Hyperion to a Satyr

III.ii. Instructing the Players - Hamlet 2000

2012-01-27T17:03:00.001-04:00

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

2012-01-24T11:38:00.003-04:00

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

2012-01-18T13:59:00.001-04:00

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

2012-01-17T10:41:00.001-04:00

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

2012-01-14T19:45:00.001-04:00

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

2012-01-12T10:59:00.001-04:00

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

2012-01-04T13:32:00.001-04:00

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

2011-12-30T09:54:00.001-04:00

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

2011-12-28T08:34:00.001-04:00

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

2011-12-25T10:57:00.001-04:00

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

2011-12-25T10:44:00.000-04:00

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

2011-12-20T10:58:00.001-04:00

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.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - Tennant (2009)

2011-12-19T14:12:00.002-04:00

The 2009 adaptation also uses a two-way mirror to hide (or rather, frequently cut to) the spies. Ophelia is steady, at first, while Hamlet is visibly upset and keeps his distance from her. Confronting this part of his life is painful, and seeing him like this, Ophelia quickly starts to break down too. There's a nice hesitation from her on "redeliver", as if looking for the word. She draws attention to that choice. She's not "giving back", she's "redelivering". What, if any, and aside from being more "poetic", are the meanings behind that word? One might infer here a more chaste relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia, a romance through correspondence more than intimate contact. Gifts were "delivered" and must now be "redelivered". Not that this adaptation means to paint the Hamlet-Ophelia relationship that way. Perhaps Ophelia is playing down their intimacy for her watching father.

The way Hamlet tries to keep her at a distance, batting and waving her approaches, also gives a slightly different meaning to "I never gave you ought". It seems clearer that he means he's not the same person who gave her those gifts. By accepting his father's mission, he erased all other things from his mind (or tried to, that's the central conflict of the play). He's already renounced Ophelia and love, but here they both are again, and he must reassert his "new self" and push away any and all distractions. New Hamlet cannot be involved with Ophelia and even that past is erased. Compare to how the memory of his father has likewise been excised from the Court's memories. What Gertrude has done to Hamlet Sr., Hamlet Jr. is doing to Ophelia. She's not dead, but of course, the Ghost is a "living" character too. So even when he grabs her, he seems to push her away too, like he's defending himself from her touch and all the earthly concerns it represents. This push and pull is very much symbolic of Hamlet's attitude throughout the play. His goal goes against his values, and he hates the women he loves. "You should not have believed me" is spoken with hands on his head. The paradoxes of the play are making him crack.

While the spies behind the mirror are quiet, the hyper-surveillance element in this adaptation does make a noise as our point of view shifts to that of the security camera zooming in. That's when he realizes it's a set-up and gets angry at Ophelia, shouts at the air to make sure he's heard/recorded, etc. Ophelia is not thrown to the ground, she gets down on her knees to pray. Hamlet's violence is only verbal, though he does rip up the love letters as if they were "broken wedding vows", while she gestures ineffectually to try and save them. When he accuses women of nicknaming God's creatures, he holds up her Bible (which she was reading to color her loneliness). Given how quick she falls to praying, it makes sense this would be her book, but what does Hamlet's line mean? I've struggled with it. According to the Old Testament, Adam was given the task of naming all living things. Is Hamlet really condemning women for subverting God's wishes and in effect RE-naming the animals? It's an image of falsification (like the attack on cosmetics or love/sex games), and I now notice that it's something we get back to in Ophelia's madness scenes where different flowers are given different names and meanings (Gertrude does it too when talking about the suicide). If Shakespeare wasn't such a feminist in other plays, it would be easy to see a vicious misogynistic streak in this one. Women in Hamlet's world are not allowed to define or create their own world, and the naming of creatures and plants has a thematic relationship with Gertrude naming Claudius as her husband. Hamlet's revolt is against his world being shaken up by a woman.
After he leaves, Ophelia sobs through her entire speech and drops to the mirrored floor. As in other mirror-based stagings (like Branagh's), the things she sees and that haunts her is herself, that ugly thing she has become by participating in her father's schemes. In effect, she agrees with Hamlet's evaluation of himself as a monster created by women, and feels responsible for that transformation. However, he also told her not to believe a word he says. Was this a coded message she somehow missed? Part of the tragedy of these characters is that they do not understand one another. Ophelia should know Hamlet well enough to see through his act, read those coded warnings and heed his advice to leave Elsinore. She doesn't. This may be a problem with the Polonius family in general. Polonius certainly doesn't understand why Hamlet does what he does, and Laertes will allow himself to be convinced to work against Hamlet by the play's villain, and need to repent in his last moment.

Polonius, as usual uncomfortable with emotion, comes out of hiding and hands his daughter a handkerchief, and in embarrassment, stresses that he heard it all. That "all" seems to represent all manner of unpalatable things which he doesn't want to rehash, examine or understand. The structure of the play only now has Polonius board Hamlet as the prince runs back and Ophelia scurries away. It makes Polonius even thicker than normal, pursuing a line of inquiry Claudius has just rejected.

The Nunnery Scene - Fodor (2007)

2011-12-13T10:39:00.001-04:00

The scene comes on the heels of the conspirators discussing their plans to spy on Hamlet while Ophelia boards him, even as they watch him practice fencing from behind a two-way mirror. Hamlet reclines on the floor, and they send Ophelia to him. She kisses him to wake him, and never really seems hurt through the scene. This is an Ophelia that's controlled by her sister (Polonia) through drugs, and one that might well be just as manipulative as her sister. In no way does she appear to be as vulnerable as other Ophelias are, but her confidence may be bolstered by drug use. In any case, the accidental image created by her hair connecting her mind with Hamlet's (above) is merely illusion. There is no emotional understanding between them.
The two-way mirror device is well-used, allowing both Hamlet and Ophelia to look straight at Claudius and Polonia. The effect is different depending on the speaker. Hamlet's words are ironic because he doesn't know (at least initially) who he's really speaking to, while Ophelia can give meaningful looks to her co-conspirators. The image of that free-floating mirror creates an ironic wedding portrait. But while Ophelia remains rather cold, it's Polonia who reacts the most, giving weight to Hamlet's words. While Claudius shakes his head in disbelief, Polonia seems to feel the stings Ophelia does not. This is a new side to her character. Normally, she's basically psychotic, but do we glimpse here empathy for her sister? Or is she as selfish as ever and seeing the stepfather in the son? There's an obvious relationship between Claudius and Polonia in this film, but does he love her? And does she even care seeing as she's manipulating him anyway? It's an effect created by the mirror and the transgendering that we have two couple on each side of the glass. At least some of her reactions come down to embarrassment at being proven wrong about Hamlet's love-induced madness. Certainly, Claudius reacts quite strongly at having his time wasted by this exercise. Is that loss of power over him what she's really reacting to?

As the sound design becomes more and more bizarre - strange, anxious birds, and finally funereal bells - Hamlet seems to realize they might be watched. Having grown up in this house, he probably knows it's a two-way mirror. Ophelia doesn't answer him when he asks where her sister is, either because it would be absurd (the house is everyone's "home") or as a continuation of her passive, numb attitude. He leaves and she's left standing there, with no real reaction, and certainly no speech. On the other side of the mirror, Claudius also leaves, disagreeing with Polonia's take though not resolving to send Hamlet to England. We're left with two sisters, left by their lovers, staring at each other.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - Hamlet 2000

2011-12-12T11:47:00.001-04:00

In this version, Ophelia is wired by her father and heads for Hamlet's apartment. The transition to that scene is a wall of water (a fountain in Elsinore), water being Ophelia's totem element. She's brought Hamlet a somewhat psychedelic box filled to the brim with letters and other mementos (like a rubber ducky - again an image of water). The whole scene feels particularly modern and, in a sense, mundane. We recognize the (ex) boyfriend-girlfriend dynamic here, playing out an argument as old as time. She's reproachful of his attitude, and he plays the cold bastard with her. Cutting the lines about the paradox makes the dialog more of this time as well. Hamlet's more ambiguous explanation of "are you honest/fair?" is the simpler "I did love you, once", reducing, perhaps, the emotional equation to there being no beauty without honesty. Alternatively, he may be telling Ophelia he loved only her falsified image, and that he does not love the person she actually is under the surface.

The scene really hinges on the line "I loved you not", after which Ophelia for the first time seems to feel emotion (her usual attitude could be described as "numb", or at least, "guarded"). After these wounding words, we cut to a shot of a jet, overhead, an image of something departing, or just a way to underscore a silent beat? And yet, Hamlet isn't without kindness. He seems comforting as he moves to her and rubs her shoulders, and his speech sounds like someone saying "it's for the best" and justifying why the two of them shouldn't marry lest they revisit the sins of their parents on their partners and children. It's one of the play's themes, isn't it? Hamlet's struggle is that having found his parents lacking, he fights not to become like them. One might even find enough evidence here to show that Claudius is Hamlet's biological father, as the latter resists the former's romantic and murderous aspirations. At least this Hamlet tries to leave Ophelia with some measure of kindness. Overwhelmed by emotion, she kisses him out of desperation, perhaps only now understanding that it's over between them. When he tells us to "believe none of us", it may be a warning to keep her safe from the plots that are about to unfold - his madness, yes, but also the courtly schemes, her father's most of all.

And as the scene gets hotter and heavier sexually, he suddenly finds the wire under her blouse. He's been trying to warn her about the conspirators in their midst only to find she's one of them. "Where is thy father?" is spoken with a hand over the microphone, but even under that muffled safety, she doesn't answer (because OF COURSE he would be at home, this is a remote "arras"). Hamlet shouts some of the next lines right into the wire, leaving no doubt that he's discovered it. Ophelia, caught, embarrassed and upset, puts all her things in the box, rips off the wire and packs it too, leaves in a rush. Most of the time, we don't even see Hamlet in frame. This is her scene, her point of view, her pain.
After a bike ride home, we see her burn Polaroids of Hamlet. Why, when the rest of the scene seems to tell us she's still in love with him? She probably thinks it's all her fault if it's over. Things were looking as if they might get back together for a moment there, and then the wire was discovered. Foolish girl, allowing your father to use you against the man you love like that. Because Ophelia's story ends in a suicide, we know her to be self-destructive, and here she destroys the better part of herself, so to speak, as her answering machine picks up Hamlet's curses and nunnery talk. It makes "no more marriages" something more intimate, something only she hears since Claudius and Polonius cannot possibly overhear it. From kindness, Hamlet has moved to cruelty. There can be no ulterior motive to yelling this part of the speech at Ophelia (though one may easily presume Polonius taps her phone).

And as she breaks down, we cut to Hamlet renting videos. He's moving on. From the relationship, and to a more active role in the play itself.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - Kline '90

2011-12-09T12:09:00.000-04:00

Now let's see how the scene comes across with an older, wiser Ophelia. At least, that's how I read Diane Venora's performance (and she was 38 at the time). Her age makes her less fearful of Hamlet or her father, and perhaps takes part in the scheme willingly, for her own reasons. She makes herself available to Hamlet with a smile and tries to cheer him up, acting like nothing's wrong. The gifts she bears, some letters and a dried flower, could be meant to refresh his memory or focus his wits. When he doesn't accept them, she lays them on the stage, and you'll note that "their perfume lost" is cut. We must then believe her motivation to be elsewhere. She still loves him and giving him back these things is not meant as an affront, reproach, or sign that she doesn't love him anymore. Her bright spirits are nonetheless mitigated by the demons she sees in his eyes and speech, and she eventually backs away from him. But still, she seems hopeful that he can come back from this madness, so she is visibly hurt by his denial of their love. When she says she was "the more deceived", it's with a bitter, but honest laugh. An older woman mocking herself for having acted like a schoolgirl.

Kline does a good job with Hamlet as well. His version of "well, well, well" is robotic, a sample stuck on repeat as he ambles towards her, reaching for her hair. She stops his gesture and at the same time, his words. He peruses her face with his hands, gestures borrowed from the description of their first post-Ghost meeting, a smart use of the text in a different context. If these are Hamlet's mannerisms, why deny him those gestures in the rest of the play? And he eventually destroys the gifts, ripping up the letters, more of the erasure of the past he's been engaged in since he talked with his father's spirit. The nunnery speech is not unkind though. Hamlet has a thin smile, and advises more than accuses. She stops him with kisses, and this time, he's the one who pushes her away with a question about her father's whereabouts. He holds her tight during the next exchange, swinging her around in the parody of a newlywed dance. It gets more violent, he throws her down, hits her with a thrown book, tries to wipe away her make-up (her false face), moves her around as if she were a puppet (which she is - her father's)... Some of this is performance. He shouts at the air and looks around furtively. The kindnesses he does give Ophelia here are non-verbal and hidden in a flurry of strange, violent behavior.
After he leaves, Ophelia is left in the middle of a destroyed shared past, discarded like the trash around her. She grabs a piece of a poem, the "honey of his music vows", still clinging to past happiness, but her life is veritably in ruins. Is she picking up the pieces of her destroyed mind? Claudius seems more moved by these events than Polonius, her cold father who has his back to her and her distress. Ironically, he talks about neglected love as the cause of Hamlet's madness, not realizing he's neglecting his own (and soon to be mad) daughter. When she tries to speak, he stops her, refusing to empathize with her. Ophelia is often played as passive and listless in this moment, but Venora tries to actually say something. Who knows what that might be and what important piece of evidence or insight she might have imparted. She finally walks away, shell-shocked. Does her mind crack here? She'll be more keen in the next act, but it could be said that the first stone has been thrown at her fragile, glass-like mind.

Kline uses a title card here: END PART I. It's where the break would have been at the theater. Perhaps it's a good place to make some set changes, prepare for the play within a play, etc., but evidently Kline also sees this as the mid-point in the play. And it is. From this point on, Hamlet stops doubting himself and proceeds with his plans, while for Claudius, the investigation is over and he is resolved to exile Hamlet as soon as possible. The shift to action, rather than inaction, characterizes the next act.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - Zeffirelli '90

2011-12-07T12:29:00.001-04:00

Zeffirelli splits the Nunnery scene in two, the first just after Ophelia is tasked but before To be or not to be, and the second inserted in the ribaldry preceding the Mouse-Trap, collapsing two of Ophelia's humiliations into the same moment. In the first section, Mel Gibson's Hamlet initially tries to ignore Ophelia, walking away from her at a brisk pace, but she catches him up with "remembrances" (some kind of necklace). That word is well chosen, isn't it? Though Hamlet refuses to take the gift back, it's his memories of a happier time that he can't prevent from returning. And those memories are, in essence, missing, because Hamlet denies their existence. Gibson plays the moment with some measure of dumbfoundedness and self-imposed amnesia.

Helena Bonham Carter's Ophelia is more aggressive than most, which is an interesting choice. She's the jilted one here and she won't take his bull. Does she suspect he's only feigning madness? The visual creates irony - the tiniest of girls vs. the action hero - that also exists in the power levels of the characters, both in the court and in the play. "You know right well you did" becomes an accusation. Hamlet laughs at her gesture... did he perchance see the shadows of the spies playing on the wall? Ambiguous. He only goes off shouting at the room and at her after her lie (that her father is home). The camera, trapped in Ophelia's point of view, spins round and round as Hamlet turns the tables and becomes the aggressor. At the end of his rant - which doesn't include the nunnery lines, notably - he runs up the stairs and throws down the just-regifted necklace. She timidly picks it up again in the background - the only reaction left from the text's short speech - as Claudius and Polonius come out of the woodwork to discuss what just happened. Hamlet stands in a doorway, hidden. This is how he knows about the trip to England, and of course, it's a confirmation of the the plot against him.
Nunnery-related lines are inserted during the play-within-a-play's preliminaries, in a more private moment after the more public humiliations of both Ophelia and Gertrude (after "half a year"). Almost swooning, he starts with "Get thee to a nunnery", which he finds strange and upsetting, and leaves off after "Believe none of us" as the play starts. The intimate nature of the sequence takes away any ribald meaning from the word "nunnery", and it becomes an imploration to save herself from both this tragedy and any future tragedy (which comes with child-bearing). She has no answer to give.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - BBC '80

2011-12-03T10:36:00.001-04:00

As usual, Derek Jacobi is full of surprises in this scene. When his Hamlet sees Lalla Ward's Ophelia, he first puts his finger on his lips, as if to indicate that she shouldn't speak because he knows they're being spied on. It's not clear. He then grabs her book and reveals she was "reading" it upside down. She winces, her ploy half-discovered, and while we smile, Hamlet becomes hurtful, sarcastic, mocking. It is not without some kind of reproach in his voice that he says his sins are remembered in her orisons. And is there not a mirror of falsification here? She is pretending to read, to be lonely, etc. as much as he is feigning madness, that is, consciously false, and yet working from a kernel of truth. Jacobi's reading turns the line into an accusation or revelation that she is false. When she finally speaks, he treats it as a performance, laughs, mockingly applauds.

I've never found Lalla Ward a very effective Ophelia. Though she sobs through the whole sequence, never are there any tears. This obvious actor's artifice takes some of the punch away from Hamlet's mocking of those sobs, they're more like an actor mocking another. The redelivered gifts are often papers, presumably Hamlet's poetry, but here they go another way with a long green scarf. Hamlet grabs it from Ophelia's hands and uses it to snag her neck, though further violence of that kind does not ensue. He does admit he loved her once, but by this point she's scared. He refutes it almost immediately, of course, and when she says she was the more deceived, Hamlet reacts with a noncommittal gesture. Oh well, that's your problem, isn't it?

Things take a turn when he underlines his line about being a breeder of sinners by making a gesture towards her crotch. The embarrassment makes her look towards the arras, and though Hamlet makes no visible realization, just an odd look, he soon starts shouting his litany of sins at the wall and starts opening secret doors. It seems he didn't know all along, but he is not surprised. Obviously, Ophelia was playing some kind of game, but perhaps he didn't know the spies were so close. His breakdown comes unannounced after the lie about her father and he cries through the next lines. He throws her to the ground, leaves and comes back again a number of times, slaps at the empty air in front of her, shakes her violently, and finally, embraces her.
"It hath made mad" is here an epiphany, a sudden evaluation of his actions and emotions. His tone is unusually apologetic when he says there will be no more marriages, his rage completely drained, even though there is the promise of revenge in his words.

Patrick Stewart's Claudius is equally interesting in the aftermath. Instead of the usual anger, we get fear and foreboding. The quiet tone allows some of the lines to come across differently. For example, the line about sending Hamlet on a sea voyage to change his "settled heart" is better revealed as an image of moving the body to move the mind. Perhaps by uprooting Hamlet from his madness, Claudius can move him away from whatever action he is planning. Ironically, what Claudius does not realize is that Hamlet's madness, in effect, is inaction, not action. By uprooting him from it, he insures Hamlet will return moved to action. The Hamlet who returns from abroad is, indeed, determined, and part of the reason for it is the voyage (specifically, his meeting with Fortinbras' troops on the way).
Instead of ignoring Ophelia completely, as many Claudiuses do, this one is not so cold and says the last line to her directly. That final rhyme is now meant to reassure her (to perhaps cement her loyalty) that what they are doing is for Hamlet's own good. They must watch him to help him. This may in part explain why Ophelia never tells Hamlet that there are plans to spy on him in his mother's closet and so on, though Hamlet's erratic actions have as much to do with it.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - Olivier '48

2011-11-26T10:48:00.000-04:00

When considering Olivier's adaptation, we must contend with the unusual placement of this sequence. It comes after the Fishmonger scene through a time lapse transition and a the set-up from before To be or not to be, and is followed by To be or not to be (which becomes a guilty reaction to it). Jean Simmons' Ophelia is probably the most innocent of them all, almost a child really, and as such, can hardly lie convincingly. Throughout the scene, she keeps glancing at the arras behind which her father and the King are hiding, usually before her cue to speak, leading Hamlet to do the same. He was suspicious when he came in, but Ophelia's jumpy disposition inflames his paranoia. Not that Hamlet doesn't give her cause to be jumpy. He throws her book away to stop her from reading, and his blasé, monotone "well, well, well" doesn't let on that he cares for her. When he doesn't receive the tokens she hands him, she uncomfortably puts them on the table, his cue to grab her hand violently.

By violent, I realize I merely mean sudden. All the violence in this scene is psychological. There are a few moments where Ophelia throws herself at Hamlet and he tears her away and watches her fall, but that's about it. The performances however add a lot of sting to the words themselves. When Hamlet tells her she should not have believed his love, she rubs her cheek, as if she'd been slapped. And in slight change to the accepted text, Ophelia cries out "Help me you sweet heavens" (instead of "Help him"). She's the one in distress, and who emotionally explodes, not Hamlet. His only violence is rejecting her, or refusing to show kindness, and it's what sets off her hysterics. Polonius' claims of madness-for-love aren't so much wrong as they are badly targeted. If the mirroring effects of the play go in a "like parent, like child" direction, we must then recall how Polonius earlier claimed he suffered much for love. It's behavior genetically imposed on Ophelia, but we can't say the same for Hamlet or his absentee father.

Hamlet's lack of interest in Ophelia is counterpointed by his over-interest in the arras and what might wait beyond it. In moments, he is talking not to Ophelia, but directly to the arras. The word "ambitious" in particular is directed at Polonius and the King. Should we infer that the litany of sins Hamlet accuses himself of are actually leveled at them? Or is it an implicit threat to the throne? If it is, it's one that consciously confuses the issue of his motivation. The spies could understandably, if mistakenly(?), believe his motives to be political. By the end of the sequence, Ophelia is on the floor and Hamlet is conversing only with the two people who are ignoring her cries for help. He leaves her with a last kindness, kissing her hand and advising her to get out of Elsinore.

Ophelia's speech is replaced by loud sobbing as the spies completely ignore her. Polonius follows the King around and only spares her a look very late in the game. And even then, he leaves her on the steps alone and walks out.
As we leave the scene, Ophelia is reaching for Hamlet, or for her sanity, or in a more meta-textual way, for the camera's point of view which may or may not be the Ghost's. What does she see going up those steps? Is her mind breaking already? If it is the Ghost and not a proper hallucination, does she recognize Hamlet in it? In any case, the pitiable image stresses how the entire scene has been about violating Ophelia.

The Nunnery Scene - Branagh '96

2011-11-19T10:13:00.001-04:00

Initially, Branagh's Hamlet is all smiles and teary eyes, soft-spoken and kind, which in turn makes Kate Winslet's Ophelia hopeful and just as teary. The meeting is imbued with a tenderness we have not seen in Hamlet since the events of the play began. After Ophelia's "How does your honor...", they both giggle at the formality, and he answers in kind, as if play-acting. We have to remember that in this adaptation, they've been intimate, so the courtly mannerisms are out of place (except that her father is watching, so Ophelia at least knows not to be too familiar). Hamlet's three "well"s are ever more tender and end in an embrace. He holds her close, kisses her deeply, but she pushes him away to get things back on track. Hamlet appears deeply insulted, red-faced and betrayed, and it's here that the staging seems to both ask and answer a question: Is Ophelia acting from a script? On the one hand, she's being particularly formal and one might say, out-of-character. Then she fails to adapt to the situation (Hamlet's surprise kindness) and reacts, perhaps as scripted, with a complete non sequitur, giving back Hamlet's gifts. Hamlet has just returned her affections, and now she's going on about "perfume lost"? But we WOULD expect Polonius to have given Ophelia a script. She's a girl with no control over her life, and a poor improviser besides, so she pushes her father's agenda no matter what Hamlet says or does. There are other clues that point to this being the case. She looks to the side when, as if by rote, saying the line about rich gifts waxing poor, which really sounds like one of her father's slogans. Is she remembering, or is the eye motion a "tell" that points to the spies in the room?

Does the prince react as he does because he realizes all this already (though the "Where is your father?" line is spoken only later), or is it more visceral than that, an immediate connection between her apparent changeability and his mother's? It's a connection that certainly fuels his anger, since much of the coming speech and violence is transferred from guilty Gertrude to innocent Ophelia. And in terms of changeability, the pots and kettles irony is that Hamlet himself will turn unkind and confuse his would-be princess all the more. He slaps the gifts away, among them the poetry we know he wrote, and denies ever having given them to her. His moving "I did love you once" sounds like he's imploring Ophelia not to go through with this charade. He gives her an out and hopes she'll take it. And then the spies make a noise, and Ophelia lies about where her father is with the guiltiest look in creation on her face. For Hamlet, it's the tipping point. He breaks down crying, hands on face and when Ophelia tries to reach out, he lashes out at her.
The scene would be comical if it weren't so cruel as Hamlet drags Ophelia behind him as he opens one mirrored door after another, in a rage-fueled game of hide and seek. He silences her and pushes her face against a mirror, for the drama's sake, the exact door behind which Polonius and Claudius are hiding. It is telling that neither comes to Ophelia's defense. Though visibly shocked, seeing this through to the end is all they really care about, and they let Ophelia be violated, both physically and psychologically. She has been thoroughly abandoned. It is a violent image, one that distorts her face as a way of evoking her own mind snapping, and perhaps foreshadowing her drowning, the mirror providing a watery distortion.

Hamlet guesses the spies are behind this door, or that they might move to that position during the assault, or can even hear them there at this range. We may assume then that while his anger is genuine, he still puts on a show, using Ophelia as a prop. Violence gives way to a strange kiss when he tells her there will be no more marriages (is he saying in this moment that they'll never be intimate again, marriage being equal to intercourse?) and speaks straight at them (at us!) when he threatens that all but one shall live. They run off before he can catch them, but it is clear they were there. Secret doors don't slam silently. He leaves Ophelia with one last kindness (now that they are gone?), as his last "To a nunnery, go" loses the tone that might connote a whorehouse. It's a plea for her to leave Elsinore before something bad happens, whether that be blood-letting or her own corruption.
Ophelia's speech ends with a strange dawning realization which I wish I had a good handle on. It remains one of this adaptation's mysteries for me (and considering how many times I've seen it, it's great to still be able to admit there are still some). "See what I see" has its own unique tone, and makes us wonder just what it is she suddenly sees. The rest of the speech makes her point of view rather naive. She believes Hamlet has gone mad. What is her epiphany at the end then? Does she see the bigger picture? That perhaps Hamlet's troubles with women begin and end with his mother? That his madness is all for show, perhaps even having her suspect foul play in the death of the previous king and/or the murder Hamlet is planning? Does she foresee her own doom, the only possible end for a dejected lady like her? Ambiguity reigns.
The return of the other men in her life is as traumatic for her as Hamlet's violence. The father who put her in harm's way and failed to rescue her holds her tight and comforts her, not allowing her to talk. Ophelia is emotionally rocked in every direction. As for the King, he completely ignores her and her pain, giving in to anger and brooding. His mood is not improved by Polonius's reiteration of his mad-for-love theory, and he furiously slams his hand against the wall. Polonius almost approaches fatherly kindness in this scene, putting his well-meaning but empty comforting of his daughter above playing the sycophant to the King's frustrations.

III.i. The Nunnery Scene

2011-11-11T09:37:00.002-04:00

The last section of Act III Scene 1 is Hamlet's staged encounter with Ophelia, in which he may or may not discover that he's being spied upon by Claudius and Polonius, who close out the scene after Hamlet leaves with important consequences for the prince. Over the course of the next few articles, we'll look at how different directors staged this sequence, and how different actors played it, but first we'll look at the text itself. Shakespeare is in italics, while my comments are not:

OPHELIA: Good my lord,
How does your honour for this many a day?
HAMLET: I humbly thank you; well, well, well.

I love Hamlet's triple repetitions because the actors can play around with them so much. As with the previous "Words, words, words" and "Except my life", actors can take each of the tripled meme and give it its own reading, or find a way to say all three with the same intent.

OPHELIA: My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.

There is something quite touching about the use of the word "remembrances" here. Ophelia is not just returning tokens or gifts, but the memories associated with those objects. Memory plays a big part in this section of the text, as Hamlet then makes like he doesn't remember having given her anything. Hamlet's demeanor has changed and he has, in effect, become someone else, changing the meaning of Ophelia's memories. There is no doubt an interesting thesis to be gleaned from how people's perceptions of one another change, and in turn change their memories of one another, throughout the play. There's the revelation that Claudius is a murderer, of course, which is made to both Hamlet and Gertrude. False friends revealed, lovers lost, princes mistrusted, Norway's intentions, and ultimately, Hamlet's own new understanding of himself.

HAMLET: No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA: My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath composed
As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,
Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.
There, my lord.
HAMLET: Ha, ha! are you honest?
OPHELIA: My lord?
HAMLET: Are you fair?
OPHELIA: What means your lordship?
HAMLET: That if you be honest and fair, your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.
OPHELIA: Could beauty, my lord, have better commerce than with honesty?
HAMLET: Ay, truly; for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness: this was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.
OPHELIA: Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so.
HAMLET: You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.
OPHELIA: I was the more deceived.

Hamlet's harshness may be born of a mirroring effect. Though Ophelia is betraying his trust here, playing a part in her father's scheme, it's not clear whether Hamlet knows about it or not. So why so harsh? If he knows about the spies, it could all be part of the act, a tug of war between what he really feels and the act he's putting on for Claudius and Polonius. His cruelty towards Ophelia is a necessary evil. However, if he doesn't know he's being spied upon (at least until he asks where her father is), it may be more true to say that he's actually talking to his mother. Ophelia did not betray him, but Gertrude did betray his father. Hamlet indicts the entire sex, in a run of motivated misogyny. Women, being attractive to men as they are, make men lose their reason and betray themselves. The solution Hamlet proposes is to lock away women before they cause more men to do so.

HAMLET: Get thee to a nunnery: why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest; but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, all; believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where's your father?

In these lines, Hamlet blamed his mother not just for betraying his father, but for his own birth. Motivated by present circumstances, an Oedipal impulse (though you know I hate that Freudian interpretation of the play) or his religious beliefs, Hamlet has put all the sins of the world on his mother. His father is dead because Claudius killed him to get her. He must now avenge his father because he exists thanks to his mother. In this sequence, Shakespeare reveals that at least part of the reason Hamlet has been delaying action is that he's been moved to take revenge on the wrong person. Claudius is at fault, sure, and Hamlet hates him. However, the Ghost's warning not to hurt Gertrude is what rankles, and it all comes out in Hamlet's treatment of Ophelia in this scene. We should also mention how "nunnery" is an ironic term for a whorehouse. Just as in an earlier scene, Hamlet called Polonius a "fishmonger" (a colloquialism that can mean "pimp"), Hamlet can again be seen as treating Ophelia/Getrude/women as whores. Nun or whore, neither is meant to be a mother.

The line also holds a few actorly double-entendres, from the concepts of imagination and acting out offences, to the request not to believe the actor's words. It plays on multiple levels, since the actors on stage are not really their characters, and Hamlet is play-acting his madness, though it's still ambiguous.

OPHELIA: At home, my lord.
HAMLET: Let the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool no where but in's own house. Farewell.
OPHELIA: O, help him, you sweet heavens!

Shakespeare doesn't give many stage directions. They're suggested by the text itself. Ophelia's invocation to God here indicates Hamlet is acting strangely, losing himself in madness. His words don't really suggest it, so it's up to the director and actors to figure it out. We'll see how different adaptations dealt with it.

HAMLET: If thou dost marry, I'll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny. Get thee to a nunnery, go: farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool; for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.
OPHELIA: O heavenly powers, restore him!
HAMLET: I have heard of your paintings too, well enough; God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another: you jig, you amble, and you lisp, and nick-name God's creatures, and make your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I'll no more on't; it hath made me mad. I say, we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one, shall live; the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

I love the line "the rest shall keep as they are", a fabulously clever continuation of the rot theme of the play. Those that are married already are Gertrude and Claudius. One shall live (Gertrude) and the other shall keep as he is (Claudius). Not "die", but "keep". The idea is that he's dead and rotting already. An image of corruption or of a fate that can no longer be delayed. Note that the other married man in the play is Hamlet Sr., another character that is "kept as he is", preserved by the special state of the undead. Hamlet once again puts up a mirror to the two Kings and in this case, finds them equivalent.

Exit

OPHELIA: O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!
The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's, eye, tongue, sword;
The expectancy and rose of the fair state,
The glass of fashion and the mould of form,
The observed of all observers, quite, quite down!
And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,
That suck'd the honey of his music vows,
Now see that noble and most sovereign reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch'd form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Ophelia''s little soliloquy paints a portrait of Hamlet before he went mad, at least through her eyes. Even after all this, she has not stopped loving him. The perfume has not been lost, we could say. Note how Ophelia feels sorry for herself for having had a particular experience, again a play on memory. If ignorance is bliss, then Ophelia would have rather stayed ignorant. I don't think I've ever come across it, but a director could theoretically use the past tense on that last line to involve Ophelia in the murder of Hamlet Sr. What she sees now is Hamlet's madness. What she has seen in the past could be a secret she's keeping from Hamlet even now, the cause and not just the result of his madness. Just more reasons for her mind to break.

Re-enter KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

KING CLAUDIUS: Love! his affections do not that way tend;
Nor what he spake, though it lack'd form a little,
Was not like madness. There's something in his soul,
O'er which his melancholy sits on brood;
And I do doubt the hatch and the disclose
Will be some danger: which for to prevent,
I have in quick determination
Thus set it down: he shall with speed to England,

Another mirror: If Hamlet cannot touch Gertrude for his father's sake, then Claudius cannot touch Hamlet for his wife's sake. Both men are prevented from taking the action they want by love for another. Claudius chooses exile for Hamlet (though this will change).

For the demand of our neglected tribute
Haply the seas and countries different
With variable objects shall expel
This something-settled matter in his heart,
Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus
From fashion of himself. What think you on't?
LORD POLONIUS: It shall do well: but yet do I believe
The origin and commencement of his grief
Sprung from neglected love. How now, Ophelia!
You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said;
We heard it all. My lord, do as you please;
But, if you hold it fit, after the play
Let his queen mother all alone entreat him
To show his grief: let her be round with him;
And I'll be placed, so please you, in the ear
Of all their conference. If she find him not,
To England send him, or confine him where
Your wisdom best shall think.

Here, Polonius seals his own fate. The way his particular hubris manifests is in his stubbornness that prevents him from accepting he is wrong (as they play shows, he almost invariably is). Claudius is convinced Hamlet is neither mad nor acting from neglected love. Polonius still disagrees and sets up yet another encounter, this time between Hamlet and his mother, during which Hamlet should admit to being mad for love. And it is spying on this encounter of his own making that gets him killed.

KING CLAUDIUS: It shall be so:
Madness in great ones must not unwatch'd go.

Exeunt

The pregnancy theory
None of the plays examined by Hyperion to a Satyr make use of the idea that Ophelia is pregnant, but if someone were to do so, this is where the most irony could be drawn from the idea. Ophelia would already be a breeder of sinners, and any injury (both psychic and physical) would be all the more violent for it. If a nunnery is a whorehouse, that may be a clue that Hamlet and Ophelia have been sexually active which plays into the pregnancy theory. Directors who entertain this notion may wish to reveal Ophelia's belly in her madness scenes (adding to the pathos), or have this particular sequence cause her to lose the baby (further motivating her madness).

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - A Midwinter's Tale

2011-11-08T09:10:00.001-04:00

Michael Maloney's lively Hamlet actually jumps into the aisles for his rendition of this speech, letting out all his venom right at the crowd/camera - or at least, the angry section where he screams names at his uncle. Interaction with the audience is one element that naturally can't be part of movie adaptations, but is still an important part of staging the play theatrically. This is where films ABOUT staging Hamlet can inform us. A Midwinter's Tale's Hamlet starts with a machine gun being fired over the heads of the audience, and follows up with a Hamlet that first appears at the back of the room. Though Faj's set design is cheekily described as "people in space", Branagh is true to that idea in his direction. The use of space includes the audience and makes for a visceral watching experience. It helps that the play is staged inside an old church, rather than a standard theater. It removes the demarcation between play and audience, placing the latter IN the set, in the atmosphere.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Brian Cox Masterclass with Theo

2011-11-07T09:29:00.000-04:00

Before going on to the next sequence, I thought I'd share this lovely video of Brian Cox teaching a 30-month-old to do Hamlet. Though it's a measure of parroting the words, is there something modern actors or directors can take away from this innocent intonation of the words? There may be. We're used to Hamlet being "too old" to be a student, but how about too young? How does that change our perception of the play? What if Hamlet were a troubled teenager? Or as in this case, he would be meditating on mortality when his entire life stretches before him? It's a magical moment when Theo looks away from Cox and repeats the soliloquy while looking into the distance, somehow getting into the proper performance on instinct.

Brian Cox explains the experiment in a later interview:

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Discovering Hamlet

2011-11-04T10:34:00.001-03:00

In 1988, Derek Jacobi was asked to direct Kenneth Branagh's first stage Hamlet. It was his only directing job ever - not because he did a poor job, but because he much prefers acting - but the documentary special Discovering Hamlet chronicled the effort (if not the finished play). "To be or not to be" is the only sequence from the documentary I wanted to examine on Hyperion to a Satyr, but it's an incredibly intriguing take on the scene. He sadly doesn't go into detail, but Jacobi claims his approach is wholly rooted in the text. That approach? Having Hamlet speak the lines, not as a true soliloquy, but to Ophelia.

In my estimation, he's entirely correct in thinking this. For one thing, Ophelia is on stage when Hamlet enters, and no stage directions have her leave or hide. Shakespeare's didascalia are always sparse, but entrances and exists are clearly marked. What if the Bard meant for Ophelia to be present and aware of the speech? The main argument against this staging is the final line, "Soft you now! The fair Ophelia," written as an interruptive and usually read as Hamlet's realization that she is present. However, it is possible to read them instead as Hamlet shushing her, giving her permission not to respond to his meditation on mortality. He's not telling himself or the audience to be quiet, but her. "Nymph, in thy orisons Be all my sins remember'd" becomes the actual conclusion to "To be or not to be", Hamlet perhaps admitting what spurred this black speech on, i.e. the guilt of having cut Ophelia off from his affections.

Brought into the scene quite viscerally, Ophelia is both witness and confidante. She may well be the only person Hamlet could say this to (Horatio has been absent a while), showing vulnerability for the first time since he went "mad". So how much greater is Ophelia's betrayal when the spies are discovered? She hasn't just lured Hamlet into the open, but made him show his true self. In other words, Jacobi's staging seems to confirm that the speech is not an act on Hamlet's part, and furthermore indicate that he perhaps would not have made it at all if not for the safety provided by Ophelia. Her presence makes him admit something he should not have. Theatrical conventions aside, it also confirms that the spies heard the speech, which normally would have been a long aside to the audience, representative of inner thought. There's an ambiguity on stage, that can lead the audience to reject that the character is literally talking to himself aloud, and ambiguity that is dispelled in this staging of it.

And of course, it heightens the irony of Ophelia later taking her own life, "acting" where Hamlet was unable to. While her prince seems to be confiding in her, we'll find that he was planting an idea in her head instead. In this version, there is no speech without Ophelia. In any version where she is present - hidden or not - it could be said Ophelia doesn't die but for this speech.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - French Rock Opera

2011-11-02T11:14:00.001-03:00

At the center of Johhny Hallyday's Hamlet (at the beginning of Disc 2) is a dirge, constructed as a show-stopping number based on the play's most famous speech. It uses the opening line quite a lot (and as a title), with no translation. Though "Être ou ne pas être" is a famous French phrase, Hallyday opts for the original text because, well, it's famous no matter what language you speak. Before getting into it, here's the song, the words, and then my doggerel translation.

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

Encore choisir, choisir encore
Choisir entre chair et poussière
Entre bleu ciel et ver de terre
Pourrir du coeur, mourir du corps
Quelle question tragique à poser

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

Mourir, dormir, un point c’est tout
Plus de justice à voir boiter
D’amours bafoués à voir ramper
Dormir seul au fond de son trou
Quelle question mortelle à poser

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

Mourir, dormir, rêver peut-être ?
Voir chaque nuit les souvenirs
Sortir de l’ombre comme des vampires
Et vous tournoyer dans la tête
Quelle question vitale à poser

To be or not to be
To be or not to be
To be or not to be

Sans cette peur au cul blafard
Quel est le fou ou le peureux
Qui perdrait le temps d’être vieux
Alors qu’il suffit d’un poignard
Pour que la question soit réglée

To be or not to be...

To Be Or Not To Be
To be or not to be x6

Again to choose, to choose again
To choose between flesh and dust
Between blue sky and earthworm
Rot of the heart, die of the body
What a tragic question to ask

To be or not to be x3

To die, to sleep, and that's all there is to it
No more justice to see someone limp
Of ridiculed love, to see someone crawl
To sleep alone at the bottom of one's hole
What a mortal question to ask

To be or not to be x3

To die, to sleep, perchance to dream
Each night to see memories
Come out of the shadows like vampires
And spin in your head
What a vital question to ask

To be or not to be x3

Without that pale-assed fear
What fool or coward
Would give up growing old
When all you need is a dagger
To answer the question

To be or not to be...

The odd thing about the arrangement is that it has back-up singers. In the rock opera, these usually represent the people, courtly whispers or Danish opinion. Hamlet's voice is Hallyday's, and in this most private of moments (spied on or not), he is somehow accompanied by others. I'd like to say that it's the line reverberating across history, its sentiment universal. I rather think it's a mistake, thematically, and that Hallyday's wish to make this a bigger production number made him forget the conventions of his own opera.

The question gets asked a lot in this version of the speech, acting as a driving beat. It is asked in other ways as well. For example, the question is initially "tragic" and "mortal" (some word play here, since "mortelle" means both mortal and lethal), and later, "vital". Hamlet moves between life and death, flesh and dust. The choice predominates. The first line gives a false choice ("Again to choose, to choose again"), while also making the choice a repeated one. Hamlet has been on the line between choosing life and suicide since before the start of the play. Hallyday correctly understands this speech as a last time he will consider death as an alternative to action. He makes the choice again, but for the last time. Are we also to understand he believes the question to be a false choice? Because ultimately, it is. Hamlet may claim to long for death, but he argues strongly against it. Given who he is, and the fact that he has not yet taken his own life, this contemplation can have only one outcome. And yet, he hasn't acted. The alternative to dying has not been living, but rather, doing nothing. His thoughts, here described as vampires, have sucked the action out of him. So while Hamlet was never going to kill himself, he needs to strike the option off his list with words, so that he can move on to the active option of revenge.

Lost in translation
There's a nice pun in "Entre bleu ciel et ver de terre" lost in the literal translation I offered. "Bleu ciel" is not truly "blue sky", but rather "sky blue", the color. "Ver de terre" is "earthworm" (a link to the one going through the guts of Hamlet's metaphorical beggar), but is homophone of "vert de terre", which would mean "earth green". In French, the choice is between two colors, on representing life and the other death, though in the funereal world of the speech, could both be visions of the afterlife.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Classics Illustrated

2011-10-29T09:39:00.000-03:00

The originalClassics Illustrated stages the speech on a single splash page, with all the important elements in frame, reminding one of Medieval engravings. Hamlet is center stage, coming up behind Ophelia holding her book, and in the background, the two spies drawing back a curtain. The entire speech fills a single speech bubble, a steady stream of consciousness that lacks any kind of nuance (through pauses, for example). Four words are identified as difficult and given footnote translations. Oddly, "conscience" is one of these (given as "self-examination"). Seemed pretty straightforward to me. But the narrator is also quite obvious, telling us upfront that the speech is about contemplating suicide. You know, lest we miss the point. The target audience may well have, but it's still an awkward Cliffs note.

Still, it's one of the better pages in the comic, with a composition stronger than most. Hamlet creeping up behind Ophelia is more sinister and menacing than the eventual outcome of their meeting, and there's something intriguing about having all the characters in the line of sight, as if Ophelia was bait on a hook, the spies as fishermen about to reel in the prince. But these seem more accidental than planned. They suggest some interesting staging ideas for the play, but are flawed in the context of the book itself.

The Berkley version
Tom Mandrake's adaptation also stages the speech on a single page, but paces it through the use of multiple speech bubbles. The pauses created are pretty standard, but Mandrake seems to have thought about them. For example, there's an early pause after "outrageous fortune", indicating that perhaps "taking arms" is an option he had not directly considered before. He's been suffering all this time and "acting" has not truly been considered until this point. Though the speech often seems like Hamlet is regressing after the promise of the Mouse Trap, it can also be seen as a driving force for the second half of the play. Hamlet convinces himself that not acting is the wrong way to go.

Unlike the original Classics Illustrated, Hamlet is shown walking alone. He is not being overheard, nor is Ophelia in sight. She turns up out of nowhere in the next page, surprising both the reader and Hamlet. The single panel here is placed inside the greater layout of the page which shows sea-tossed Elsinore. The decaying building with the sea of troubles at its gates is an image of Hamlet himself. He contemplates his own mortality, even as Denmark - something much more permanent - is described as rotting around him. If a castle or a country are mortal, what chance does a man have?

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Slings & Arrows

2011-10-27T11:00:00.000-03:00

"To be or not to be" is a pivotal moment in Slings & Arrows (Season 1, episode 5), as movie star Jack Crew is taken aside by director Geoffrey Tennant and asked to finally do a scene with the text. Up to that point, Jack has been paraphrasing, frustrating his cast mates and preventing the director from "seeing the play". Jack's problem is every actor's. How do you make these words - this speech especially - sound fresh? How do you escape from the shadow of all the great actors who have gone before? On a meta-textual level, the speech IS about to be Hamlet or not to be Hamlet. To make something of oneself, or to fail. In the text, though Hamlet is nominally talking about actual, lethal suicide, on another level he's talking about professional suicide. Hamlet is a role filled with risk. It is fearsome. The fear of "dying" on stage may keep you from ever attempting the role, but if it does, you deny yourself the possibility of an enterprise of great pith and moment. That's what's at stake for the actor as much as it is for Hamlet, himself an improvized actor and playwright.

Geoffrey also asks him to make an important choice: Does Hamlet know he is being overheard or not? Jack doesn't have to reveal his choice so long as he makes it. Ambiguity lingers. Jack sits his back to the spies, but also smirks at the end of it. That smirk may be directed at the appearance of Ophelia to stage right though. So did Hamlet just perform for Claudius and Polonius and smiles to himself, a job well done? Or is he darkly amused at remembering his sins thanks to Ophelia's appearance? Or while unaware of the spies' presence, does he nevertheless see through the transparent ploy of his ex-girlfriend being "loosed" upon him? In any case, while Jack's delivery is solid, if without much nuance, his body language makes good use of the actor's own discomfort and shame. Jack is visibly contemptuous of his ability to portray Hamlet, and that makes his Hamlet contemptuous of his own ability to trap Claudius and avenge his father.

As Jack utters the speech, Geoffrey starts to see the play take shape (with the usual musical cue the show uses to render the theater as a magical place), and he and the ghostly Oliver walk through the fantasy. Geoffrey's image of scene has the spies behind a red curtain, steeped in blood as they are, and Hamlet surrounded by candles, a symbol of spiritual illumination, or perhaps an image of mortal life's brevity and snuffability. As the sequence ends, we return to reality and Hamlet stands up to face his Ophelia, a look of marked disappointment in himself on his face. The regret is palpable.
During the play in episode 6, we briefly alight on the sequence again. Budget cuts have made the fantasy version of the play impossible, but the show must go on. Jack's new Hamlet costume is a simple hoodie out of his own wardrobe. The jewelry, including the appropriate skull ring, is also his, part of the osmosis between role and actor that is part and parcel of Slings & Arrows.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Tennant (2009)

2011-10-19T09:40:00.002-03:00

One thing the restructured Hamlets make clear is that putting "To be or not to be" before the Players arrive, rather than after, works better if Hamlet is not spied upon or at least doesn't know he's being spied upon. A Hamlet so structured has yet to see a glimmer of hope and may thus be more sincere in his mediation on self-oblivion. And so it is here, and though spies lie in wait, the moment is so intimate, and actually outside the room, so we may infer that the spies do not hear him. The speech is played around the corner of a wall, in near-darkness, with Hamlet progressively revealed. The way he is initially framed and backlit makes him skeletal (something supported by his t-shirt print), an image of mortality and vulnerability, and of revealing something to the audience that is under the surface.

Tennant has a fresh approach to almost every line in the speech, something that's very much not obvious with "To be or not to be". He uses long, pregnant pauses to make us feel like he's thinking those words up for the first time. One of Tennant's best qualities in the role is that he doesn't seem to know what he'll say next, even though he's speaking some of the best known words in all of English literature. The best example of this "freshness" is that though "To be or not to be" is the question, he asks another, putting a question mark on the end of "by opposing, end them?" Hamlet is filled with anguish, which slowly builds towards bitterness. His eyes are closed in pain until he finally looks at us on "there's the rub". At "must give us pause", he swallows hard. Just as his "gorge rises at it" in the graveyard scene later, Hamlet is here physically repulsed by what lies waiting in the afterlife, by extension, his own father's ghost. Bringing a measure of fear to this speech makes perfect sense in the context of having met an undead parent earlier. The physical signs of that repulsion continue through to "sicklied o'er", manifesting what is in the text merely a mental image. It continues the image of sickliness that is background for most of the play, one that covers the whole of Denmark, and is caused by the depraved behavior of its King, and possibly the madness of its Prince as well.

"Soft you now" comes hard and fast on the heels of "lose the name of action", springing TO action even as one gives up hope that any action can occur. Ophelia's appearance thus surprises Hamlet and his audience, taking us out of the meditation and back to more earthly matters.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Fodor (2007)

2011-10-14T12:52:00.002-03:00

Fodor's Hamlet places the speech very early in the story, as Hamlet sits at his reel-to-reel and speaks into a microphone just after a musical montage representing his first encounter with Ophelia (unseen but described in the play). It is then followed by Polonia's scene with her spy Reynaldo (or here, Reynalda). In effect, the speech is now part of Hamlet's initial set of reactions to meeting his father's ghost. At that point in his emotional journey, Hamlet is actively thinking about revenge, cutting off ties to loved ones, setting up his cover as a madman, and in this repurposed sequence, leaving a record of his thoughts for posterity. It's a suicide note on audio, except he doesn't go through with it. Hamlet's pace suggests he's been composing it in his head. He rattles off the speech rather quickly, especially the list of ills we must bear here on Earth.
The speech intercuts between the first frame shown and the one above, Hamlet's half-face (an image of ambivalence?). The camera in that shot gets ever closer to him as we delve deeper into his consciousness. These shots are further intercut with Hamlet Sr.'s funeral, as various characters kiss his dead mouth goodbye. We see Polonia in particular, intimating a relationship between her and the former King and a possible role in his betrayal. At "To die, to sleep, perchance to dream", those flashbacks begin, with a frame of various characters all fated to die, lined up in a row. At the very end, as Hamlet himself kisses his father's cadaver, we hear the sounds of bells and sea birds, disturbing elements taking us further into the memory. Those flashbacks are blown out even more than the present day's film treatment, adding a greenish tinge to the proceedings that evoke both a sickliness and perhaps the "pale cast of thought" itself.

A notable cut: The speech is largely intact but omits "For in that sleep of death what dreams may come". Why? I am unable to come up with an answer. Perhaps Fodor felt it was too pretty and precious a line for his horror story. Perhaps the actor skipped over it. Theories?

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Hamlet 2000

2011-10-08T10:09:00.001-03:00

Hamlet 2000 has a unique placement for the speech: Just after the spies make their plans, and before Hamlet meets up with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern. It's a scene completely divorced from the rest of the characters. No one sees or hears Hamlet (who goes in and out of voice-over anyway), nor does the Nunnery scene (still to come) weigh on him. The staging is, I must admit, a little precious for my tastes.

The scene takes place in a Blockbuster, specifically its Action section (to go with "lose the name of action"). Hamlet is a film buff and amateur filmmaker, which makes the setting fairly natural for him. The screens behind him show fiery explosions of the same kind seen during Hamlet's meeting with the Ghost, where they evoked the hell the latter had escaped from. Here, it is the "undiscovered country" Hamlet fears. Though chronologically before Hamlet's meditation on the Player in the film, we at Hyperion to a Satyr can remember that scene's use of James Dean as the nominal actor. When we discover at the end of the "To be or not to be" speech that the explosive film behind Hamlet is The Crow, a link is made between Dean and The Crow's star, Brandon Lee (who gives a kind of salute to camera). Hamlet seems to be fascinated by actors who tragically died young, his own death prefigured in those of his idols.

As for the performance, Ethan Hawke makes his walk as nonchalant as possible, whispering the words when they aren't coming from voice-over, running through.lines at a quick, pause-free pace. This is a jaded Hamlet, one who is either verbalizing things he's already thought about, or repeating words he's written for one of his short films. It takes away from the power of the speech, but is legitimate in the context of the film.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Kline '90

2011-10-02T08:35:00.001-03:00

Kline's Hamlet comes into the room and stays at the doorway. We, the camera's point of view, close in slowly until we'll be on his face. There is no indication here that Hamlet knows he's being spied upon, but the staging infers that the speech isn't overheard. Hamlet has yet to step into the trap, his moment of hesitation at the door stopping the action figuratively as well as literally.

Kline's delivery is what you'd expect from his Hamlet, all sighs and tears, but it does get more interesting at the end when he weeps and laughs at the same time, finding it laughable that people bear the burden of all those evils.Hamlet's native irony is revealed much as it was in "What a piece of work is a man", and he mocks humanity (himself included) for being the butt of a cosmic joke, and existential cowards to boot. The tail end of the speech becomes an attack on conscience itself, the immutable thing that is preventing him from acting. A flash of anger at the word "thought" confirms this. He is angry at the morality that is delaying his revenge, in effect cursing God himself. The speech is in fact quite religious without ever mentioning faith. Hamlet's morality is highly Christian (Puritanical compared to the people around him), and those teachings and the fear of the afterlife reserved for suicides in that cosmogony are what stay his hand against his will.

He hears Ophelia coming, with a half-smile imbued with gentleness, but also dread. He has avoided this meeting, just like he has avoided doing anything with meaning. The play tips on the edge of that knife's point.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Zeffirelli '90

2011-09-28T14:15:00.000-03:00

Zeffirelli places the speech between the Nunnery scene and his meeting with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, and then the Players' arrival. He has just violently rejected Ophelia, and has yet to have his spirits lifted by the newcomers. Mel Gibson plays it as Hamlet at his lowest. He enters his ancestors' crypt, and surrounded by tombs and skeletons, he intones the speech. There is no question that he is alone and unheard. This is his depression talking as he faces death itself.

At first, I felt the intent of the speech was muddled by this staging. Shots of dead royals in their tombs as Hamlet talks about ending one's own life seemed jarring. Surely, those kings and queens didn't all commit suicide? And Hamlet praying to two different tombs surely took away from what would otherwise be a visit to his father's. But time and again, Zeffirelli has created meaning from imagery, replacing or supplementing the text. Looking at it with a more open mind, a new interpretation emanates from the scene. Zeffirelli's Hamlet isn't just facing suicide, but mortality itself. And opening this speech up to other ways of dying reminds us of a simple fact: There are more ways to commit suicide than the sudden stab of a dagger, or fall from a great height. By simply choosing to go against his uncle, Hamlet spells his own doom. It's not that he would commit suicide rather than commit regicide, it's that regicide is its own suicide. Not many men come out of such a mission unscathed or alive. We know this is a tragedy, so we know too that by choosing to act, Hamlet in effect commits suicide. He goes to his own death willingly. (Or does "the water come to him"? We must surely compare this speech to the gravedigger's later in the play.)

So though Zeffirelli changes the structure of the play to render moot the problem of Hamlet's backpeddling in Act III AFTER "the play's the thing", his staging here still evokes a justification for it. As written, Hamlet may well feign a speech about suicide to confuse the spies, but at the same time may sincerely discuss doubts about going through with his planned action. For such action will likely result in his death, and such an outcome naturally creates doubt, the nature of which he mentions.

Hamlet's anger rises through the speech - nothing new for Gibson's visceral performance - but ends in rhetorical defeat as the prince admits that great enterprises turn awry when they are over-thought, as they are here. His voice cracks, his shoulders stoop, and he goes back up to the world. In the next (previously discussed) scenes, he'll find his second wind.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - BBC '80

2011-09-25T10:53:00.000-03:00

From the anguish on Hamlet's face, Jacobi does not allow him to suspect he's being watched. He speaks directly to camera as Ophelia is sometimes seen walking in the background, unseen and oblivious. Once again, I'm entranced by Derek Jacobi's performance. He always manages to surprise me. His line readings convey perfectly the inner turbulence of the character, shifting tone as the character actually THINKS about what he's saying, rather than recites it. For example, here's an emotional reading of the opening lines of the speech: To be, [Bitterness verging on anger:] or not to be, [softer, a revelation to his audience:] that is the question. And later: [Anger:] To die, [sudden realization that pacifies him:] to sleep, no more. [...] [joy:] 'tis a consummation devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep; to sleep: [another realization, this one inspiring dread:] perchance to dream. And so on, keeping the speech fresh at every turn. This is not something Hamlet has rehearsed in his mind, it is the true outpouring of thought as it occurs. The list of hardships is just that, a list, until he gets to "pangs of despised love" when the items suddenly become personal, and Jacobi lets us know what is rhetoric and what Hamlet truly cares about.
When he takes his dagger out, it's to insouciantly mime a suicide. He does not really consider it, except as a day dream. Behind him, painted boards showing a hellish plain, the undiscovered country as background to this scene. What else can this decor be? Surely it has nothing to do with Denmark's topography. It adds to the reflective and dream-like quality given to the end of the speech. As Hamlet speaks of travelers not returning, he fingers his father's medallion. Does he wonder, as we do, at the Ghost's true identity? At the supposed finality of death? "Puzzles the will" almost takes on another meaning here. By this subtle action, Jacobi manages to connect this speech with the previous one (O what a rogue and peasant slave am I). Hyperion to a Satyr has often questioned why and how Hamlet suffers a setback in Act 3 after having come up with a plan to reveal the King's guilt, but there's a double proof to be sought at the end of Act 2. Hamlet must prove Claudius a murderer, lest he prove the Ghost (another King) a false harbinger. This adaptation of the play reconciles the apparent incongruity by more overtly turning thoughts of the Ghost's honesty to those of mortality. One thought evolves into another, for they are well linked.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Olivier '48

2011-09-17T10:49:00.000-03:00

Having placed this speech between the Nunnery scene and "The play's the thing", far from prying eyes, Olivier gives Hamlet a reason to sincerely deliver the speech. Hamlet has just hurt Ophelia deeply and learned he can trust no one. Without the Players in the mix, he hasn't had the opportunity to think the Mouse-Trap either. As we leave the previous sequence in one of those vertiginous camera moves, we move away from Ophelia's reaching hand (is she seeing the Ghost whose point-of-view Olivier's camera evokes? is this the onset of her madness?) and up, up, up, through walls and dizzying staircases until we land on the back of Hamlet's head, looking down from the highest parapet into the crashing waves below. The camera moves further in, zooming into his head itself - we even see his brain - until we're looking out through his eyes. Whatever spirit the camera represents and whose point of view we share, it can even go into a person's thoughts. It is a four-dimensional experience, with shifting perspectives and superimposed images. Hamlet's forehead with the foaming sea laid on top of it. Shifting back and forth between interior (voice-over) and exterior monologue. His "sea of troubles" in made manifest in the ocean itself, or indeed suggests the metaphor, and becomes a means to achieve the suicide he longs for. The cadence of internal/external monologue moves as the waves do, there is an ebb and flow to it. Say what you will of Olivier's choices (especially regarding some important cuts and restructuring), but he has a visual flair that adds meaning to the words.
He takes out a dagger, reclining on the castle spire, closes his eyes, and almost falls asleep. The camera slowly creeps towards him until a musical sting brings him out of his reverie, pushing the camera back to a more objective POV as he cries "perchance to dream!". Hamlet's lassitude makes him accidentally drop his dagger into the sea, an image of the very inaction the soliloquy uncovers. Not only could that dagger be used to commit suicide, but also to commit murder. Hamlet loses his resolve for either, and again, Olivier visually enhances the idea.

He does so again at the end of the speech. When Hamlet talks about "enterprises of great pith and moment", he stands on the platform, facing outward to his country, its past, his father's deeds, the missing Fortinbras. When they "turn awry" in the speech, he turns back inward, to Elsinore, his problems and his lonely fate. The irony of these lines is revealed. Hamlet's greatness (and Denmark's) is turned awry by his fatal flaw, that of inaction. He leaves with a now complete loss of motivation, his passions waiting to be reignited by the arrival of the Players.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be - Branagh '96

2011-09-11T09:46:00.002-03:00

Hamlet has been called to the Hall of Mirrors, but no one's there. He enters trepidatiously and ends up facing himself in a mirror, triggering a meditation on self-slaughter. Each of those mirrors is also a door, and at least some of those doors have a special feature that allows you to look through the mirror. It's a wonderful cinematic conceit that allows Hamlet to say the speech directly to Claudius and Polonius, giving it an additional layer of irony and meaning. Suddenly, the "sea of troubles" is right behind the door and Hamlet talks about taking arms against his uncle.He simultaneously would take arms against himself, as he is talking to his own reflection. In this one mise en scène, everything Hamlet is facing is represented. The enemies both without and within (for what if his madness is making him believe all this?). The scene's central ambiguity remains. Does Hamlet know he's being seen? We've seen him navigate Elsinore's various secret passages and priest holes, so it's possible he knows (or at least suspects) spies are on the other side of the mirror. We can't know if ALL the mirrors are two-way, or if Hamlet specifically chose one that was. The irony works whether Hamlet is aware of it or not, of course.

Taken as an address to Claudius, the words take on a different bent, in particular the enumeration of this world's evils one (he) must bear. The oppressor's wrong is most on the nose, but there's also law's delay (justice for his father's murder subverted) and insolence of office. Hamlet must also deal with despised love and at least one proud man. Reverse the idea and make Hamlet address himself. How much of what he says can apply to him? In the next sequence, he will admit to being proud, for example. If his talk of suicide is sincere, how much of it is motivated by an unwillingness to become the monster he knows he must become to enact his revenge? How much is to protect his loved ones from himself? Hamlet knows he's about to get a confession from Claudius, knows events are about to speed towards a dreadful resolution. One answer to why he would contemplate suicide at the turning point of the play is that it's his last chance to prevent the evils that must surely befall Elsinore if he goes through with his plan.
At the end of a slow advance towards the mirror, Hamlet pulls out a dagger (the "bare bodkin"), eliciting a startled reaction from the men watching on the other side. Claudius almost seems to grab at Polonius to make sure the man doesn't cry out or attempt to stop Hamlet. The frame (above) quotes an earlier moment in which Hamlet kisses the sword and swears revenge. The death of a father, the promised murder of a stepfather, the idea of self-annihilation. These ideas are interconnected. As Hamlet speaks the "safe words", making his plans "lose the name of action", he taps the point of the dagger on the mirror. The image is ambiguous, but full of possibilities. Hamlet might be killing himself symbolically, or at least his past self, finally shedding the man who would never commit murder, finally erasing the books in his mind as promised at the end of Act I. He points the dagger at Claudius, but really sees himself, so might the mirror create an osmosis between murderers past and future? He might be attacking unreality itself, the world of thoughts but not of deeds. Or it could be an interesting way to stage the impossibility of suicide, as the blade hits a barrier of self-preservation before it can ever reach Hamlet's self.

In this most astute piece of staging, Branagh manages to open the speech up to new and interesting interpretation.

III.i. To Be or Not to Be

2011-09-03T07:21:00.003-03:00

The most famous words in the English language and almost the dead center of the play, this speech is reputedly the bane of every actor who is ever to play Hamlet. After all, your audience is likely to know it by rote, may well have seen other actors do it, and remember those performances clearly. What do you bring to it that is your own and yet true to the character? How do you re-interpret and make fresh a speech that is so famous as to slip into cliché? And devoid of context, as multiple pop culture quotations of it have been, that may be true. Within the context of the play itself, it continues to fascinate. First of all, what is it about? The easy answer is suicide, but why would Hamlet consider such an act now? He's just been revitalized by the arrival of the Players and hopes to catch his uncle in a trap. Some stagings have chosen to restructure the play so that the speech comes in Act II instead as a way to resolve (or cheat) this issue. (I attempt my own answer in the body of the text, below.) The director and actor must also decide if Hamlet's words are heard by anyone else, and if Hamlet knows that he's being spied upon. What we might forget is that not only are Claudius and Polonius standing behind an arras, but Ophelia has never exited the stage. The conventions of theater still allow Hamlet to pronounce his soliloquy to the audience alone, but what if the other characters hear his meditation on death and afterlife? And if Hamlet DOES know he's being watched, how much of the speech can still be sincere and how much is performance? Shakespeare's words in italics.

Enter HAMLET
HAMLET: To be, or not to be: that is the question:

That is the question indeed. There is something implied in the choice of verb here that is more profound than "to live or not to live" or "to die or not to die" or "to commit suicide or not to commit suicide". The question is about existence itself. Critic Harold Bloom likes to say - and I like to believe it true - that Hamlet is one of two characters that got away from Shakespeare (the other is Falstaff). So complex, deep and ALIVE, that he delays the play's action rather than allow events to proceed towards his inevitable death. Hamlet approaches meta-fiction in this sense, as if instinctively aware that he is a character in someone else's story (he calls her Fortune), and he refuses to let that story play out as scripted. Because if he is, as he suspects, in a tragedy, it will inevitably end with his death. And even if it didn't, the end of the story would signal the end of all its characters anyway. It is Hamlet who forces the story to last as long as it does (problematically long). And though he does die at the end, he is ready to do, as if aware that he did enough during the length of the story to achieve a certain literary immortality (indisputable in hindsight). Compare to Falstaff who has a false death scene in his first appearance, goes on to star in a play that has nothing to do with Prince Hal, and then dies off-stage rather than on it. Hamlet may dress it up in ideas of suicide, possibly for the benefit of the spies, but he's sincerely talking about oblivion. And would the murder of his uncle not send him to the same hellish place suicide would?

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;

The speech sits in the middle of the play so should act as a turning point. Structurally, it would seem that a better turning point is "The play's the thing" or even Claudius' "Give me light", but "there's the rub" is a strong contender. Before this line, Hamlet is dour and would rather die than complete his mission. After it, he rejects suicide. He rejects Ophelia, sending her into madness. And Claudius, hearing all this, confirms his order to send him to England where he'll have him killed. Hamlet's choice is "to be" and it is made at this point in the speech. And since he "is", he completes his mission and fulfills the promise of the tragedy.

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

Hamlet's vision is grim indeed. The only reason we don't kill ourselves is from fear of what lay beyond. Could the after-life be worse than the mortal world itself? But such is life in the unweeded garden.

But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will

In the play, we have Denmark, Norway, Poland and England, but Death is the fifth country and perhaps the most important one. Hamlet Sr. went to Norway, but eventually had to go to that "undiscovered country" too, as will most of the characters. There is also a hint her that Hamlet may be putting on a show for his observers: He says no traveller returns from there, but clearly, he's met at least one - his father's ghost - who has told him a little something about the horrors of that other world. He does not reveal this fact here. Because he doesn't want to let his secret mission slip from his lips? Or is it because he has more or less forgotten what started the ball rolling, "blunting his purpose"?

And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.--Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

As the speech ends, Hamlet finally notices Ophelia...

III.i. Briefings - Classics Illustrated

2011-08-27T08:38:00.000-03:00

The original
The sequence does not appear in the 1952 comic. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are given a mission, but we never see them on it, nor report back to the King. As for the set-up to Ophelia's encounter with Hamlet, space considerations leave it to the plan being first mentioned in Act II.

The Berkley versionTom Mandrake's adaptation, however, gives the sequence a full - and unusually sunny - page. Space is still a concern, with cuts both in dialog and images changing the "staging" of the sequence. R&G's report, for example, now amounts to a single line ("He does confess himself...") and does not include the invitation to the play. This omission actually highlights an irony in the play. In the play, Claudius makes a show of happiness to hear Hamlet has found joy in the Players. He then goes on to spy on the prince and set things in motion for his exile. Here, there is no false show of emotion, and that's perhaps because Gertrude has been cut entirely from the scene.

Compressing so much dialog into so few panels has a powerful effect. It rushes things. There is greater momentum to the story, but it also changes how we might perceive any given exchange. For example, it here looks like Claudius is informing R&G of his plans for Ophelia. While most stagings of the play have made Polonius say his "We are oft to blame in this" speech to Claudius (sharing the "we"), here he says it to Ophelia, a rare apology from the character. Needs must. There is no space, nor any compositional advantage, to craft panels with the correct expressions and facing characters to properly interpret each exchange and nuance. Reading these comics, it is clear that Hamlet is a drama meant to be ACTED.

III.i. Briefings - Tennant (2009)

2011-08-26T07:33:00.001-03:00

The sequence sits right on top of the film's structural change. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern's debriefing acts as preamble to Claudius' reaction to the nunnery scene, and so as a way to get back to the timeline as written. Ophelia's instructions, precursor as ever to "To be or not to be" and the nunnery scene occurs long before, at the tail end of the sequence this blog called "Brevity" (just before the fishmonger scene).

Part I - Rosencrantz & GuildensternThe restructuring means that by the time R&G get to Claudius, the King has already seen Hamlet throwing Ophelia about and playing games with Polonius. As in the original text, being aware of all this means he's primed and ready to send his stepson to England. He's made up his mind. While R&G make their report, the King and Queen simply use each consecutive argument to justify their opinions. When there is talk of crafty madness, Claudius wags his finger in an "I told you so" motion at Gertrude. She, in turn, asks leading questions that have an unspoken yet audible "yes but" behind them. Yes but... did he receive you well? She's building a defense for her son, and is happy when the retorts go her way, discomfited when the other twin puts a different spin on the same answer.

The staging reveals why R&G each take a side. In the story, one is sucking up to the Queen and the other to the King. In the drama, the Royals are enacting their argument THROUGH the sycophants. By their reactions, the King and Queen are suggesting answers to two people who only really want to say what the Royals want to hear, and so they do.

Part 2 - Ophelia
Here too, there is innovation from the cast and director Gregory Doran. It seems that in this version, Gertrude doesn't know Ophelia at all! She's unsure about the girl's name and says it with a question mark attached, and lets out a surprised, little "oh" when Ophelia takes her hand. There is no doubt her heart is warmed by the gesture, and that her words are sincere, but they are not borne of long-standing affection. What does it mean? Well, she doesn't know her son as well as she thinks she does, for one thing. For another, it lends weight to Polonius and Laertes warning Ophelia away from Hamlet at the start of the play. Was he perhaps a bit of a lad (at least before Ophelia)? His mother doesn't seem to keep up with who the latest girlfriend is. And what will be the impact of this choice on Gertrude's description of Ophelia's suicide?

"To both your honors." As it's often played - for I had not considered another possibility - this seems to refer to the honors of both Ophelia and Hamlet. That if love is the cause of Hamlet's madness, then the truth of it would heal both he and Ophelia. This Gertrude is more direct in addressing the line to Polonius, which makes more sense. It would be to Ophelia's honor that she be the object of this love/madness, and to Polonius' that his theory be correct.

As Gertrude is dismissed and the scene turns to instructions for Ophelia, we see Hamlet coming down an adjacent corridor, the words echoing quite clearly. He's heard it all and definitely knows he'll be watched in the nunnery scene (however, "To be or not to be" is still spoken quietly enough to register as unseen by the spies). A word on Hamlet's t-shirt as it's its first chronological appearance even if we've seen it before in these articles:
Apparently an old t-shirt of Tennant's, it's a bit flashy for the dark, brooding Hamlet, but takes on an ironic meaning. The muscled chest depicted relates to Hamlet's earlier comparison between himself and Hercules. We are invited to compare the mythic demigod with the thin, disturbed boy in front of us.

One final thing: There's a hilarious bit when Polonius takes the book Ophelia is to read from a large folder. In this hyper-surveillance world, did Polonius catalog, index and file all of Hamlet's mementos to Ophelia? It's as ludicrous and self-important as the First Minister himself.

III.i. Briefings - Fodor (2007)

2011-08-22T20:09:00.001-03:00

The conspirators are in a dark space, made stranger by often abstract angles, watching Hamlet practice his fencing from behind a two-way mirror. There is much to learn about the characters as Fodor imagines them here. The camera follows glances from Polonia's chest to Claudius' eyes, for example, and the two characters are sometimes standing next to each other, sometimes have Gertrude between them. Continuity mistake? The effect is to make the Queen's relevance intermittent at best. Even Ophelia, naive in the way she gazes at Hamlet, gleefully smiles at the end of the sequence when the Queen notices, powerless, that Polonia and Claudius are holding hands. The Queen knows of her husband's infidelities, but bears them and the scorn and ridicule of the entire house. This is a world with far more palpable corruption, and one gets a sense from these events that the King is not so much do things for Gertrude as he is for Polonia. Polonia's motivation is manipulation for manipulation's sake, or simply to do evil. She drugs her sister to control her, keeps her away from Hamlet, and is now bored with that and tries something else. Hamlet is either the object of a certain vengeance (he and Horatio have humiliated her with the truth of their words - a more distracted, older Polonius would probably not react like that), or a pretext for getting closer to the King. The idea that she is in control here is presented visually by having Rosencrantz & Guildenstern seem to speak to her more than to the King. The King is not in the frame, and Polonia, being closer, becomes the most powerful (largest) figure.

R&G are less sycophantic in this version, they just share Polonia's evil bent. In fact, only Gertrude in any way smiles. The others are all cold and calculating. They report their findings while watching Hamlet, as if he were some laboratory animal. "There did seem a kind of joy" is said with the voice of a scientist, observing an intriguing behavior. Polonia entreats the King to "hear and see the matter" in what sounds like a further variable. There is no sincerity in Polonia's voice; she essentially says "Let's see what happens when we humor him." It is an experiment.

Hamlet ends his practice (with an unnamed characters), and tells his sparring partner that he "fights like a girl". This departure from the text has an ironic bent, since Hamlet's adversaries in the play include two women (three in this adaptation), and he is about to have a confrontation (possibly violent) with one of them. He then goes up to the mirror to fix his shirt. Ophelia looks right into his eyes, unseen. She's a manipulator too, though her goal may be different. She is happy to be part of this plan and will not show the doubt and fear other Ophelias have been prone to. As he lies down to rest in the white room, Ophelia leaves the dark one to join him.

III.i. Briefings - Hamlet 2000

2011-08-19T07:37:00.001-03:00

We get into the sequence through the invitation to The Mouse-Trap, the title of Hamlet's film within a film, spoiled a good while before it is in the text. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are on the phone with the King, speaking the single line "We shall, my Lord" together, comically. It's an efficient piece of modern staging, putting great distance between the royals and the sycophants, and playing on the duo's "sameness" by having them huddle around the same phone (at least, in our imaginations).
While that is going on, Polonius is strapping a wire onto Ophelia, yet another piece of modern technology used to simulate the Elizabethan "behind an arras" technique. There's something rather creepy and hilarious at the same time about all this. Polonius winking at the royals as he seemingly fondles his own daughter, the gesture made more inappropriate by the royals ogling the situation lasciviously. There's in fact something very sexual about Gertrude in this adaptation. Here, she's halfway sitting on her husband, and talking about Ophelia's "virtues" in ironic quotation marks. She seems to infer that Ophelia's power over Hamlet is sexual, and that all her son really needs is a good roll in the hay. This Gertrude is someone who solves her problems with sex, having promptly changed her widow's fortune into a wedding, and definitely enjoying the honeymoon period. There's no real affection for Ophelia here. it's about using the girl as a sex object, if not to "fix" Hamlet, then at least to get information from him.
There are a lot of lines cut from the sequence - we come in late on the phone conversation, and the modern spin must avoid mentioning certain anachronisms - but the most important are Ophelia's. She has no lines at all, remaining silent and weeping through the entire ordeal. Cutting "I wish it may" makes her an unwilling participant in the scheme and supports her later suicide, making the royals and her father share in the responsibility along with Hamlet. The cuts also support the idea that the meeting will not be accidental. Ophelia will have to go to Hamlet while the older men listen in on the conversation. It also means that they won't hear "To be or not to be", nor will they be able to see what's going on. But those are all matters for the next time we pick the adaptation up, and I won't spoil them here.

III.i. Briefings - Kline '90

2011-08-11T07:00:00.001-03:00

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern's appearance is cut from Act III Scene 1, leaving us to imagine them giving Claudius their meager findings off-stage. We instead start with Claudius asking Gertrude to leave so they can spy on Ophelia, the proper start of the second briefing. This Gertrude doesn't seem to mind and is content to obey her husband. Ophelia, for her part, is enthusiastic! She evidently believes this ploy will work and that her father's theory is likely the correct one. After the scene recounted by Ophelia earlier, who could blame her? His first show of madness, as far as Elsinore is concerned (Horatio and the soldiers were sworn to silence), was to Ophelia. Most actresses use how shaken Ophelia was in that first sequence to inform her meeting with Hamlet, apprehensive and hurt rather than hopeful, but playing the opposite is quite correct too. Hopefully, that choice will play out in interesting ways later in the scene.

Josef Sommer's Polonius remains as pedantic as ever, instructing his daughter on where and how to walk, as if talking to a child, which is all the more ridiculous given his Ophelia's apparent maturity.

III.i. Briefings - Zeffirelli '90

2011-08-09T17:09:00.001-03:00

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern's debriefing is played silently in Zeffirelli's vision, with them running up to the King while Hamlet looks on, unseen, and is moved to utter what words of the "O what a peasant slave am I" speech the film retains. This makes their treachery more brazen and/or gauche, which will always have the perverse effect of weakening Hamlet. It's no great achievement to outplay the too-incompetent R&G.
Ophelia's own briefing takes place well before - "To be or not to be" and the nunnery scene are placed at the end of Act II, just after the "Words, words, words" sequence - and is missing the front end of the conversation. We begin at Gertrude's "I do wish that your good beauties", which has the strange effect of giving Gertrude control over the scheme. Though the Queen treats Ophelia with much affection, but looks over the girl's shoulder at Polonius as if instructing him as well as his daughter, or perhaps letting him know that he's on the hook for his theory. Gertrude then has a silent moment with her husband as Ophelia and Polonius go down the stairs to the "lobby", hands are kissed and cheeks stroked before Claudius leaves her too. She stands at the top of the stairs a moment before leaving. That position of power again seems to point to a more manipulative Queen, at least pushing this ploy against her son. She does not "obey" Claudius, but seems to command him to do her dirty business. She means well, of course, but it does put her role in court politics into question. While perhaps not aware of Claudius' crime, how much did she actively seize a moment when she allied herself with him?

Another important cut: Claudius does not make a confessional aside. Zeffirelli does his best to take away any kind of regret from this character. His Claudius is a more obvious and one-dimensional villain (unfortunately), and it would not do to make him more sympathetic with even the perception of pangs of regret.

III.i. Briefings - BBC '80

2011-08-06T09:24:00.000-03:00

A variety of attitudes is on show early in this sequence, which is what makes it interesting. Rosencrantz and Gertrude are as expected - he with a certain defensiveness and she with sadness and worry. Guildenstern, for his part, almost chuckles at Hamlet's "craft", showing some admiration at how the prince has prevented them from succeeding. This is self-serving in a sense (they only failed because Hamlet is so clever), but could also be seen as a lack of loyalty to the King, which makes Rosencrantz's defensiveness flare up.

As for Claudius, I always had misgivings about the way Patrick Stewart played him, some of them reformed by this analytical, scene-by-scene viewing. I may now understand the actor's choice to disconnect Claudius from his emotions, though it had at first seemed "false". But Claudius IS false, and so playing him that way is legitimate. It's like he doesn't mean anything he says here, and may well be putting on a show for Gertrude when he expresses happiness at Hamlet's play. Does he even mean his aside? Polonius only laughingly chide himself here - as ever missing the point and being jolly about serious matters - which makes Claudius' guilty turn more severe in tone, but Stewart holds back. He doesn't seem to feel the guilt, only to recognize that he remembers the murder and that he has ever since lied about it. His crime is so horrific that he dare not connect to his emotions. "He doesn't mean it" will be an apt phrase to recall when he asks God for absolution.

When he asks Gertrude to leave, he searches for the right words, painting him as a liar there too. Claudius' attitude leads me to ask whether the plan to send Hamlet to England is already in motion. In a few minutes, Hamlet will have played the savage with Ophelia and Claudius will state that in "quick determination", he's made the decision, but it's so quick, it might already have been on his mind. In other words, he doesn't want Gertrude there so he can come to his foregone conclusion no matter what. Hamlet just happens to give him cause.

And in the category of line readings that inform the text, I'd like to mention "Good gentlemen, give him a further edge, And drive his purpose on to these delights" as spoken by Stewart's Claudius. His emphases reveal some delicious ironies in the words. On the one hand, Shakespeare has Claudius use a violent metaphor where none should apply, entreating Hamlet to enjoy working on his play by turning him into a weapon. And on the other hand, Claudius doesn't know that the play IS a weapon against him, Hamlet's added lines the whetting of a blade that will eventually lead to a very real sword driven into him. He's ordering his own murder and doesn't know it.

III.i. Briefings - Olivier '48

2011-08-01T08:15:00.002-03:00

As Rosencrantz & Guildenstern do not appear in this version of the play, only Ophelia need be briefed. And as "To be or not to be" is uttered in Act II, she need not be subjected to overhearing it. So what are we left with? Quite an interesting piece of staging, actually. The innocent Ophelia's status as a victim is emphasized in this film. She comes down a corridor, unawares, and his ambushed by her father, just as he intends her to ambush Hamlet. His hand holding a book comes out of nowhere, and surprises her - a violent penetration into her interior world. This Ophelia has not been prepared for what is to come, which will add to her confusion and the unfairness of the situation. It's very clever.

Once she gets her instructions, Polonius and the King go behind and arras, though not before Polonius points repeatedly at the spot where he wants her to stand. As ever, he means to control members of his family - something he has in common with Claudius - though once he's hidden, Ophelia is left to mill around, despondent. In Ophelia's every movement, there is discomfort. She is going back and forth in her own mind as to whether she should or even could disobey her father. The decision is taken out of her hands when Hamlet finally enters, startling her.

III.i. Briefings - Branagh '96

2011-07-30T09:33:00.000-03:00

An impatient and even angry Claudius enters, followed by the scene's other participants, including Ophelia who we easily forget is present during Rosencrantz & Guildenstern's debriefing (perhaps because the sequence is cut into separate scenes in some versions). But as written, she hears their report, which may well play into a certain anxiety or fear when she soon after meets Hamlet. The way Jacobi plays Claudius here, "why he puts on this confusion" definitely sounds like an accusation. Does he suspect him of faking? As this scene reveals, Claudius is guilty of something, so his paranoia may be responsible for his mistrust of Hamlet's madness, and his real reason for trying to find out what's causing it. All he gets is ambivalence from R&G, the pair going back and forth on whether Hamlet is mad or not, which to be fair, is the same back and forth presented by Hamlet himself. Faced with the King's frustration, which seems to "distract" him as much as Hamlet is "distracted" - the King and Prince are indeed each other's obsessions - the brown-nosing Rosencrantz takes implicit credit in the players' effect on Hamlet.

Meanwhile, the camera spins around the actors, a reference to their continued confusion, but also a way to create suspense for the coming violence. Ophelia, tellingly, is left alone under some stairs, stranded. She will be the victim of that violence, but for now is unseen, allowing Hamlet to embark on his famous soliloquy while she's as much a spy as Claudius and Polonius are. As for Gertrude, she is dismissed and we may ask ourselves why. Does Claudius mean to hide his findings from her? Is he protecting her from what he feels could be an explosive situation? There's a sense, especially in her looks, that she's being manipulated here, and as we'll find out later, Claudius already has his mind made up and he will brook no alternate interpretation.
Polonius, in earnest, chides himself by using the "we" that links him to Claudius. Both are parents, although Claudius is a false one, both biologically and morally. In the aside that follows, Jacobi makes Claudius a sympathetic figure, a good man who gave in to temptation and went wrong. This ambiguity is one of the reasons this version pleases me so much. We completely believe in his remorse, though it doesn't change a thing. It's something that is revisited in the confessional scene.

And the sense of urgency is maintained in this second part of the sequence as the characters must hustle to their places as Hamlet approaches. A shot of Ophelia standing behind a small section of wall reminds us of her presence and the stage is set for the most famous words in the English language.

III.i. Briefings

2011-07-23T10:02:00.003-03:00

We start the third Act with a scene that's again too long to do in one go. I've split it into three sequences: Briefings, in which Rosencrantz & Guildenstern brief Claudius and Gertrude on what they've "learned" from Hamlet, after which Ophelia is instructed to bump into the prince; the "To be or not to be" speech; and the Nunnery scene in which Hamlet meets Ophelia not at all by accident, while being observed by Claudius and Polonius. Let's take a look at that first sequence, with Shakespeare's words in italics, as usual.

SCENE I. A room in the castle.
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, QUEEN GERTRUDE, POLONIUS, OPHELIA, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN
KING CLAUDIUS: And can you, by no drift of circumstance,

Intriguingly, the scene starts in medias res. That "And" certainly infers that the briefing has been going on for a bit, and that R&G have yet to submit new information. This is interesting because for the rest of the sequence, R&G play for time, attempt to ingratiate themselves, and are generally desperate to please. Might we understand the King to be impatient with them already? If there's a part of the briefing we were not privy to, it strengthens both sides' motivations, and if Claudius is not yet impatient with them in the text, he soon will be at the next meeting.

Get from him why he puts on this confusion,
Grating so harshly all his days of quiet
With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?
ROSENCRANTZ: He does confess he feels himself distracted;
But from what cause he will by no means speak.
GUILDENSTERN: Nor do we find him forward to be sounded,
But, with a crafty madness, keeps aloof,
When we would bring him on to some confession
Of his true state.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: Did he receive you well?
ROSENCRANTZ: Most like a gentleman.
GUILDENSTERN: But with much forcing of his disposition.
ROSENCRANTZ: Niggard of question; but, of our demands,
Most free in his reply.

An example of R&G's double-speak. Each twin has his own strategy to please the Court. Rosencrantz doesn't want to rock the boat, and perhaps especially in Gertrude's presence, covers any intimation of Hamlet's wrong-doing with praise. Guildenstern, for his part, is more straightforward and honest, trying to do a good job for the King rather than play the sycophant.

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Did you assay him?
To any pastime?
ROSENCRANTZ: Madam, it so fell out, that certain players
We o'er-raught on the way: of these we told him;
And there did seem in him a kind of joy
To hear of it: they are about the court,
And, as I think, they have already order
This night to play before him.

Though film versions will often play with the time line of the play, Shakespeare clearly tells us here that Act III takes place the day after Act II. The Mouse-Trap is set to be played this night.

LORD POLONIUS: 'Tis most true:
And he beseech'd me to entreat your majesties
To hear and see the matter.
KING CLAUDIUS: With all my heart; and it doth much content me
To hear him so inclined.
Good gentlemen, give him a further edge,
And drive his purpose on to these delights.
ROSENCRANTZ: We shall, my lord.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS: Sweet Gertrude, leave us too;
For we have closely sent for Hamlet hither,

This is a line that we hardly ever think about, but it could prove important. Hamlet has been sent for so that Ophelia can accidentally intercept him. This may have a role to play in any given actor's decision to play "To be or not to be" as a performance from Hamlet. Does he know he's being watched? The fact he's heading to a destination he's been called to could me he strongly suspects.

That he, as 'twere by accident, may here
Affront Ophelia:

"Affront" is an interesting word. It means "meet face to face", but it does playfully prefigure the "affront" of Hamlet's attack upon Ophelia.

Her father and myself, lawful espials,

Claudius, ever the politician, paints himself as a "lawful" spy. Whatever the King does is law, after all. This may also connect to his justification for killing Hamlet Sr. Did he think it the right thing to do at the time? Since we don't know much about Hamlet's father, except the praise filtered through the prince's own recollections and the rather nasty Ghost he has become, perhaps Claudius WAS justified. Or perhaps he just has the kind of mind that allows him to justify any action.

Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing, unseen,
We may of their encounter frankly judge,
And gather by him, as he is behaved,
If 't be the affliction of his love or no
That thus he suffers for.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: I shall obey you.
And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish
That your good beauties be the happy cause
Of Hamlet's wildness: so shall I hope your virtues
Will bring him to his wonted way again,
To both your honours.
OPHELIA: Madam, I wish it may.

Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE

LORD POLONIUS: Ophelia, walk you here. Gracious, so please you,
We will bestow ourselves.
[To OPHELIA] Read on this book;
That show of such an exercise may colour
Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this,--
'Tis too much proved--that with devotion's visage
And pious action we do sugar o'er
The devil himself.
KING CLAUDIUS: [Aside] O, 'tis too true!
How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!
The harlot's cheek, beautied with plastering art,
Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it
Than is my deed to my most painted word:
O heavy burthen!
LORD POLONIUS: I hear him coming: let's withdraw, my lord.

Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

Polonius' regret at having told Ophelia to spurn Hamlet brings out Claudius' own guilt. In effect, the audience confirms before Hamlet does that Claudius is a villain. Calling his words "painted" covers everything that went before with a veil of irony. Words like "lawful", "frankly" and his contentment over Hamlet's interest in theater may all be false. The aside retains a certain measure of ambiguity however. Claudius does not confess to murder here, we only believe he does because that's what Hamlet accuses him of and that's where our loyalty lies. Polonius accuses himself of meddling under the guise of piety and devotion, and so that's the only thing Claudius really admits to. As a politician, he too has sugared over his political manipulations with high-sounding words - his speech at the wedding banquet, for example, or even his false concern over Hamlet being actually motivated by a desire to keep his Queen happy.

Note also that Ophelia does not exit, and in a stage production, one should expect her to be lurking on stage during "To be or not to be" (unnoticed?). In films, greater distance can be placed between characters not locked to a relatively small space, but as we'll see, some chose to keep the stage directions as intended.

These are some of the issues facing actors and directors as we head into their interpretations of the sequence.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Classics Illustrated

2011-07-19T07:00:00.002-03:00

The originalThe speech is mostly omitted from this adaptation as again, the First Player never moved Hamlet to pronounce it. What we keep is this explanation of why Hamlet asked for The Murder of Gonzago in the previous panel. As usual, this comic is almost entirely focused on plot rather than character. Note the educational note to explain the word "blench".

The Berkley version
"Now I am alone" is not spoken, but shown in the topmost panel:
Tom Mandrake's adaptation is much more concerned with mood and tries to retain as many of the famous lines as possible. Though the Player didn't get to do the Priam speech, Mandrake keeps most of the speech intact, cutting only specific references to the Player's performance. So in this version, Hamlet chastises himself for not having acted yet as a prologue to detailing his plan to catch the King's conscience. It's a well done sequence that resolves the question of when Hamlet thought of the Mouse-Trap smoothly, while keeping the self-doubt of the first part of the speech. In many performances, the second part of the speech is a reaction to the first. Hamlet accuses himself of inaction, so decides to act. Here, the first part explains the second, with Hamlet telling us why he has now chosen to act. Of course, a lot of this is thanks to the comics medium itself. Hamlet doesn't really go through a number of emotions and expressions, because the number of panels is limited. (In fact, there's a very interesting re-use of the same panel twice, as speech bubbles flow back and forth between panels. It's a surprising use of page lay-out, even more so because it works smoothly and doesn't create confusion in the reader.) The page is read far faster than the speech could be delivered, and though it is technically comprised of three "panels", the lack of borders turns it into a single moment. This all helps create a unity of idea behind Hamlet's words instead of the oft-played "turn" in the middle of the soliloquy.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Slings & Arrows

2011-07-17T07:00:00.001-03:00

The montage from Slings & Arrows Season 1, episode 6, cuts this speech down to a single line (the first). In the context of the show, the actors playing Hamlet has been told the play is just five speeches - all you need is to get those right - to help him get through it. Jack Crew's own insecurities are transposed into the performance, and with this awkward gesture and disdainful delivery, he tells us as much about the actor than he does about the character. Hamlet is a play about play-acting, and Slings & Arrows certainly knows how to blur the line further. At once, we see Hamlet's auto derision at being a bad actor (i.e. unable to act in a non-Thespian context) and Jack Crew's fear that he is not a proper actor either (coming from action films rather than classical theater). And it's done sparingly, with a single line. Of course, as with all things, it's a single line that works because we, the audience, know both Hamlet's and Jack Crew's contexts.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Tennant (2009)

2011-07-15T09:32:00.001-03:00

To motivate "Now I am alone", Hamlet rips out the room's surveillance camera, and yet, ironically, speaks that line to the subjective camera (to us). Of course, who are we? In the text, we're simply the Elizabethan audience and this is part of how we understand drama. It should need no more explanation than border panels in comics or spontaneous musical numbers on Broadway. Modern audiences may attempt to find meta-textual motivations, especially when the play is performed in a modern setting. Not unlike Jacobi, Tennant will turn to us many times during this speech, but unlike Jacobi, his Hamlet does not exist in the Medieval world of the play. And yet, Polonius also spoke to camera, so it is difficult to call us madness-induced visions or some unseen character. Elizabethan we must be, though since asides and soliloquies are meant to express thoughts rather than speech, surely even an Elizabethan audience would consider itself, somehow, part of the character itself, the part one speaks to when one speaks to oneself. And perhaps this trope is what made Shakespeare focus far more on character study than on plot.
Hamlet sits in a corner, reflective but also filled with apprehension and fear. He is plainly disturbed by the Player's performance, or rather what it reveals about himself. He is the "tardy son" who needs to be chided. If someone can fake it, why can't he actually do it? When he finally stands up, he walks around drunk with confusion. There is an intriguing gesture on "no not for a King", where Hamlet shows his bandaged hand, a symbol of his oath to avenge his father. You might remember Hamlet cut his hand in Act I, Scene 4. He then walks right up to camera, full frame, and asks if we think he's a coward. In that instance, we may well be invisible characters, visions to be shouted at, but as an Elizabethan audience too, we must be Hamlet himself. He's the one who accuses him of such things. After screaming for vengeance, he collapses.

From that prone position, he starts thinking aloud and seems to have the idea about The Mouse-Trap right before our eyes and then runs off. How do we reconcile this with the fact he has already asked to add lines to The Murder of Gonzago? As with Jacobi, we might be prone to think he is only now confiding in us a plan he had earlier, but that doesn't seem to be the performance here. Is it a realization insofar as it brings him out of his confusion, a sudden remembering of the plan? Possibly. Or did he ask for a play that connected to his current obsessions, and even wanted to add lines that paid tribute to his father and/or brought the play more in line with his obsessions, and only NOW realizes that could flush out the murderer? Ambiguous, but as good a theory as any, and now Hamlet runs off to make further tweaks. This is the turning point in the play, and with "To be or not to be" displaced to a point before this one, all delays are behind him. Again, the structural change is understandable, and might prevent audiences from squirming in their seats as the action gets ever more delayed, but I believe that was Shakespeare's intention, and many lines (like Polonius's criticism of the Player's speech) point to this intent.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Fodor (2007)

2011-07-13T07:00:00.001-03:00

Hamlet's thought process via-à-vis this speech was almost all played out in his head during the previous sequence, through hallucinations that matched each of the Players with members of the Court. The effect the Players have on him is thus played rather than discussed (he doesn't unpack his heart with words). So the speech starts at "I have heard that guilty creatures sitting at a play", and because Horatio is present, those words are spoken to her. The soliloquy is turned into a (one-sided) conversation. Hamlet informs his friend of his plan, as he must do according to the text - Horatio is aware of the plan by the time the play rolls around - but there is no reaction from her (none are scripted, obviously). We simply fade to black.

Though we can of course mourn the loss of Hamlet's quest to better understand himself - these many cuts are part and parcel why William Belchambers is a weak Hamlet - we can still enjoy with interest the greater importance given to Horatio in the adaptation. She is present and even active through most of Act II, even though Shakespeare never included him/her in the text. And this element does work quite well. It makes the friendship more believable, and deepens the Horatio character. She is steadfast in her friendship to Hamlet, backing him up silently and thus, without judgment. Yes, it weakens Hamlet and any cuts made to the scenes where she is present seem to speak to some kind of self-censorship on his part (though the impression is only in the mind of the well-informed viewer who knows the text). Another reason it works as smoothly as it does is because the film takes place in the modern era, an era largely devoid of class issues. This Horatio may move about Elsinore, attend Hamlet and even face up to more highly placed "courtiers" (in the play's normal hierarchy, that is) without the social boundaries that would have prevented the "historical" Horatio from doing so.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Hamlet 2000

2011-07-11T09:36:00.000-03:00

2000's Hamlet does his soliloquy as voice-over, obviously depressed and watching an old movie (Rebel Without a Cause) in his bed, listlessly. In this version, film has replaced theater as Hamlet's interest, and indeed as a medium for the play (we will later have a film within a film, rather than a play within a film). No troupe of players arrives at Elsinore, but "Players" are continually arriving there (as they do in our own homes) via the television. The Player than moves Hamlet so is James Dean on tv, rather than an old friend (although this isolated Hamlet may think of old film actors as his only friends). Though the performance we see isn't particularly filled with the emotion Hamlet speaks of, the choice is nonetheless a good one. Like Hamlet, Dean was a self-destructive youth dead before his time, possibly by suicide. Rebel Without a Cause has an ironic connotation as well, since Hamlet most definitely has a cause but cannot bring himself to rebel. And so beyond the Player, we have his character, who rebels without cause, motivating Hamlet to finally act because he DOES. Hamlet starts to film the film for inclusion in "The Mouse-Trap".
Hamlet's films are made in editing and he need not call on a company of Players. As the speech continues, we see him at the editing table, crafting an experimental film from odd bits and pieces. Images include eyeless women (his mother), wilting flowers (surely a reference to Ophelia), lips on cheeks (adultery), a classic Hamlet with skull (an image of his father, though also disturbing because it makes reference to the play as if it exists in this world where its actions and words are repeated), and accusatory eyes. We'll have more cause to discuss these images and others as "The Mouse-Trap" actually unfolds.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Kline '90

2011-07-09T07:00:00.001-03:00

Kline's Hamlet looks around, makes sure he is alone before saying so. He has a small stage to play with and makes good use of it, at first sitting amazed at the First Player's performance while also letting a certain measure of outrage build until the energy of it makes him jump up on it. Outage that the Player dared show more emotion than he has allowed himself to, outrage also directed inward for needing a reminder that he has lost his way. As his frenzy builds, he spins and gesticulates, miming the drowning of the stage with tears, for example. There is a pregnant pause after "Am I a coward?". Kline makes Hamlet really ask himself the question, not as rhetoric, but in such a way that it demands an answer. After thinking about it for a moment, he starts pointing to imaginary people, shadows that call him villain and such, before he finally collapses into a fetal position, overwhelmed.
We're reminded that we have seen this Hamlet snap in Act 1, and that he is not wholly feigning his madness. The guilt of not yet having avenged his father (perhaps compounded with that of not having prevented the murder in the first place and/or of having survived while a great man did not) translates into accusers only he can see, giving some reason behind the soliloquies. These are essentially a running conversation with Hamlet's demons (perhaps not so apart from those more "literal" devils he fears are trying to damn him). In a vision of the play where the Ghost is part and parcel of Hamlet's madness, his suspicious and ultimately murderous impulses are completely generated from within, psychologically. Only Horatio and the soldiers prevent us from taking this analytical route exclusively.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Zeffirelli '90

2011-07-07T07:00:00.001-03:00

Zeffirelli cuts some 30 lines from the speech, most from the opening as the First Player now makes no impression with an impassioned speech of his own, so Hamlet cannot react to it. Instead, he starts with "Am I a coward?" and looking at his two faux-friends report to the King, he questions his ability to avenge his murdered father. Gibson's visceral, highly emotional performance removes the need for a trigger. In the play as written, Hamlet is shamed by the Player's performance. Here, the character's wild and intense emotions make shame bubble up without the need for it. Gibson's Hamlet often loses his temper and commits some small act of violence as words get caught in his throat. It happens again in this sequence and overwhelmed, he must leave the doorway lest he be heard. In a rage underscoring the litany of scripted insults, he vents his anger by beating his cloak on the ramp of the stairs he climbs, emerging at the top only slightly relieved of it, tears in his eyes. It cannot be said that Gibson is the most subtle of actors, so there is relatively little variation in his performance through this section, but it works within the context of his acute emotionalism.

Then we discover that Hamlet has NOT already ordered "The Murder of Gonzago". The whole idea of the "Mouse-Trap", he has before our eyes, eliminating that particular ambiguity. Through a window, Hamlet hears, then sees the Players unpacking and it slowly dawns on him this could be used to prove the King's culpability. As with Olivier's version, "To be or not to be" was moved to a point before this one, and so Hamlet's forward momentum will not brook delay now. This is closer to a normal movie structure, and it shouldn't be surprising given that both Olivier and Zeffirelli set out to make a Hamlet accessible to mass movie audiences. Elements that might test that audience's patience are dutifully removed wherever they can be.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - BBC '80

2011-07-05T07:00:00.002-03:00

Jacobi plays the soliloquy AS a soliloquy, directly to camera, and this achieves at least two distinctive effects. The first is that it makes us confidants to the prince. The soliloquy, when it appears as inner thought, gives the impression of sudden realizations at odds with the fact Hamlet has already set his plan in motion with the Players. Jacobi reconciles this by creating someone (us) to talk to (which is, of course, how the theatrical play would often be presented). He is just now telling us what he thought and felt while watching the First Player's dramatic speech. Those realizations are being relayed after the fact and do not occur in real time. This goes a long way towards solving sequence issues in the play.

Not say the soliloquy is detached from the moment. Jacobi allows Hamlet's emotions to interfere with his confidential conversation. Sadness, grief and discouragement border on despair, and he lets his anger take hold of him when shouting "Who calls me villain?" at the walls. The name calling and cries of vengeance are enacted theatrically, with a wooden sword, as if part of the play to come. Is Hamlet here imagining some scene in "The Murder of Gonzago" we never get to see (as that play's action is aborted much as this one is delayed)?
This bit of business - which smooths over what can often turn into hysterics - brings Hamlet back on topic. Because he's imagining himself an actor, able to act the part written for him without guilt or remorse (characters are guiltless, but Hamlet is instead his own author), it reminds him of his plan, a plan he has already put in motion and is just now telling us about. With furtive eyes, Hamlet quite clearly thinks twice before letting us in on his secret. Here, a second effect is brought to bear. He makes US feel like "guilty creatures sitting at a play", an examination of conscience Shakespeare must have been aware he was asking of the audience. Murder is perhaps not in the common experience, but are there things in Hamlet that we have been guilty of? Do WE "blench" during the play? Which of our sins do we project unto the characters and which of their sins do we see ours reflected in? What makes us uncomfortable about the play? It is theater as moral lesson, though that lesson comes not from example, but from self-examination (which is, in many ways, the lesson of all mature Shakespearean characters).

Speaking of self-examination, one of Hamlet's most interesting reactions to his own words is the realization that he may be abused by a devil. It is very much like he WANTS it to be so. Yes that must be it! He wants the Ghost to be proven wrong, so repellent is murder - even for justice - to him. Hamlet goes a little mad on the last couplet, both crying and laughing as he says it. There is a strange spin on the word "king", something that brings the laughter to a halt. My take is that he seems to have accepted Claudius' place on the throne, calling him king instead of, say, uncle. Does his love for his father (as it relates to his thirst for revenge) have a kind of "whick or snuff", the very thing Claudius means to have Laertes renounce later in the play? As we continue to compare the two sons in the play, one too impetuous and the other too reflective, we might recognize how Jacobi has integrated the whole of the play's themes into every part of his performance. Laertes' passion will not abate, so the opposite Hamlet could, in time, have forgiven or forgotten his father's unproven murder.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Olivier '48

2011-07-04T09:42:00.003-03:00

As the Players leave, Hamlet looks on and pauses at their theatrical paraphernalia left on the raised throne, a bare stage that evokes the coming drama. Olivier then cuts the entire soliloquy, leaving only the last couplet ("The play's the thing wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king!"). Not so strange an omission, since he cut the Player's emotional speech in the previous sequence. He looks excited at the prospect of what's to come, runs to the stage, and as the lights dramatically highlight him, shouts out the line with a flourish of both action and music.

Too large a cut? It's true that Hamlet can't compare himself to the Player, but he could still have kept the lines in which Hamlet explains his plan. But as he explains it again to Horatio later AND we see it for ourselves, there remains opportunity enough to make it clear to the audience. What we lose is Hamlet's thought process in coming up with it in the first place. That is played entirely internally instead, though we can't say the idea of Hamlet looking for "grounds more relative" is retained. But in Olivier's restructuring, Hamlet is past inaction (this scene now occurring AFTER "To be or not to be"), so it makes sense not to dwell on that aspect. At this point, Olivier wants his Hamlet to move forward, to finally take action rather than doubt himself, and his energy definitely goes in that direction. It'll be interesting to compare it with Zeffirelli's 1990 and Tennant's 2009 performances which also displace "To be or not to be" this way.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I - Branagh '96

2011-07-01T10:21:00.000-03:00

Another soliloquy done in a single shot that follows Hamlet around the room begins with the prince out of breath, having just run into his study to hide. According to Branagh's own commentary, Hamlet is exhibiting relief, because it's the first time he hasn't been watched in a long while. We're at the tail end of a long sequence in which Hamlet was accosted by Polonius, then by Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, and then my the Players, all the while feigning different levels of madness and knowing the King's spies were in the room with him. In Branagh's delivery "Now I AM alone." I also hear another idea - that Hamlet admits or recognizes he has no real allies against the King. Horatio has all but disappeared from the play at this point (though in this version, he is present during the Players' arrival), R&G have quite obviously betrayed him, and the whole court is arrayed against him. Even when we include Horatio in the equation, Hamlet must recognize that if his father is to be avenged, he must carry it out himself and no one can really help him except as unknowing tools (the Players).

The First Player's performance has left him dazed. He can't believe the amount of emotion the Player has been able to invoke. It's "bearded" him (shown him up). As Hamlet walks around the study, we see that it holds more than books and engravings, but also theatrical paraphernalia like musical instruments and masks. Hamlet, though a Renaissance Man, has a particular interest in theater. As he talks about drowning the stage with tears, he opens a toy theater model - doing so on the word "cleave" might have been too on the nose. At "Swounds", he gets angry and starts breaking things, getting rather strident, calling for vengeance before growing calmer and starting to strategize. It's in these transitions that Branagh is weakest, perhaps because he gets too riled up to believably come back down in so short a time. He's far stronger in the quieter parts, sustaining a simmering rage through the end of the soliloquy that is far more effective than the previous tantrum (his open disdain at the "words" he must unpack his heart with, for example).
At the end of the scene (for finally, Scene 2 is about to end), we zoom in on Hamlet's face, following him downward and through the theater playset where he drops a small paper king through a trap door. A link to the idea of the "Mouse-Trap", a visual for catching the conscience of the king, a nice aural sting to get us to the next scene, and yes, the basis for this blog's banner.

II.ii. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I

2011-06-27T07:53:00.003-03:00

The second of Hamlet's five great soliloquies, it may suffer severe cuts in adaptations where the First Player isn't allowed to perform. And yet, even the plottiest of directors will feel the need to include this sequence for "the play's the thing", leading into the crucial play within a play. What is lost, of course, is the entire idea of Hamlet comparing his true emotions to the Player's manufactured ones, a theme that goes back to Hamlet's very first scene's "trappings of woe". Shakespeare keeps asking if the representation of emotion is less than/the same as/more than actual emotion. In a later scene, Hamlet will ask the players to underplay. This seems to be all part of Shakespeare's "acting method" - to feel rather than represent, to recreate emotion within the actor rather than simulate its outward signs for an audience. But let's look at the text (in italics) for more.

HAMLET: Now I am alone.
O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own conceit
That from her working all his visage wann'd,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect,
A broken voice, and his whole function suiting
With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing!
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

A mirror to Act I Scene 2 and Hamlet's contention that the signs of grief are not themselves representative of his actual grief. In the Player, he sees something admirable - the ability to express emotion worthy of its subject (even if an imaginary one). One of the driving forces behind the play is that Hamlet cannot find a way to truly express his love for his father, neither in shows of grief, nor in avenging his murder. As in I.ii, he shows contempt for his own "emotionality".

That he should weep for her? What would he do,
Had he the motive and the cue for passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appal the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I,

These lines herald the play within the play, delineating the very effects the "Mouse-Trap" has on its diverse audience. Had Hamlet not already asked to insert lines in "The Murder of Gonzago", this might be the origin point of the idea. Hamlet, hearing himself speak these lines, would have come up with the plan a few lines later. Perhaps it could be played so that Hamlet's interest in the Italian play is just part of his morbid fascination with his father's murder, and the lines inserted are literary manipulation (Hamlet writes poetry, this we know) not intended to have a "trap" effect. Only after overhearing himself say these lines would that realization dawn on him.

A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak,
Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,
And can say nothing; no, not for a king,
Upon whose property and most dear life
A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward?
Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across?
Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face?
Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat,
As deep as to the lungs? who does me this?
Ha!
'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be
But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall
To make oppression bitter, or ere this
I should have fatted all the region kites
With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain!
Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!
O, vengeance!

This is the first real indication that Hamlet knows he's delaying his revenge (and that so does the play, if audience members are getting restless). Hamlet's power is that he knows himself, can criticize himself and can attempt to change based on that criticism. How does he respond to his own accusations?

Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave,
That I, the son of a dear father murder'd,
Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,
Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,
A scullion!

Words are the playwright's trade, so there is an almost meta-textual beat here as Hamlet attacks his condition as a character in a play (who lives by words rather than actions). Indeed, the plan he next hatches is all about using the play's tools to push his agenda forward. Words will be his weapon since that is all his author allows him.

Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard
That guilty creatures sitting at a play
Have by the very cunning of the scene
Been struck so to the soul that presently
They have proclaim'd their malefactions;
For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak
With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players
Play something like the murder of my father
Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks;
I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench,
I know my course. The spirit that I have seen
May be the devil: and the devil hath power
To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds
More relative than this: the play 's the thing
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Exit

The irony of this speech, of course, is that Hamlet resents and aspires to the First Player's emotionalism, yet his next move is not to give in to emotion, but to intellectualism. The ploy is a reasoned one and seeks to gather more evidence, analyze facts, take nothing for granted. From the first part of the speech, one would imagine Hamlet racing out of the hall to skewer Claudius right away. Instead, Hamlet goes from high emotion to detection mode. In the following posts, we will see how actors manage this about-face transition.

Other Hamlets: Hambat

2011-06-22T08:06:00.003-03:00

University professor Lee Shackleford and fellow blogger Snell both turned me on to this on to this one-shot comic strip at Funny Shorts almost as soon as it came out (thank you both). It's entitled "Hambat" and is quite the Frankenstein monster. It's a webcomic about a comic book character fused with Shakespeare's greatest play, told in the style of a movie trailer.But IS Batman Hamlet in disguise? Well, no. Though both have suffered the loss of a parent, and both have sworn some kind of revenge, Batman does not delay his action. Unlike Hamlet, he doesn't need to make sure his Claudius is truly guilty; he just goes into the night at takes his revenge on all criminals. Nor does Batman have an untrustworthy supporting cast. All threats come from outside. And yet, both characters are brooding avengers who put on an act when around "courtiers" to hide their true selves. Both are surrounded by corruption and madness. But it's in their differences that the comic irony comes through.
Hambat is a proactive Hamlet who through the same text actually enacts his revenge rather than delays it. Just goes to show once again how selectively cutting the play can create new and intriguing interpretations, even though some are just for fun.

Other Hamlets: Gilligan's Island Revisited

2011-06-17T11:42:00.001-03:00

When I posted the Gilligan's Island Hamlet parody some months ago, I did so without comment. I feel kind of bad about that. So here's my attempt at analyzing what makes the parody interesting.

First, I must acknowledge the (probably unknowing) amount of postmodernism at work here. This is a broad sitcom doing a parody of both Shakespeare AND Gilbert & Sullivan at the same time, tracing a line through theatrical tradition from the 16th to the 20th centuries. While Gilbert & Sullivan's nautical themes are a perfect choice for a play partly put on by the Skipper and his first mate, we might wonder: Why Hamlet? I'm not disputing its popularity or that the 1960s audience would know its basic plot and characters, recognize its key lines, etc. (and certainly, it may speak favorably to the state of education in the 60s that a low brow comedy program would think nothing of parodying the Bard), but it's certainly not the most light-hearted of subject matter. One might think that The Tempest would be a better fit for Gilligan's Island, after all.

The again, Gilligan's Island is about delay, just like Hamlet is. Everything in the show conspires to delay the castaways' rescue, even while dangling it in front of their noses almost every episode. Obviously, as soon as they get off the island, the show is over. In the same way, as soon as Hamlet takes his revenge, the play is over. And this is the power of Hamlet. As a play, it communicates its theme so strongly that any story of delay becomes a version of Hamlet. And as a character, Hamlet is the instrument of his own delay. He stretches the play out before him more than circumstances do (as is they case for Gilligan's Island or similar, ongoing programming like The Prisoner or Star Trek: Voyager). In fact, a LOT of television can be examined through the Hamlet filter because it employs strategies to prevent early resolution. Even romantic comedies are like Hamlet in that way, a slippery road that leads to a psycho-sexual analysis of the Hamlet-Claudius relationship. Few comparisons to television shows (and other serialized formats) hold up in the end because their protagonists are not the instruments of the featured delay. Only in the character in charge of his or her own destiny do we find the prototypical Hamlet.

II.ii. The Players - Classics Illustrated

2011-06-16T09:39:00.001-03:00

The originalPlot, plot, plot. The original Classics Illustrated is driven it by it rather than poetry or emotion. It's a natural by-product of the stiff and expressionless art (and the page count, but as it decompresses certain scenes, it's not as important an issue). The important thing here is that the players arrive at Elsinore and that Hamlet asks them to play a modified version of "The Murder of Gonzago". And that's exactly what we get, in just two panels. Of interest is that Hamlet sits, King-like, through the entire sequence. Gone is his enthusiasm for theater - it is not set-up with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern who have yet to appear in the comic - so he does not attempt a speech himself, nor does he ask one of the First Player. The players are not old friends here (the musician in orange seems particularly unhappy about Hamlet's choice of play), just subjects to be commanded. Unlike the live play, in which we might seek and find the moment Hamlet thinks up the Mouse-Trap scheme, the comic gives no indication. Hamlet is calm and collected, and seems to have the plan in his head before he even meets with the players.

The Berkley version
Not to say Tom Mandrake's adaptation does much better, even though the action has been stretched to a third panel. He restores the idea that the players are old friends, but things move so fast, he must have had the idea for the Mouse-Trap long before they arrived.
The cuts are not kind to this sequence and make several lines lose their meaning. "Buzz, buzz", for example, is no longer used to mock Polonius' redundant news, but it still works as a kind of interjection. "Comest thou to beard me," however, loses something in the translation. The First Player doesn't even have a beard! The line is a complete non sequitur. It's also not clear if Polonius heard Hamlet ask for the insertion of lines, though his silhouette is walking away from Hamlet in the second panel.

Both comic book adaptation fail to do this sequence justice, so we lose some of the impetus for the whole "play within a play" scene. Hamlet is not inspired by the First Player's passion, nor does he come across as a particular fan of theater (as only such a fan might have thought of the Mouse-Trap gambit). The players must show up because Hamlet needs them to enact a play that might reveal his uncle's guilt. We see here how reducing one of Shakespeare's plays to plot points proves an unsatisfying enterprise.

II.ii. The Players - Tennant (2009)

2011-06-15T10:38:00.001-03:00

An important thing to remember as we get into this section with the Tennant version is that this adaptation placed Hamlet's meeting with Ophelia (and "To be or not to be") BEFORE this part, not after. In other words, the relationship between Hamlet and Polonius is different. The older man has just seen his daughter violated, while Hamlet knows her father was spying on him and had used Ophelia to betray him. This gives the metaphor of Jephtah more resonnance. In the play as usually structured, it comes off as playful if prophetic mockery. Here, Hamlet has a right to say it in anger, and it becomes bitter reproach, though Polonius still fails to get the reference. The minor cuts made to the exchange (the rest of the pious chanson) make this more plain, and Hamlet simply snaps Polonius' tie instead, and "that follows not" becomes an overt comment on Polonius' parenting skills in response to "a daughter I love passing well". Not only does Polonius' response not follow Hamlet's set-up, but it is not coherent with his behavior as a father. Polonius was right then to enter the scene already on the defensive, though he distractedly forgets about the danger once he gets into defending the players' quality. This Polonius gets lots in the possible genre combinations theater might produce, and is unready for Hamlet's attack.

The players' entrance (heralded in the previous sequence by car horns) suffers minor trims (the "beard me" comment, for example), but Hamlet still welcomes "my young lady". This character is a grown man, and the idea of his cracked voice is a good joke. Hamlet then jumps on a trunk and starts the Pyrrhus speech, but he doesn't remember the words as well as some Hamlets do. There is a lot of prompting from the entire troupe, played for comic effect. Hamlet is a surprisingly bad actor here, doing many of the things he complains bad actors do - sawing the air with his hands, for example. Though it makes Hamlet more believable (at least by our 21st century standards), I'm not sure this layer of irony helps the play. Though he may not be a trained actor, the Hamlet of the play is still a consummate one, creating a vast performance for all of Elsinore. Not that this take on it is actually incoherent with the text. Hamlet may know what he likes in theater and still be unable to render it himself. The scene is a very human one, in which the prince gets prompted so many times, he abandons his attempt and lets the real actors finish, sitting on the floor, like a child. Despite his many hesitations, Polonius, even the sycophant, raves about the performance. Hamlet shushes him rudely.
While the players are played by actors who hold other small parts (Reynaldo, the priest, etc.), just like they do in most theater productions, the First Player is played by the great John Woodvine, who has no other role (nor should he). Woodvine mimes some of the actions described in the speech and uncovers some of the play's themes through judiciously placed pauses. He talks of a "painted tyrant" which brings us to the just-mentioned images of Claudius sold to the population. He plays Pyrrhus' moment of doubt, with the sword sticking in the air, putting Hamlet squarely on Pyrrhus' side. Hamlet is a hesitating avenger like Pyrrhus, which makes the pitiable Priam Claudius, and poor Hecuba Gertrude. In that moment, might Hamlet's doubts seem to stem from an inability to hurt his mother by twice widowing her? Where I usually read the parable of Claudius killing Hamlet Sr. and an ironic mirror of both Claudius and Gertrude's actual reactions, Woodvine manages to create a different picture, one that creates even more doubt, doubt that must be resolved through the "Mouse-Trap".

In the end, the players are sent off to their quarters with Polonius, but Rosencrantz & Guildenstern stay behind. Hamlet, eager to "unpack his heart with words", curtly dismisses them, his attitude belying his words of welcome. He shows them the way out, purposely forgetting his previous accusations and leaving his conflict with them unresolved. Hamlet dismisses them and their subplot as unimportant, as he is seized by a different impulse, a small but telling example of Hamlet's breaking of dramatic rules as he continually expands his self beyond the play's boundaries.

II.ii. The Players - Fodor (2007)

2011-06-07T08:00:00.001-03:00

Polonia walks into the room to announce the players' arrival. She seems disinterested and impatient in a way that reminds of Much Ado About Nothing's Beatrice taking pleasure "upon a knife's point". Hamlet and Horatio openly hate her. As she goes through the players' list of qualifications, it sounds like sarcasm, but it goes on so long, Horatio seems to wonder if she's for real. And then the players come in. Electronic music blares. The picture is polarized. We're in an 80s music video. The self-satisfied Polonia smiles and appears to find them cool. She blushes and fans her face. Our three players (two men, one woman, sizzlingly intense) are hot! They're radioactive! And it certainly seems like Polonia has fallen under their spell. It's the sycophant in her. Just as she's latched onto the King and the power he represents, so does she succumb to the players' star power.
In fact, everyone does. Hamlet is up and excited. Horatio smiles expectantly. The prince asks for a speech, and the players merely stare at him impassively. It's this uncomfortable moment that may prod Hamlet into starting the speech himself. Horatio smiles kindly at Hamlet's attempt, encouraging where the players are not (indeed, they're rather sinister). As Horatio becomes more and more apprehensive about the players' non-reaction (a complete inversion of the emotional Player that gives Hamlet reason to soliloquize), the prince recites his portion of the Priam speech with smiles. He enjoys the words, but doesn't perform them as so many other Hamlets do. Polonia applauds him for it, one might say sarcastically.

The players move to a carpet that will act their stage and face each other. Horatio shares a gleeful smile with Hamlet at their eccentricity. As Hamlet places himself in the center, the players start to walk around him, in various directions, reciting what I imagine is the Priam speech in German, sharing lines among them. The soundtrack has the quality of chanting monks. The bizarre ceremony sends Hamlet into a flashback sequence featuring his father's funeral as each character, in turn, kisses the corpse on the lips. A cacophony of bells, children's laughter and German words scores this seance which conjures up the oft-seen ghost(?) of child Hamlet. And this time, Horatio sees him, touches him, shakes him.
She leaves the silent but laughing child to support his adult self as he comes out of the trance and feels faint. Hamlet then gets a clear vision or the players, matching each one with the role of King, Queen or Ghost, and we understand how and when Hamlet got the idea for the "mouse-trap". He goes on to ask the First Player to play "The Murder of Gonzago".

Now, this is a very strange sequence and one that doesn't really work for me. It fits the "horror story" aspect that Fodor tries to bring out of the play, but robs us of Shakespeare's words and their intended performance. What we have instead is creepy German performance art, confusion where ironically things become clearer for Hamlet. His lost childhood appearing to Horatio in the flesh isn't explained, nor can it be.

II.ii. The Players - Kline '90

2011-06-02T21:31:00.001-03:00

I've generally been very critical of this version of the play, but there is much to like in this section. Polonius, as played by Josef Sommer, is largely harmless, if tedious. He enters and lists the styles the players are wont to play without reading them from a poster or flyer. Indeed, he seems rather enthusiastic where other performances make him more critical of these lower class people. But he was once an actor, after all, as revealed just before the play within the play. Sommer uses that past experience, but Hamlet has no patience for him. Here, he stops the man's mouth, then ears, then eyes. A comic though pregnant gesture invoking the three wise monkeys who saw no evil, heard no evil and spoke no evil. On the one hand, this is an accusation. Polonius does not perceive or acknowledge the King's evil. On the other, an ironic reversal of the image's "wisdom". Polonius misperceives every situation, and goes on to prove by missing the point of Hamlet's image of Jephtah. Throughout this sequence, Polonius will try to be pleasant, but Hamlet will continually attack him or give him hard looks. Polonius never seems to understand what he's done to deserve this treatment (as indeed, he doesn't see his own complicity in the evil rule of Claudius).

The Players as we start to notice cuts - the Jephtah sequence is not entirely played out, Hamlet does not tell us anything about various players - but the First Player's speech is still retained. As Hamlet speaks to the First Player (Clement Fowler), the others quickly set up a working stage, from which Hamlet plucks a prop dagger with which to act the first part of the Priam speech. Polonius is sincerely enchanted by the performance, even if he is startled by Hamlet running at him with the dagger (as if old Priam himself, but really as his future self).
Fowler does an excellent job with the speech, emotional rather than declamatory from the first line, using the knife to mime and underscore the action. Polonius' interjections and Hamlet's ripostes are a bit awkward because Polonius doesn't seem to deserve the prince's harsh words. To me, he appears to be polite, even when he says the speech is too long. There, he seems to apologize because he has to help the players settle into their quarters, and this whim of the prince's is making him late for affairs of state. His tone does not suggest criticism, and indeed, at the end, he applauds. His "prithee, no more" takes the bent of a respectful request, as if to say, "please, don't hurt yourself on our account, you've done enough." There is a hint of embarrassment, as Polonius is not a man free with his emotions and is made uncomfortable by them, but he does not seem to find them irksome. Strangely, perhaps, they've cut the "use them according to their desert" business which would have given Hamlet another stab at him, though again, this supports this Polonius' openness towards the players.

Hamlet, for his part, is touched profoundly by the Player's performance. Tears stream from his eyes during, and he gives a curt farewell to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, cutting their line off, because he must reflect on what he's just seen and heard before the feeling, and his burgeoning plan, is forgotten. There is a dramatic momentum that is kept through this staging, as Hamlet is too distracted to really finish the sequence before heading into the next.

II.ii. The Players - Zeffirelli '90

2011-05-27T09:58:00.001-03:00

Structurally, Zeffirelli's version continues to distance itself from other Hamlet. The Players are not, in this case, announced by Polonius. Pete Postlethwaite (First Player) arrives with his troupe, wagon and pack animals, interrupting Hamlet and R&G's gloomy picnic. They are dirty, "medieval peasants", and come with circling seagulls that evoke the stench of humanity and the garbage it leaves behind. Does this work against the play's intent? In a way it does, reducing the Player King's mirror nobility which one could argue should outshine Claudius'. It seems to comment negatively on the Players themselves. On the other hand, it draws parallels with the worm-eating beggar of Hamlet's parable, widens the divide between the pampered nobility of the court and the rotting Denmark "out there", supports Polonius' impression that they "deserve less", and, when the mirror is finally held up to the King, intensifies the irony.

In any case, Hamlet is ebulliant and calls them "masters". The scene then cuts to Hamlet entering Elsinore with the troupe, wearing a costume and playing music. He is part of this troupe, and their festive joy us contagious. Even the villains are smiling and laughing. This is how things could be between Claudius and Hamlet if not for the regicide that stands between them. Again, irony is intensified, and one could even imagine a reading of Hamlet in which Denmark is not rotting because its King is corrupt, but rather because it hangs on its true ruler (the Prince)'s every mood (as Gertrude does). Denmark is in a sorry state because Hamlet is depressed, and here the entire citizenry shares in his moment of joy. When Hamlet falls, so too does Denmark, at the hands of Fortinbras. It's Denmark-as-Hamlet by way of Gertrude-as-Denmark. We're told she lives and dies by his looks, and so too does the country. It's an interpretation that could be used to explain how she knows so much about Ophelia's suicide (she IS the river as much as the rest of the land), and turns the closet scene into a public accusation forcing an entire country to face the fact they happily let a pretender on the throne. And after all, if Claudius is not the rightful King, and perhaps the Prince is not ready, wouldn't the Queen actually be ruler?

That this scene evokes all this makes me forgive its savage cutting of the Player's speech, and indeed, Hamlet's own. We go from the Players' arrival directly to "Will you see them well-bestowed?" This massive cut, and Polonius' late entry means Hamlet need not be angry at the the councilor's comments. His retort ("who shall 'scape whipping?") is said with wit and a pleasant measure of sarcasm, but not anger. Polonius has not deserved any - he hasn't interrupted or criticized the Player's speech. Hamlet then announces they will hear a play tomorrow night, though the exchange between him and the Player is not shown. We might infer - knowing the play as we do - that Hamlet and the Player devised the "Mouse-Trap" on the way to the castle, but that will not be apparent to the uninitiated. It seems strange to us that Zeffirelli would try to hide 400-year-old plot points, but he is evidently crafting an accessible Hamlet for large movie audiences who might not know the story, playing out its twists and turns as surprises.
It is only after all this that he confides in Rosencrantz & Guildenstern that he is ony partly mad, moving the line from the end of the previous sequence to the end of this one. In its new position, and with the King and Queen now part of the sequence, the line acts as a loyalty test. Hamlet makes like he's leaving, but pops his head back out to watch R&G run to the King and tell him everything that's just gone between them and Hamlet. This confirms their treachery, and acts as a precursor to Hamlet's confirmation that Claudius is likewise a villain. So again, though Zeffirelli plays fast and loose with the text, he replaces it with visuals that, in their own visual way, informs. His version benefits from this closer reading.

II.ii. The Players - BBC '80

2011-05-20T10:31:00.001-03:00

The BBC version provides us with a very different take on the First Player's speech, but before we get there, Polonius must announce the players' arrival. As he attempts to do so, Jacobi's Hamlet continues to mess with him. He puts on voices, reads along with the scroll in a show of boredom, throws himself to the ground in worship, imagining Polonius to be the revered figure of Jephtah, and waves his hand in the air with the meter of his quoted lines. This whirlwind of activity confounds Polonius, of course, but sets the tone for the players' arrival. Hamlet is a showman, like they are, and the sequence draws strong parallels between the prince and the people who may play at being princes.
As they enter, juggling torches and tumbling, Hamlet indulges in a bit of stage fighting using wooden swords, prefiguring the play's finale in which he also fights a friend. Hamlet is being bearded by the First Player, a man older than he is, played by Welsh actor Emrys James (the vampire Aukon to Doctor Who fans that same year). The "bearded" line usually indicates the actor being spoken to is younger or as old as Hamlet himself, someone who has grown a beard (i.e. gotten older, from boy to man) since Hamlet last saw him. Subverting the line at once confuses Hamlet's age further and makes us think of the line in more metaphorical terms. I become less interested in the fact the First Player is newly bearded, but more in Hamlet's assertion that the Player would "top" him in some way. He doesn't "beard" him by being more hirsute, but rather by being more emotionally available, and by doing more to reveal the King's treachery with a single scene than Hamlet has managed to do since the start of the play.

Hamlet next addresses the "lady" of the group, and in line with the production's Medievalism, "she" is played by a boy, a boy who proves his voice has not cracked by singing a clear "La". These fun bits are followed by Hamlet's attempt at a speech, which showcases the strong chemistry between him and the First Player. The Player goes beyond his lines by harrumphing here, nodding there, guiding Hamlet through the start of the monologue. He is Hamlet's guide, a telling fact. Jacobi makes less of a meal of it than Branagh does, but at the end of the speech still gets applause. He graciously accepts it, though he mockingly curtsies Polonius when the councilor offers appreciation. When Polonius later interrupts, he does so less brazenly than Briars does in the 1996 version, leaning in on the word "ear" and confiding his comment discreetly, but he draws no less anger from the explosive Hamlet.
As long as we're making comparisons, Heston's Player definitely has more gravitas, while James' emotions are more overt and desperate, bigger and thus more theatrical (as opposed to cinematic). The speech ends with the Player's hands on his face, but when Hamlet takes them off, he is all smiles. And yet, he sniffles through the rest of the scene. The faked "trappings" of grief still required a certain measure of truth. Where James shines as the Player, however, is in how he milks the awkwardness of Hamlet's outbursts against Polonius - slightly amused, but still respectful. He takes sides in the most subtle way possible, an example Polonius might have been smart to follow, but his love for his own wit prevents him from ever being like the Player. Polonius doesn't know his lines or his place, and he will suffer for it.

As the party disbands, Hamlet pulls a wooden sword on Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, providing them with one last scare. They hand him his book back, but he leaves them hanging, never taking it back. The staging here drips with sarcasm, as their "welcome to Elsinore" is anything but heartfelt.

II.ii. The Players - Olivier '48

2011-05-11T22:32:00.000-03:00

In Olivier's version, the players only appear after Hamlet has his arranged encounter with Ophelia and "To be or not to be". Though a different moment altogether, it is still a dark one for Hamlet who, in the normal sequence, is meditating on melancholy. Olivier's flights of expressionism thus cast Hamlet in a dark space. Symbolically, Polonius walks in with a torch that illuminates the Prince. And when the players come in (with many torches), the room, which might as well have been the dark of night, fills with light. Polonius' arrival and subsequent announcement of the players gives Hamlet the glimmer of an idea, and that arrival a new sense of purpose, all of it expressed with lighting as much as acting. Polonius reads from a parchment - Felix Aylmer is as amusing as usual - and doesn't know what to make of "He that plays the king shall be welcome."

In the absence of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, there is a certain irony to Polonius being the bearer of news that will undo him and his corrupt king.
From the Players' entrance, Hamlet enters a manic state, delivering lines at a furious pace, often preventing anyone from interjecting. This will be a much shorter scene, heavily cut and missing the Priam speech. "I am glad to see thee well" is spoken to a dog walking on its hind legs, eliciting some laughs. The "lady" is an historically accurate boy. The bearded player is First Player, which makes the character younger that he appears (a mirror of Hamlet's own, doubtful age?). Of course it could just mean he grew a beard, but the text does mean to refer to an actor getting older. Harcourt Williams who plays the First Player was already in his late 60s however. Olivier plays on expectations when choosing his lines' targets to amusing effect, but doesn't really squeeze extra meaning from the text.

Since there is no recital, Hamlet quickly asks them to follow Polonius, and as they go, so does the light. However, Hamlet is now facing front, a reversal of his initial position. He is ready to take a step forward (the play within a play), moving away from the introspection and back-and-forth that has been the crux of the play since his silent visit of Ophelia. In his reconfigured sequence, Olivier loads Hamlet's inaction in the front end of the play, rather than allow ambivalence between thinking up and enacting his guilt-revealing scheme.

II.ii. The Players - Branagh '96

2011-05-04T23:04:00.001-03:00

Branagh finds a number of ways to make sure his audience doesn't grow bored during this sequence. There's a long, single taker (or "oner") that follows Hamlet for what is probably an entire roll of film. Because modern audiences are not likely to know the Iliad of Aeneid, the Player's speech is illustrated with silent scenes. And as with many of the smaller roles, he makes use of stunt casting. We'll get to all that in a moment, but let's start at the top of the sequence as Polonius arrives to announce the players' arrival.
This announcement is, of course, redundant, because Rosencrantz & Guildenstern have already done so. Polonius can never be anything but tedious, relating information Hamlet already has. This is also underscored by Polonius reading from the troupe's artistic statement, going through ever redundant genres. Hamlet tries to walk away, and takes an actorly voice to mock him when he can't escape. He recites from the biblical story of Jephtah, he puts on voices, he acts out his madness for Polonius. At the same time, he's letting R&G in on the joke, making them complicit in his disrespect of a lord that while below Hamlet's position, is well above theirs. He certainly has reason to believe Polonius will tattle to the King and Queen, so he sows mistrust between the conspirators. Throughout this scene, R&G look like they don't quite know what's happening, or if this will wind up costing them their heads. When they next interact with Claudius, we'll see characters desperate to make their case and a king who doesn't care to listen. They probably think they've been compromised by their "friendship" with Hamlet. It is doubtful Claudius even registers their presence by that point. As for Polonius, he is visibly irritated by Hamlet's performance, and distracted by it. He fails to recognize what lies under the Jephtah allusion, though this might also be a way to further elevate the puritan Hamlet from the corrupt court. Polonius doesn't know his Bible.

The players then come in, and to respect the time period, the girl who should watch her voice lest it crack is played by a little girl, not a boy. Hamlet is teasing her, and we do get the sense that the entire family is on tour. It immediately makes us compare this family with Hamlet's, and indeed the Player will be King on stage, the lady Queen and another actor the assassin. They seem happier of course and only "play" at tragedy. The point of the sequence is to show actors having more sincere feelings than real people do, so there's that mirror there as well. Later, Hamlet will ask his mother where her blush is. Claudius will pray and not mean it. Hamlet swears revenge, but can't follow through. Here, we have an actor who shows great passion in a speech about fictional characters. If Shakespeare teaches us anything, it is to feel. His characters do and through the poetry, they describe those feelings and make them real. And so in the play, it is the actors who similarly teach Hamlet how to feel.

Hamlet himself is an actor - he plays the role of the madman - and this becomes more literal in this sequence as he starts reciting the speech he asks from the First Player. If the speech was never acted, or only once, as Hamlet claims, he certainly has a strong memory of it. We're reminded that we're in the presence of a great mind. Branagh has fun with it though, with even the kids knowing some of the punchlines (like "gules"). He is finally taken out of his performance by the sight of his own hand holding an imaginary dagger, an invisible reminder of the task ahead.

The First Player is played by Charlton Heston, a choice Branagh says he made to properly show that the Player is a legend of the theater. And indeed, Heston has that (screen) presence. And it's probably his best performance ever. It blew me away and is one of my favorite things about the film. If his casting evokes a legend of the acting world, his speech is also about legendary characters, and these are played by true legends of the stage in the live action "illustrations". Priam is played by John Gielgud:
And Hecuba by Judi Dench:
Could it get any better? Their small roles are still a challenge, as they must show a great deal of emotion in a completely silent performance. Though they are not strictly seen by the other characters in the play, they make the same point the Player does: Actors showing a great depth of emotion (again in an idealized King/Queen configuration).

The Player's speech is interrupted by Polonius, and comically, the music also stops and starts with in between his interventions. Tension mounts between Hamlet and the old counselor until he gets his wrists slapped at the end. It's what he gets for showing evident dislike and disrespect to the players. As the party breaks up, Hamlet sends R&G away, and for some reason, Horatio is now included (having come in with the players). He has no lines, but Hamlet gives him a secret signal to go with them and keep a close eye on them. Perhaps it was felt Horatio had not appeared in too long. Other directors have placed him as a silent witness to all of R&G's scenes, so his presence isn't unwanted.

II.ii. The Players

2011-04-26T16:06:00.002-03:00

Though Polonius announcing the Players, their arrival and Hamlet's request to the First Player are usually retained, it is rarer for the First Player to get to do his long speech. This is understandable, since the play is already very long, and the sequence is very much a digression. That said, it exists for a reason, not only as a trigger for Hamlet's next soliloquy, but as a mirror or lesson related to Hamlet's situation. By discussing the text here, and in the next posts, looking at what was kept of it, it is my hope that light will be shed on certain aspects of the play. As usual, Shakespeare's words are in italics.

Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS: Well be with you, gentlemen!
HAMLET: Hark you, Guildenstern; and you too: at each ear a hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swaddling-clouts.
ROSENCRANTZ: Happily he's the second time come to them; for they say an old man is twice a child.

This banter harks back to and inverts Hamlet's slanders and the idea that the old man would grow younger if, like a crab, he could go backwards. Whether old or young, Polonius is ineffectual. Also in play is the concept of the life cycle from youth to old age and back to youth again, any interruption of which is shown to be unnatural. Consider the murder of Hamlet's father (or indeed, of many of the characters) and Ophelia's madness (in which she returns to childhood before even becoming an adult). Life cycles are often discussed in play, whether it's the king making its way through the guts of a beggar via a worm, or great Alexander returning to the earth. Denmark too is undergoing a cycle from King to King to Fortinbras, albeit a diverted (unnatural) one that replaced Hamlet Jr. with Claudius.

HAMLET: I will prophesy he comes to tell me of the players; mark it. You say right, sir: o' Monday morning; 'twas so indeed.
LORD POLONIUS: My lord, I have news to tell you.
HAMLET: My lord, I have news to tell you.
When Roscius was an actor in Rome,--
LORD POLONIUS: The actors are come hither, my lord.
HAMLET: Buz, buz!
LORD POLONIUS: Upon mine honour,--
HAMLET: Then came each actor on his ass,--
LORD POLONIUS: The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

A choice should be made by the director and actor here as to whether Polonius is reading from the Players' promotional materials or if it's his own opinion. Either way, he shows his tediousness by listing all those genres and genre combos.

HAMLET: O Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!
LORD POLONIUS: What a treasure had he, my lord?
HAMLET: Why,
'One fair daughter and no more,
The which he loved passing well.'
LORD POLONIUS: [Aside] Still on my daughter.
HAMLET: Am I not i' the right, old Jephthah?
LORD POLONIUS: If you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing well.
HAMLET: Nay, that follows not.
LORD POLONIUS: What follows, then, my lord?
HAMLET: Why, 'As by lot, God wot,' and then, you know, 'It came to pass, as most like it was,'-- the first row of the pious chanson will show you more; for look, where my abridgement comes.

Jephthah is a Biblical character (in the book of Judges) who rashly vowed to sacrifice the first person to come to his door if God allows him to advance his lot in life (becoming chieftain) if he defeats the Ammonites. He does so, but it's his daughter who comes to the door. Unlike Abraham, his hand is not stayed and his daughter is burnt as an offering. Polonius doesn't get the reference, but Hamlet surely does. There is an indication here that Polonius is using Ophelia as a pawn in order to advance (or retain) his position in the eyes of the King. He either knows he's been set up to meet Ophelia later, or refers to Polonius forbidding Ophelia to see the prince (what would the King and Queen THINK?). In any case, Shakespeare makes this little speech a prophetic one, as Ophelia is indeed sacrificed in the course of the play.

Enter four or five Players

You are welcome, masters; welcome, all. I am glad to see thee well. Welcome, good friends. O, my old friend! thy face is valenced since I saw thee last: comest thou to beard me in Denmark? What, my young lady and mistress! By'r lady, your ladyship is nearer to heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine. Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We'll e'en to't like French falconers, fly at any thing we see: we'll have a speech straight: come, give us a taste of your quality; come, a passionate speech.

References to the lady's voice cracking point to the Elizabethan rule that no women could be on the stage. Women were thus often played by teenage boys before puberty made their voices change. Hamlet asking for a speech right away is somewhat ironic given his own delayed actions.

FIRST PLAYER: What speech, my lord?
HAMLET
I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once;

It's almost like Shakespeare is talking to modern directors, knowing this part of the play will, more often than not, be cut for time.

for the play, I remember, pleased not the million; 'twas caviare to the general: but it was--as I received it, and others, whose judgments in such matters cried in the top of mine--an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty as cunning. I remember, one said there were no sallets in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict the author of affectation; but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine. One speech in it I chiefly loved: 'twas Aeneas' tale to Dido; and thereabout of it especially, where he speaks of Priam's slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin at this line: let me see, let me see--
'The rugged Pyrrhus, like the Hyrcanian beast,'--
it is not so:--it begins with Pyrrhus:--
'The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable arms,
Black as his purpose, did the night resemble
When he lay couched in the ominous horse,
Hath now this dread and black complexion smear'd
With heraldry more dismal; head to foot
Now is he total gules; horridly trick'd
With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,
Baked and impasted with the parching streets,
That lend a tyrannous and damned light
To their lord's murder: roasted in wrath and fire,
And thus o'er-sized with coagulate gore,
With eyes like carbuncles, the hellish Pyrrhus
Old grandsire Priam seeks.'
So, proceed you.

It seems Hamlet's "thoughts be bloody" long before he utters that particular phrase. In this tale from Virgil's Aeneid, he finds allusion to his own situation, i.e. the murder of his lord, though the citizenry is far more outraged at the turn of events than Denmark's. As we'll see, this is not the last idealization of the situation contained in the speech.

LORD POLONIUS: 'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.
FIRST PLAYER: 'Anon he finds him
Striking too short at Greeks; his antique sword,
Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,
Repugnant to command: unequal match'd,
Pyrrhus at Priam drives; in rage strikes wide;
But with the whiff and wind of his fell sword
The unnerved father falls. Then senseless Ilium,
Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top
Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash
Takes prisoner Pyrrhus' ear: for, lo! his sword,
Which was declining on the milky head
Of reverend Priam, seem'd i' the air to stick:
So, as a painted tyrant, Pyrrhus stood,
And like a neutral to his will and matter,
Did nothing.

The question here is whether Hamlet is "with" Priam the victim-king, or with Pyrrhus the avenger. Like Pyrrhus, Hamlet is stuck in a moment in time, unable to act, though for him, being "painted" takes almost the whole of the play. If Pyrrhus is Claudius however, it becomes completely appropriate to give the usurper ("painted tyrant" has a double-meaning of falsehood) a moment of doubt when reenacting the murder (if such a thing is shown in flashback). Despite this hesitation, Pyrrhus then savagely strikes down Priam, again a mix of Hamlet's own idealized revenge and Claudius' unnaturally violent fratricide. Therein may lie Hamlet's dilemma: Can he do what he accuses Claudius of having done (a violent regicide).

But, as we often see, against some storm,
A silence in the heavens, the rack stand still,
The bold winds speechless and the orb below
As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder
Doth rend the region, so, after Pyrrhus' pause,
Aroused vengeance sets him new a-work;
And never did the Cyclops' hammers fall
On Mars's armour forged for proof eterne
With less remorse than Pyrrhus' bleeding sword
Now falls on Priam.
Out, out, thou strumpet, Fortune! All you gods,

This is the second mention of Fortune specifically as a strumpet, which should be a clue to the audience that Hamlet's situation is linked to this speech. Though the content is largely about murder (note Priam's defenselessness), there is the idea of a tragic destiny as well ringing through both plays (Hamlet itself and this "rarely performed" Aeneic play).

In general synod 'take away her power;
Break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel,
And bowl the round nave down the hill of heaven,
As low as to the fiends!'
LORD POLONIUS: This is too long.
HAMLET: It shall to the barber's, with your beard. Prithee, say on: he's for a jig or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps: say on: come to Hecuba.

Shakespeare seems to know his problem play's problems and seeks to detract critics by acknowledging them in the text. Polonius says here what many in the audience must have thought. What is this digression and why is it taking so long. This pause gives comic relief to the sequence, and manages to poke fun at the author while at the same time brooking no criticism. Hamlet's reply puts Polonius, and those audience members, in their place.

FIRST PLAYER: 'But who, O, who had seen the mobled queen--'
HAMLET: 'The mobled queen?'
LORD POLONIUS: That's good; 'mobled queen' is good.
FIRST PLAYER: 'Run barefoot up and down, threatening the flames
With bisson rheum; a clout upon that head
Where late the diadem stood, and for a robe,
About her lank and all o'er-teemed loins,
A blanket, in the alarm of fear caught up;
Who this had seen, with tongue in venom steep'd,
'Gainst Fortune's state would treason have pronounced:
But if the gods themselves did see her then
When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport
In mincing with his sword her husband's limbs,
The instant burst of clamour that she made,
Unless things mortal move them not at all,
Would have made milch the burning eyes of heaven,
And passion in the gods.'

Hamlet's link to Hecuba is, as with the rest, two-fold. On the one hand, he sees himself in her, the grieving family member whose passion would defy the fates. On the other, she is an idealized version of his own mother, what his mother SHOULD have been like upon his father's death.

LORD POLONIUS: Look, whether he has not turned his colour and has tears in's eyes. Pray you, no more.
HAMLET: 'Tis well: I'll have thee speak out the rest soon. Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed? Do you hear, let them be well used; for they are the abstract and brief chronicles of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you live.
LORD POLONIUS: My lord, I will use them according to their desert.
HAMLET: God's bodykins, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty. Take them in.

Hamlet's heartfelt rebuke is in stark opposition to his mission, and may hold a clue as to the reason for his delayed revenge. Though Claudius, Gertrude and other conspirators deserve very little, he has vowed to, so to speak, whip them. This line may belie his true nature, which is rather more gentle than it needs to be to carry out the Ghost's vengeance. Hamlet is damned either way.

LORD POLONIUS: Come, sirs.
HAMLET: Follow him, friends: we'll hear a play to-morrow.

Exit POLONIUS with all the Players but the First

Dost thou hear me, old friend; can you play the Murder of Gonzago?
FIRST PLAYER: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: We'll ha't to-morrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines, which I would set down and insert in't, could you not?
FIRST PLAYER: Ay, my lord.
HAMLET: Very well. Follow that lord; and look you mock him not.

Exit First Player

My good friends, I'll leave you till night: you are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ: Good my lord!
HAMLET: Ay, so, God be wi' ye;

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

While this sequence is often cut short, some elements need to remain in order to trigger the "What a rogue and peasant slave" speech that follows it. In the next series of articles, we'll see how various directors handled this difficult passage that threatens to make the audience impatient.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - French Rock Opera

2011-04-19T16:56:00.002-03:00

R&G's failed interrogation of Hamlet is best represented by the song Quel mal te bouffe? (What's Eating You?), a short ditty (excerpt via Amazon) sung by the choir (Hallyday only sings Hamlet's parts) which is inappropriately (or for R&G, quite appropriately) ridiculous-sounding. The French lyrics, followed by my quick and dirty translation:

Quel mal te bouffe?
Quel mal te bouffe?
Quel mal te ronge?
Quel mal te ronge?
Quel mal te bouffe?

Quel mal te bouffe?
Quel mal te ronge?
Dis-nous, dis-nous, dis-nous, dis-nous...
Des anges! Des anges! Des anges! Des anges!

(Répétez tout)

What's Eating You?
What's eating you?
What's gnawing at you?
What's gnawing at you?
What's eating you?

What's eating you?
What's gnawing at you?
Tell us, tell us, tell us, tell us...
Angels! Angels! Angels! Angels!

(Repeat all)

The familiar vocabulary used is in line with R&G's usual depiction as people who do not connect with Hamlet's deep emotions. "What's eating you?" reduces Hamlet's mal d'âme to a mild irritant. Hallyday glosses over the "What a piece of work is a man" speech in the last line when Hamlet reveals (ambiguously, because it's still not his voice) he is "bugged" by angels. A bizarre response in the context of the song, but those who know the play can see a connection between this answer and the line "How like an angel". As sung by R&G, it's almost like they're claiming some kind of innocence in all this, again tying into the irony of Hamlet's speech.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Classics Illustrated

2011-04-18T17:38:00.002-03:00

The original
The original Classics Illustrated omits this entire sequence, though R&G ARE characters in the comic. They are introduced at the Scene's proper start and are not seen again until after the play within a play. This allows the comic to avoid the ribald pleasantries as well as the theatrical gossip which were no doubt considered either inappropriate or irrelevant to the target audience.

The Berkley version
While the sequence does appear in artist Tom Mandrake's vision, it is cut for brevity. The effect is akin to jump cuts, moving the exchange along almost too quickly. The foppish R&G are discovered almost right away, Hamlet moving from dropping his book in joy to accusations in the space of a single panel. He then heads into his speech, still without R&G reacting. Note the visual link to "I have an eye of you" in the following panel.Though not shown at that point, it underscores the point of the page/sequence: Hamlet's piercing gaze uncovering the duo's duplicity. R&G don't even get to snicker at "man delights not me" in this version, Hamlet volunteering "nor woman neither" without being prompted. The action is rather strangely staged:
What is Hamlet doing? With the interaction gone, he seems to have a violent fit motivated by self-loathing, but perhaps also hatred for his parents (man and woman). The line is turned into an attack of the unfaithful couple, into hatred that we know is at least partly transferred to his other relationships (Ophelia, R&G).

Hamlet once again changes his mood when he hears of the Players (a change that seems more extreme by virtue of the above panel's intensity) and though the gossip is cut, the admission of partial madness is retained. R&G's lines suffer so many cuts that Hamlet is almost in soliloquy mode through most of the sequence, and since he has an audience, the soliloquy might better be called a rant.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Tennant (2009)

2011-04-15T09:55:00.000-03:00

Though some R&G pairings emphasize the betrayal, acting as somewhat sinister agents of the Royals, the 2009 R&G emphasize just how much they've grown apart from Hamlet. While he is an adult struggling with adult things, they are immature boys giggling at all the wrong bits and staring at their feet when things get serious. It's an extremely funny performance, even as the tension and discomfort mount. R&G are helped immensely by the editing, giving them reaction shots for many of Hamlet's lines. Instead of having the prince rattle on an uninterrupted speech, there's the sense that R&D do indeed have lines, albeit silent ones. Pauses, stares, the putting of hands in pockets, hard swallows... this is where they live - in between the lines (funny, then, that it's where Hamlet "reads" them).

And the discomfort is felt by Hamlet too. He's happy to see them, but before he can ever feel their betrayal, he visibly feels that they are no longer on the same page. Guildenstern's giggling during the Fortune banter makes Hamlet uncomfortably stammer through the next line, desperate to change the subject. He's humoring them, but doesn't share in their mirth. (It's also one of the few "Doctorish" bits in the film. Tennant reigns in a lot of his Doctor Who mannerisms in this performance, but they sometimes slip by. It happens again at the end of the sequence when he starts acting crazy again, adopting a cockney accent and making clicking noises when he delivers the "hawk from a handsaw" line, which you can easily compare to the "you've had some cowboys up in here" stuff of his Doctor.)
R&G are naturally dumbfounded at the "depression" speech, once again, reverses allowing the characters to be active witnesses. Tennant delivers the speech with obvious sarcasm. His voice breaking at the end makes R&G's giggles more inappropriate than ever. Rosencrantz actually lets out a little "a-ha!" there, indicating that he thinks he's understood a meaning (finally), perhaps that this was all a long joke about liking women, but he's of course wrong.

One problem with the problem play is figuring out when Hamlet concocted his plan to stage a play that would catch the King's conscience. The speech in which he reveals it comes at the end of the Act, but there are various point before then where Hamlet seems to be acting in accordance to this plan already. Tennant hits on this idea quite early. His expression when he hears about the Players makes it clear he's already thinking about it, motivating the line "He that plays the king shall be welcome". We'll see later if and how Tennant picks up the threads of this idea later. At that moment, it gives him a boost of mad energy and he starts acting the loon again. He strangely picks through Guildenstern's pockets, crosses his arms before shaking R&G's hands and takes on accents.

Trims and Cuts
There are few trims to the text in this section. The entire rhetoric of shadows' shadows, for example, is not delivered. Hamlet also doesn't reveal that he is "most dreadfully attended". None of these have any great effect on the play. The only outright cut is the usual decision to remove the theatrical gossip. Again, this is not a huge loss, though in this case it does make "It is not very strange; for mine uncle is king of Denmark..." something of a non-sequitur, albeit one of many R&G have to react to.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Fodor (2007)

2011-04-12T07:00:00.000-03:00

A weak Hamlet
Fodor's Hamlet - not to say William Bedchambers' - is weaker than in any other version of the play, and this sequence shows how the director has undermined the character in a number of ways. First, of course, is in how R&G - the play's notoriously weak characters - interact with him. Instead of fearful sycophants, we instead have short-tempered, bored louts. Hamlet is suspicious of them and antagonistic (he just caught them talking to the conspirators), but gets no real reaction from them except even more disdain and ire. When accused, they meet outrage with outrage and shame Hamlet for being "poor in thanks". The overall effect is that R&G are stronger characters than Hamlet. They win this skirmish.
There's also the matter of Horatio, who is at Hamlet's side throughout this sequence. She not only has her emotions under more control than Hamlet, sizing up R&G with, by turns, a steady gaze and the same kind of dismissive boredom, but she also borrows some of Hamlet's lines ("Then is doomsday near" and later, the question as to why the Players are on the road). Hamlet is not a whole man in Fodor's vision, he needs to be completed by Horatio. Where R&G are usual the "two who are one" and still don't measure up to one Hamlet, here Hamlet must meet two with two, and still loses the argument.

Whether you agree with this idea or not, there are interesting things about the way Fodor stages the sequence. Until an accusation is actually made, each duo is never in the same shot as the other. They are separate and, in R&G's case, refuse to engage. Both groups look into camera, involving the audience in an unsettling way (very much what Fodor is going for throughout the film, which also justifies his emasculation of the lead) and playing with the mirror effects inherent in the text. Reference to Denmark being a prison shifts our point of view to the Ghost, listening and turning his head. An intriguing piece of editing, as it links the idea with that of Hamlet's father being trapped in a hellish state. Denmark is a prison to Hamlet, but it represents much worse to the Ghost. Hamlet is also haunted by his child-self, another ghostly character lurking about, though much happier, laughing behind potted plants - a counterpoint to the prince's depressing vision of Denmark.

The cut from confession directly into "What a piece of work is a man", omitting further description of Denmark's putrid skies, turns the line's irony to straight sarcasm and becomes the accusation that finally rouses R&G from their torpor. As often happens with cuts, it reveals an intent that is more ambiguous when lines are distanced from one another. It may thus be true to say that Hamlet always meant this speech to refer to R&D, two friends who have deeply disappointed him. Not that Fodor in any way paints them as friends.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Hamlet 2000

2011-04-11T07:00:00.000-03:00

R&G board Hamlet in a club chronologically after the "To be or not to be" speech. They are played by Steve Zahn (as Rosencrantz) and Dechen Thurman (brother of Uma, as Guildenstern). Hamlet embraces these two wild and crazy friends, initiating a long booze-up. Their idiosyncratic performances soon reveal them to be two different kinds of creep. Rosencrantz is manic, spinning on stools, making karate moves and shouting through the music in a way that Hamlet simply does not. Meanwhile, Guildenstern is on the other end of the scale, listlessly resting his head on Hamlet's shoulder, his sexuality as relaxed as the rest of him. They come off as immature party lads, unable to grasp Hamlet's true nature.

The film retains the banter, spreading it across the night through time cuts, but cuts everything after it. Hamlet does not force these men to confess their allegiance to his parents. There is no "what a piece of work is a man" speech at this point, nor is there discussion of the Players. Indeed, the film does away with the Players and replaces them with actors on film. They are not characters in their own right. From this scene, we immediately move to R&D reporting to the Royals (by phone), a result of this sequence, brought forward editorially for comic effect. That sequence makes it clear he says some of the things he does in the play, if only off-screen. The other effect is to keep 2000's Hamlet a more internal character who might know R&G are spies, but does not tell them he knows.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Kline '90

2011-04-10T11:21:00.000-03:00

In Kline's version, we likewise only meet R&G at this point. They are played by Philip Goodwin (a nerdy Rosencrantz) and Reg. E. Cathey (a cool Guildenstern). Though the latter's casting gives the part some pizazz (Cathey could never be anything but cool), and despite the obvious differences in the two characters, we find they are still twinned. I had not noticed before how often they use the pronoun "we", even when stating opinion. "We think not so," says one, instinctively knowing what the other thinks as well. It's an example of how the text innocuously supports the ideas of the play. Another is Hamlet's "To speak like an honest man," which prods us into questioning his words. Is he not honest the rest of the time? Even in that moment, he speaks LIKE an honest man, not AS an honest man. Should we trust him even here?

Sincere or not, Hamlet seems genuinely happy to see his friends here, at least, until he senses their betrayal. Kline is especially strong in this section, internalizing that betrayal before going into a manic state (for their benefit?). He clasps them to his breast in an awkward position, violence and love mixed. He lets out his anger at them in the guise of madcap love, in a sense ACTING like an honest, sincere man, but not AS an one. We might remember, at this point, how Hamlet questioned whether wearing the trappings of grief was in any way equivalent to feeling grief profoundly and truly. The same could be said of the trappings of friendship and love, and the play continually toys with the theme of "representation" both on stage in in our lives.
There's a nice bit of staging for the "What a piece of work is a man" speech, as Hamlet forces R&G to join him on the floor to look at the ceiling/sky. They are upside down, and indeed the speech itself is an inversion of the natural order.

At the end of the sequence, the Players are announced, but the gossip (as usual) excised. As Hamlet confesses his partial madness, he pickpockets his book back from Rosencrantz's jacket pocket, even though the viewer probably didn't notice him putting it there. It's an interesting symbol for Hamlet picking their brains, or even of having put words/thoughts in their mouths/minds (the reversed confession). Again we have acts of violence (theft is a form of outrage) cast as love and friendship. Teasing, but meaning to do more than tease.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Zeffirelli '90

2011-04-07T13:24:00.002-03:00

Zefirelli, in addition to many cuts, disrupts the usual order of the play at this point. From the fishmonger scene, he moves to Hamlet's arranged meeting with Ophelia, then to "To be or not to be", before finally moving us outside Elsinore for our first encounter with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern. Hamlet takes a horse ride and lays down on a carpet of greenery, all very idyllic, perhaps as an ironic counterpoint to his contention that Denmark is a pestilent prison. The director is keen to keep things as visual as possible, making many cuts in the dialog, which I personally find annoying because the visuals definitely don't replace the nuances of the text, nor do they always bring anything to the film except a change of pace for the audience's eyes. For example, this sequence will move from this secluded spot to an open cabin facing the beach where the friends can have lunch. This does not perceptibly illuminate the nature of their relationship, and the way it is staged, even confuses it.
R&G are played by Michael Maloney (Laertes under Branagh, and Hamlet in Midwinter's Dream) and Sean Murray, respectively. They come upon Hamlet where he reclines, almost Christ-like, and in a change from the play, they are escorted by Horatio and (young) Marcellus. So what does this suggest? Have they been to Elsinore, had their meeting with the Royals, and have gone to look for Hamlet? Or does Horatio have a privileged relationship with R&G? The former seems more probable. Without any lines, Horatio is basically there to look at Hamlet with sadness as his friend either bares his soul or lies to common friends (again, ambiguous), or to receive pregnant looks from Hamlet (as in the "What a piece of work is a man" speech; where the prince either acknowledges his friend's compassion or means to pass on the message that he is putting on a show for R&G).

Hamlet's entire attitude towards R&G gets away from the usual idea of describing melancholy or depression. He is quickly angry at them for withholding their true intentions, something they admit to only after a show of violence when he kicks a stool from under Rosencrantz. His delivery of key speeches is rather more venal than other Hamlets', as if to say "I'm not happy and there's nothing you can do about it, gents". He doesn't put on any particular show of madness (and the line about being mad north-north-west is cut in any case), but states his point-of-view matter-of-factly. And since most of the speech is spoken to Horatio, back to the others, it can't even be said that he shows a moment of vulnerability to R&G. This follows an introduction in which Hamlet hardly seems to remember their names.

As I said, there are many cuts made to this sequence. Most of the playful banter between the friends is gone. Hamlet no longer welcomes them to Elsinore. He doesn't let slip any remark about his uncle. And of course, the theatrical gossip has been excised. Now the grubby players show up in a large wagon, and Rosencrantz points at them. Zeffirelli then gets back to his visuals, with a long sequence showing the troupe enter Elsinore.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - BBC '80

2011-04-03T11:21:00.001-03:00

As is sometimes done to Horatio in Act I, Hamlet gives his greetings to R&G before he even recognizes them. When he does, Rosencrantz, the jokester of the two, lets out a little "pa-dum" that puts us in the frame of mind of a "beaten friendship". Hamlet immediately subverts that however by mistaking Rosencrantz for Guildenstern, spinning both names at the same character to fix his mistake and getting an annoyed smirk from him. The friendship presented here has apparently been misgauged by the Queen. Hamlet is dismissive and distrustful of his so-called friends, and often plays the scene as an attack. He is in complete control and foils them at every turn. He tries to get sympathy from them, but doesn't get it, such attempts feeling like tests R&G fail to pass.

Jacobi's Hamlet is mercurial as ever, moving through various emotions in order to give each line its own portent. There is a belly laugh at the Fortune joke, immediately followed by a quiet moment when he calls her a strumpet, allowing the viewer time to see a connection to Hamlet's mother. He is wholly sarcastic when he says he's "poor in thanks", giving no quarter to his false friends. "Nay speak", when he draws a confession out of them, is explicitly to prevent them from colluding. No asides for you, R&G! And the emphasis placed on "thinking makes it so" takes a more literal turn when he says there's a confession in their looks. There really isn't... UNTIL he says there is, and then they break down. He has imposed his will on them. His thought has become reality.

The emphasis on that line also makes it important for the whole of the play, which is, indeed, about a man trying to convince himself to exact revenge. Hamlet must first think of himself as an avenger/murderer before it can become a reality. That movement from thought to deed is what creates tension in the play. We'll note later how Hamlet accuses himself of violent thoughts, thoughts that only later are transposed into deeds. Hamlet is a true Shakespearean character: He overhears himself (as Bloom would put it) and is transformed by his own words. Thinking things make them so.

But back to the scene... Hamlet then goes on to anticipate their questions in the way Jacobi delivers "But wherefore I know not". He doesn't just know they were sent for, he knows WHY they were.
The "what a piece of work is a man" is read in his book (which is only a book of slanders if you believe Hamet was making up the earlier words to suit Polonius), a departure from most stagings. Here, they are not his words. He could never think of Man in those terms. While it robs Hamlet of a poetic élan, it makes sense in the framework of his depression. The decaying view of the world is all his, spoken in reaction to what he's just read. "Man delights not me", right at the end, has his holding back tears in earnest. Which of course is exactly where Rosencrantz gets the giggles, all part of R&G's inability to gauge Hamlet or a situation. It's a well done moment, and sends us careening into the theatrical gossip segment and back into R&G's comfort zone. The sequence ends with them believing they are welcome in Elsinore despite Hamlet's earlier attacks.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Olivier '48

2011-03-29T11:10:00.000-03:00

Since Olivier has completely excised R&G, this sequence has gone with them. We lose many key lines and one of the best known speeches, and that certainly has an effect on the play. One might argue that Olivier plays clinical depression (i.e. melancholy) well enough that we hardly need the speech describing his mood, and indeed, Olivier's adaptation is more dour for losing the witty banter between Hamlet and his school chums. We are left with a single line, spoken to Polonius when he comes to announce the players: "He that plays the king shall be welcome." Olivier obviously thought it important, and it is. It ironically sends up Claudius by replacing him with a more welcome pretender.

But however little the effect on the particulars of the plot, one still misses the wit and poetry of Shakespeare's words.

II.ii. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern - Branagh '96

2011-03-27T10:55:00.002-03:00

In Branagh's production, R&G arrive on a small steam train, evoking their childhood friendship with Hamlet. Almost immediately, they fall into the sort of clever banter they used to indulge in with the witty prince. The setting also seems important. Meeting them outside Elsinore reminds us that they are outsiders to the Court they desperately want to be a part of, but exteriors also give weight to Hamlet's line about being a king of infinite space, and in his black figure against the snow connects Hamlet to the shadowy dream (his unrealized revenge) and the outstretched echo of a hero or monarch who is but a beggar (as he refers to himself soon after). Another reason to place this scene outside is to reveal R&G's duplicity. We have already seen them inside Elsinore, so their surprise "arrival" is a con. When Hamlet tells them their news is not true, it seems at first that he means "the world's grown honest", but it may just as well refer to their entire arrival.

Branagh plays Hamlet as emotional here. As soon as he calls R&G on their untrue news, his eyes start to water, perhaps in anger. He realizes early on that he has been betrayed by childhood friends. This emotion pours out when he confronts them about it. And he does so head on. "I have an eye of you", scripted as an aside, is here a warning. Hamlet in fact uses his emotion to shame them into admitting their connivance with Claudius. He then seems to take them into his confidence, the lie out of the way so to speak, but he may be playing with them. Branagh plays him as sometimes vulnerable, sometimes mad, sometimes angry, giving them knowing, ironic looks. For example, he starts "What a piece of work is a man" while looking at Guildenstern, an edified man he will bring down in the course of the speech. He also looks at each of his friends in turn when he mentions the hawk and the handsaw, playing on the joke that the characters are nearly identical, but also saying that he knows friends from enemies.
For their part, they don't quite know what to make of him, and where Horatio seems to be on the same page as the prince, their interactions are often inappropriate. They are OLD friends in a very real sense (as opposed to LONG-TIME friends). They are only comfortable in nostalgia. They can handle banter and theatrical gossip, but they can't deal with Hamlet's depression or flights of poetry. This culminates in their turning one of the play's key speeches into a gay joke, their chuckling visibly insulting Hamlet. They revert to childhood when interacting with their childhood friend.
The theatrical gossip section is not often played, and Branagh wastes as little time as possible, making the rapid-fire discussion so quick it's hard to really get any meaning out of it. So why is it there (in the text)? It of course tells us something about R&G and Hamlet. Thematically, they're also talking about pretenders. Young actors coming on the scene and stealing the work of more established ones, their worthiness in question. Hamlet relates this to his uncle usurping the throne - and getting the two suck-ups to laugh along with his joke - and condemns "fashion" for elevating both. And then there are the pretenders that are R&G, ironically trying to elevate themselves like the "boys" did. So while Branagh does not necessarily convince us that this section needs to be in play, it does support many of the play's ideas.