horatio is Hamlet's stabilizing influence, the one character Hamlet doesn't act mad around (not since the Ghost showed up and sundered Hamlet's mind). If the Ghost is the devil on Hamlet's shoulder, Horatio is its angelic counterpart, but not a conscience per se. Rather, his presence brings calm and focus to Hamlet's mission. Compare to the turmoil the Ghost brings with it from Hell. We must also note here the image of the pipe, which will return in the aftermath of the Mouse-Trap. There, the pipe is Hamlet, difficult to play upon. Here, the pipe is Not-Horatio, on whom Fortune may not play. In neither case can these characters be easily played on, but for different reasons. It is nevertheless a link between them, something that may point to their being the same person. The fact that Horatio doesn't seem to have a destiny of his own and is invisible to Fortune makes him a kind of non-entity. A projection by Hamlet?

There is a play to-night before the king;
One scene of it comes near the circumstance
Which I have told thee of my father's death:

It seems that Horatio was filled in on the details off-stage. He is Hamlet's only full confidante.

I prithee, when thou seest that act afoot,
Even with the very comment of thy soul
Observe mine uncle: if his occulted guilt
Do not itself unkennel in one speech,
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan's stithy. Give him heedful note;

Though Hamlet starts the scene as a pious Christian, he turns to paganism here, speaking in Horatio's own idiom. Is there an implicit analysis of the two in this scene? Hamlet, the Christian (even Puritanical) man is passion's slave, while Horatio, the "ancient Roman", is not. History is rather ambivalent on the subject (especially at the time of writing). Is it a play on words? The "passion" of the Christ linked to that of Hamlet and his impending sacrifice by tragedy's end? Greco-Roman myth celebrates victories far more than Christ-like "defeats". Perhaps there is a thesis there if someone were willing to develop it. Certainly, Hamlet is a Christ figure - he has been given a difficult and potentially lethal task by his other-worldly father and is even (arguably, illogically) in his 30s. But it's a distorted image of the Christ, with a hellish father who asks him to commit murder. He only friend, a self-professed Pagan who will act as his evangelist.

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,
And after we will both our judgments join
In censure of his seeming.
HORATIO: Well, my lord:
If he steal aught the whilst this play is playing,
And 'scape detecting, I will pay the theft.
HAMLET: They are coming to the play; I must be idle:
Get you a place.

Definitely in the "not mad" column: The fact that Hamlet says he must now become mad as the Court enters. As such, he sends his "stability" away while he plays the fool.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - French Rock Opera

On the album, the song "Ophélie! Oh, folie!" comes rather early, and admittedly, it refers to the "kissing carrion" line during Hamlet and Polonius' encounter. However, the song also seems to reference the breeding of sinners, and in its title and ending, Ophelia's impending madness. I have therefore chosen to discuss it here, where all those ideas intersect. Here's the song, followed by the original text in French, and a rough translation.

Ophélie! Oh, folie!
Le soleil, sans vergogne
Fait d’une peau vermeille
Une infecte charogne
Fuit devant le soleil
Ophélie, Ophélie, Ophélie
Puis le vent, le soleil
Pourrir est sa besogne
Fuit devant le soleil
Il te fera charogne
Ophélie, Ophélie, Ophélie

Ophelia! Oh Madness!
The sun, without shame
Turns a vermilion skin
Into a loathsome carrion
Flee before the sun
Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia
Then the wind, the sun
Rot is its work
Flee before the sun
It will make you carrion
Ophelia, Ophelia, Ophelia

What the translation cannot reproduce, of course, is how "Ophélie" and "Oh Folie" sound alike, a trait or fate built into the character in the French version. In English, one might equate her name with "Oh Feel-ia" and even if Shakespeare wasn't making a point with the name, its sonority might have a subliminal impact on the audience. Word play is a major part of the Bard's style, so we can't completely dismiss it.

The song, played as an almost dirge-like lamentation for the character, begins with the image of women as carrion, and their children maggots, fathered by the sun, a common symbol for the male principle. He tells her to run away from the sun (in English, we might be tempted to play on sun/son, but no such relationship exists in French), which ties it to the Nunnery Scene in that way. The second movement of the song uses an angelic choir where the title is used to confuse the two terms ("Ophélie" and "Oh folie") together, making them undifferentiated. As the tempo accelerates, we can feel Ophelia's mind spinning and careening as she dives into madness. Her whole story is here. On the album, we won't hear of her again until her death.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - Classics Illustrated

The originalWhile this adaptation sometimes feels like a "boys' adventure", it does surprise the informed reader with a full page devoted to what is essentially a relationship scene. Though cut for space, all the emotional beats are there, even Ophelia's oft-cut speech (in brief). Hamlet doesn't get violent, or even manic, and simply leaves a dejected Ophelia, almost mid-sentence. When she prays for his sanity to be restored, it is in reaction to what, in this context, seems a non sequitur. Devoid of the emotional context actors (or a stronger cartoonist) gives the scene, Ophelia can only conclude Hamlet is spouting nonsense, and never understands those words to be about her. She feels the sting of his telling her he never loved her (not that he ever says this in this cut version, he merely tells her she should not have BELIEVED him - a very different thing - he loved her, but she should not have reciprocated seeing as how things turned out), but nothing more. Claudius, behind the arras, may well conclude that love is not the cause of madness here because Hamlet shows none. There is hardly any passion in the character.

The Berkley version
Tom Mandrake's adaptation is more sensitive. He allows Ophelia's reaction to play in close-up. Hamlet isn't violent, but he does tower over her, his hands placed in vaguely menacing places. It seems an awkward drawing (middle panel, above), but I believe it is Mandrake's native expressionism that distorts the figures for conscious effect. Ophelia's voice is almost swallowed up, her words get smaller as her spirit is smothered. The staging that sets this adaptation apart is that she runs off during Hamlet's curse. He is left behind shouting as she quickly goes - one might assume - to that nunnery. As she exits, a tapestry is revealed.
Mandrake plays the arras as a progressive reveal. First, Hamlet mentions Ophelia's father. Then, we see the arras they said they were going to hide behind. In a third panel, they are in shadow. Claudius seems to uncover the fourth panel himself and shed light on the spies and his plans. (A final panel on the next page returns the figures to shadow as we transition to the next scene, and restores the scene's final scene.)

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - A Midwinter's Dream

Because A Midwinter's Dream is all about putting on a performance of Hamlet on Christmas, there is no better day to post this entry. In the film, the play passes by very quickly, with clips from the most famous scenes, but they still yield some interesting, and often amusing, staging ideas. In this case, Ophelia follows "there my lord" with a throwing of the gifts and a powerful slap across the face! There's an in-film, off-stage motivation for this, of course. Nina (Ophelia) and Joe (Hamlet) had been exhibiting feelings for one another, and when Joe left to do a big movie in America on the night of the premiere, she felt betrayed. He comes back to do the play, but the betrayal still stands between them. Nina "uses" it, as they say, and makes her feelings, Ophelia's. While there are some Ophelias, like Zeffirelli's, that play it cross more than sad, no other achieved this kind of passionate fury. I'd love to see if such a portrayal could be sustained in the full context of a production.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - Slings & Arrows

The Nunnery Scene is not in the broadcast Slings & Arrows, but can be found as a deleted scene on the DVD. While the group is rehearsing outside, they coax Jack Crew into using the text instead of his usual paraphrasing - a natural cut because it revealed too early that Jack knew the words and could do them, undercutting the later scene where his director forces him to do "To be or not to be" with the text. His paraphrasing IS pretty ridiculous at times. There is no reason not to use Shakespeare's original on lines like "I loved you, once", for example, since it already sounds modern. The one paraphrase that was interesting to me was the line about the paradox, translated as "Beauty will turn a virgin into a slut before honor will turn a slut into a virgin". This blunt interpretation paints Hamlet as someone who believes there's no coming back from sin. An honorable slut cannot recapture her virginity. Some things cannot be undone. Is he simultaneously talking about the revenge he must take? Is this part of his delay? Truly, murder cannot be undone.

When he switches to the Shakespearean original, Jack proves he can not only do it, but do it well. And his choices are interesting too. He puts a venomous emphasis on the word "mother", for example, highlighting the fact that she's more germane to the discussion than Ophelia is. He puts a manic spin on his ambitions, acts like a mischievous creature, makes Ophelia laugh... How would this have played in context? Making Hamlet impish in this moment rather than cruel wouldn't quite have worked, not without excising Ophelia's implorations to Heaven and soliloquy. It might work within the framework of a more mercurial performance, where he turns to cruelty suddenly, or a production that, through cuts and inferences, made Ophelia more of a knowing ally to Hamlet. In any case, we don't find out because the sprinklers start and Jack switches to King Lear's storm speech. While it does bring up the larger question of the way madness is portrayed in Shakespeare, and draws a connection between the two characters and how, in each play, the protagonist's state of mind is projected onto the environment, it does abort a possible staging for the Nunnery Scene.

Because S&A takes inspiration from the plays in its greater story, it is a nice touch here that the festival administrator, plotting against the production's success, is, Polonius-like, watching the scene from his car.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - The Banquet

China's Hamlet adaptation is too different from the original text to enjoy a scene-by-scene analysis (though I'm tempted to include the snow-tunneling ninjas sometime), but it does feature a few noteworthy staging ideas. In its equivalent of the Nunnery Scene, for example, the fight turns to passionate love-making. Using this ideas on a more traditional adaptation could have various effects on the play, depending on the director's intent. If the colloquial meaning of nunnery is retained, Hamlet has just called Ophelia a whore and then physically turns her into one. This would be especially disturbing if it were their first time. The tenderness Ophelia shows Hamlet in The Banquet does not mean that the prince has renewed their romance, only that she believes he might. Giving the (former) lovers a night of passion need not keep Ophelia from breaking down later. In fact, it can be used to destabilize her further by giving her highs followed by extreme lows (the humiliation of the Mouse-Trap, her lover killing her father). And this has got to be confusing for Hamlet as well, giving in to what he has renounced, and perhaps doing it out of rage more than love. More guilt to pile onto his psyche.