IV.v. Laertes Returns - BBC '80

The conflict between Claudius and Laertes works by contrast. David Robb gives us one of the angriest Laertes examined in this series of articles, red-faced and able to interrupt a King when he speaks. Patrick Stewart's Claudius is, in complete opposition, calm, dispassionate, even cold, but also commanding and frank. The aforementioned interruption is meaningful. Laertes won't be "juggled with". He knows of Claudius' reputation as a deft manipulator, but doesn't see that Claudius is giving him exactly what he will most respond to: a no-nonsense attitude which doesn't appeal to emotion. When Claudius eventually shouts a line, it's not out of wrath, it's to press a point home. He's winning an argument.

Enter Ophelia, with flowers in her hands. She goes to Laertes and kisses him as she would a lover. She showed such disturbing sexual behavior in the previous sequence (towards the King), and it has two effects. One is to reestablish Laertes as a mirror image of Hamlet. The other is to put Ophelia in an alternate universe, a hallucination. It's not her brother she sees there, as she proceeds to bring flowers to an invisible grave. She's reliving (or imagining, if it never actually happened in her presence) her father's burial. She tries to get the royals to dance, sings to the ground, and when her brother tries to touch her, perhaps snap her out of it, she bats him away. When she isn't by the grave, she's clutching at the wall painting of the Hades that played background to Hamlet's "undiscovered country", prettiness in Hell. And she's fairly nasty to Claudius, throwing one of the flowers she gives him on the ground, for example, and barking her prayers at him, sarcastically invoking his Christian soul before leaving with a sweet smile.

Notably, Ophelia's scene doesn't completely deflate Laertes' anger. As Claudius finishes his speech to him, Laertes is overwhelmed with emotion. Still red-faced, he's now visibly shaking, almost like he's about to go mad himself. And that's proper given how Ophelia just treated the King. If he's guiltless, why would his sister be so disrespectful to him?

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Olivier '48

Olivier's treatment of this sequence is highly cinematic and focuses on Ophelia, not her brother, with massive cuts to his lines. Between the first and second parts of Scene 5, Olivier inserted Horatio's receipt of a letter from Hamlet, and it's at the end of that scene that Ophelia crosses his path, singing one of her songs. It increases the irony of her coming suicide because she almost learns her lover is coming back, or she might have heard, and his return is part of her nihilistic motivation. In any case, the camera follows her to the great hall where Laertes' sequence is already in progress. It removes the rabble at the gates and makes unclear the wronged son's ire towards the King. It's all on her, and the argument her brother is having with the Royals is just background noise, noise she interrupts with her entrance. We don't see her face until she speaks (singing excluded), which turns her into a ghost, with a function similar to the capital "G" Ghost of the play in the closet scene. She dispels the rage and violence in the scene, possibly prevents a misunderstanding from leading to murder. Laertes is haunted, and Ophelia is a sort of spirit, not truly connecting with the world around her.

After Laertes' initial reaction, we stay with Ophelia, she walks out of the room, speaks lines to herself, leaves rosemary on Hamlet's chair (asking him to remember), returns to the hall. And they don't follow her. They're stunned. She might as well be walking through walls. Ophelia is isolated - by choice, in a sense - and impossible to communicate with. The three onlookers don't even try. She gives them flowers (appropriate to their sins), and Gertrude is made to break down and cry, but they don't respond verbally. Even Laertes' running commentary is mostly removed. In the end, Ophelia walks away, crumples by an archway, crosses herself, looks back (though we never do), and seems to make her decision to commit suicide. What she imagines or reasons at that moment is a mystery. Does she imagine her brother will now avenge her father, and that her work is done? Does she realize she's lost any connection she might have had to the people behind her? We don't know. But Olivier certainly shows us that crucial moment of decision. The camera hangs back (and still no reaction shots), watches her leave the room, then follows her, but she's gone. And the image dissolves into that of the brook as Gertrude's telling of Ophelia's final moments begins. It's obvious Olivier draws a straight line from this moment to that fatal one, and in a way that could only really be done on film.

IV.v. Laertes Returns - Branagh '96

The gentleman's story (here, a female attendant's) is intercut with the racing feet of the rebels through the halls until the break down the doors and an angry Laertes confronts the king he thinks responsible for his father's death. From there, a long run up, sword drawn, to the throne, and only Gertrude's hold on the boy's arm stays his hand. The sequence starts with a flurry of energy, and for the actor playing Laertes, it's like returning from a very long tea break and still having to crank the performance up to eleven. A red-faced Claudius, perhaps holding back on the outrage he feels, stands up to the would-be deposer, his throat close to the sword's point, but not in back to the wall by any means. This is how he puts on a show of innocence. Through his dialog with Laertes, it's at Claudius that Gertrude looks at. Her worried, even fearful look, is aimed at her husband, not at the one holding a sword. And sure enough, the manipulation Claudius uses could refer to Hamlet Sr.'s death just as well as Polonius'. A good actress - and Julie Christie is one - will make the Queen notice the similarities here and wonder how much of his brotherly grief, referred to all the way back in Act I Scene 2, was real. In a sense, she's experiencing the confrontation her son never had with his stepfather.

And then Ophelia runs in and saps the rage out of Laertes.

Perhaps because she sees her brother there, Ophelia is giddy, giggling through her songs and playing with imaginary flowers. Note the staging. Not since "To be or not to be" have characters been reflected in a mirror for this long, linking Hamlet's suicidal thoughts to what could be called Ophelia's suicide note. Unlike Hamlet, the characters do not look at their reflections, however. There is a disconnect between their emotional and rational selves that prevents them from looking at themselves and adjusting their behavior. Ophelia in the throes of madness; Laertes in his rage and then sadness. Neither can make informed or reasoned decisions, such as the one Hamlet made after deconstructing the concept of suicide. During the last song, the reflections will disappear entirely due to body position and camera angle.

The gift of flowers seems not to follow the Elizabethan symbolism. She gives remembrance and thoughtfulness to Laertes, which is standard, and similarly, flattery, male adultery and ingratitude to the Royals. However, "adultery and genuine repentance of all transgressions for women and everlasting suffering" (rue), she gives to Laertes. In her songs, "stole the master's daughter" takes on a special meaning, because she looks towards the Royals and acts like it's a secret not to be repeated, but I'm unable to decipher that meaning, if any. The master can only be the King, and he has no daughter unless Claudius somehow bedded Ophelia's mother. If so, it gives the accusations of adultery a whole other bent, and makes Ophelia Hamlet's cousin. But while you could stage the play with this over-complication, Branagh's doesn't do attempt it. But it's a thought.

Ophelia's last song is heart-breaking, devastatingly beautiful, and imbued with a finality that's absent from the rest of her performance. Before this, there's rebellion in Ophelia. She's stubborn, inappropriately disrespectful to the Royals, and seeking escape. But in this last and prettiest of melodies, she seems more at peace, more accepting of her father's death. She accepts her fate, perhaps having transferred the responsibilities of her grief to Laertes, and emotionally spent (the energy at the top of the sequence moves from Laertes to her and runs itself out there), walks into her padded cell and just stands there, a figure haunting her brother through the rest of the scene.

Before she goes, she prays for her father's soul, but also all Christian souls, foreshadowing more sin and death. And once she walks off, that's it. She will never speak again. That's why this is akin to a suicide note, if only the other characters could understand it.

IV.v. Laertes Returns

The second half of Act IV, Scene 5 sees Laertes return from France, in open rebellion against the King, with the support of the people who would crown HIM king. Laertes is fulfilling his role in the drama as an alternative to Hamlet. He too is a princely (if not of royal blood) young man with a father slain, intent on getting vengeance on the man responsible. But just as happened to Hamlet, this vengeance will be postponed. Hamlet's need to be sure of Claudius' guilt will be replayed in small by Laertes who, this time, will find Claudius NOT guilty. In a later scene, Claudius will turn into the Ghost and counsel Laertes to take revenge on the real murderer, Hamlet himself. The sequence also includes Ophelia's last appearance in the play (though many adaptations have show her suicide), as she walks back on stage to see her brother. Over the next few articles, we'll see how each adaptation has molded this sequence, and what effect both Claudius and Ophelia have on Laertes. First, we look at the text itself, in italics as usual, with my comments breaking in in normal script.

A noise within

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Alack, what noise is this?
KING CLAUDIUS: Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door.

Enter another Gentleman

What is the matter?

GENTLEMAN: Save yourself, my lord:
The ocean, overpeering of his list,
Eats not the flats with more impetuous haste

Another link to Hamlet is this ocean metaphor. When Hamlet returns, it'll be by sea, whereas Laertes surely comes from France by land. Perhaps the audience would think, for a brief moment, that Hamlet has returned in force.

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,
O'erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord;
And, as the world were now but to begin,
Antiquity forgot, custom not known,
The ratifiers and props of every word,
They cry 'Choose we: Laertes shall be king:'
Caps, hands, and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:
'Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!'
QUEEN GERTRUDE: How cheerfully on the false trail they cry!
O, this is counter, you false Danish dogs!

It's notable that Gertrude is angry at this rebellion and could indicate that she's thrown in with Claudius after all, but one should remember that Claudius only became King through his alliance with her. Deposing Claudius means deposing Gertrude, and ultimately, Hamlet. No matter Claudius' worth, no Monarch is going to welcome the actions of rebels.

KING CLAUDIUS: The doors are broke.

Noise within

Enter LAERTES, armed; Danes following

LAERTES: Where is this king? Sirs, stand you all without.
DANES: No, let's come in.
LAERTES: I pray you, give me leave.
DANES: We will, we will.

They retire without the door

Though Laertes has many men, he's not really there to stage a coup. His quest is a personal one, and he leaves his troops behind to confront and accuse the King. Again, this mirrors Hamlet's actions as a prince not particularly interested in claiming the usurped throne for himself. Revenge is more important that reparation.

LAERTES: I thank you: keep the door. O thou vile king,
Give me my father!
QUEEN GERTRUDE: Calmly, good Laertes.
LAERTES: That drop of blood that's calm proclaims me bastard,
Cries cuckold to my father, brands the harlot
Even here, between the chaste unsmirched brow
Of my true mother.

A lot like Hamlet's own vows, Laertes says calming down, inaction and reflection in this case, are anathema to his very being. And in a later scene, he'll assure Claudius that he would eat Hamlet's heart in the church so constant is his need for revenge. And yet, in both cases, he does calm himself, his mood is changed (twice by Ophelia, and ultimately by Hamlet himself).

KING CLAUDIUS: What is the cause, Laertes,
That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?
Let him go, Gertrude; do not fear our person:
There's such divinity doth hedge a king,
That treason can but peep to what it would,
Acts little of his will. Tell me, Laertes,
Why thou art thus incensed. Let him go, Gertrude.
Speak, man.
LAERTES: Where is my father?
KING CLAUDIUS: Dead.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: But not by him.

This, more than her anger at the rebels, puts Gertrude on Claudius' side. She's only saying the truth when she says he didn't kill Polonius, but is seen physically restraining Laertes as he tries to reach the King. Again, this may be a question of preventing the crown from falling into a commoner's hands, but it's hard to see anything other than a wife protecting her husband here. It does depend on staging and performance, and I hope to see some fruitful variety among the adaptations.

KING CLAUDIUS: Let him demand his fill.
LAERTES: How came he dead? I'll not be juggled with:
To hell, allegiance! vows, to the blackest devil!
Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!
I dare damnation. To this point I stand,
That both the worlds I give to negligence,
Let come what comes; only I'll be revenged
Most thoroughly for my father.
KING CLAUDIUS: Who shall stay you?
LAERTES: My will, not all the world:
And for my means, I'll husband them so well,
They shall go far with little.
KING CLAUDIUS: Good Laertes,
If you desire to know the certainty
Of your dear father's death, is't writ in your revenge,
That, swoopstake, you will draw both friend and foe,
Winner and loser?
LAERTES: None but his enemies.
KING CLAUDIUS: Will you know them then?
LAERTES: To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
And like the kind life-rendering pelican,
Repast them with my blood.
KING CLAUDIUS: Why, now you speak
Like a good child and a true gentleman.
That I am guiltless of your father's death,
And am most sensible in grief for it,
It shall as level to your judgment pierce
As day does to your eye.

Claudius gives a lesson in persuasion throughout the sequence, asking questions to Laertes whose answers open the door to the way out, all the while playing the innocent and valorous man. The political animal is out.

DANES: [Within] Let her come in.
LAERTES: How now! what noise is that?

Re-enter OPHELIA

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is't possible, a young maid's wits
Should be as mortal as an old man's life?
Hamlet proved far more than those two things mortal with his single blow, as we can find it responsible for all the deaths at the end of the play, as well as Denmark falling to Fortinbras with the entire line of succession dead.

Nature is fine in love, and where 'tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.
OPHELIA: [Sings] They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain'd many a tear:--
Fare you well, my dove!
LAERTES: Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.
OPHELIA: [Sings] You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false steward, that stole his master's daughter.
LAERTES: This nothing's more than matter.

While Ophelia's speech is laced with that the other characters consider complete non sequiturs, neither does Laertes respond directly to anything she says. Both are entirely disconnected from their sibling, both are holding parallel conversations. This is emotionally true of their situation, but more importantly, it continues the pattern of Ophelia being defined by men. What Laertes does here is the same he's always done, which is describe Ophelia as she is or as he thinks she should be. His sadness in part stems from the idea that he can no longer control her, though it would be unkind of anyone but his critics to say so.

OPHELIA: There's rosemary, that's for remembrance; pray, love, remember: and there is pansies. That's for thoughts.
LAERTES: A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.
OPHELIA: There's fennel for you, and columbines: there's rue for you; and here's some for me: we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays: O you must wear your rue with a difference. There's a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end,--

Each flower has a meaning in local English lore, of course, and Ophelia is intimately tied to flowers in the manner of her death (she too withers). So rosemary is remembrance, pansies are thoughtfulness (in French, we call them pensées, which literally means thoughts), fennel for flattery, columbine for male adultery and ingratitude, rue for adultery and genuine repentance of all transgressions for women and everlasting suffering, daisies for innocence, and violets for fidelity. Note how it isn't always clear from the text who she gives each flower to, allowing the director and actors to modulate Ophelia's message, though of course, modern audiences will not get the hidden meanings unless Ophelia reveals them (which she sometimes does). Laertes obviously gets remembrance and thoughts, as is asked to remember her and their family as it used to be. This is in many ways her suicide note. Fennel might well go to Claudius, the flatterer, and the same character receives columbines, the sign of male adultery. So rue must go to Gertrude, though she takes some too, both women linked by suffering and the crimes of men. Proponents of the theory that Ophelia was pregnant should be aware that rue was used in abortions. The daisy (innocence) doesn't seem to go anywhere, it's been lost. As for violets, fidelity and loyalty have died along with her father. As we've seen already, she blames the Royals for her hardships.

[Sings] For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.
LAERTES: Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.
OPHELIA: [Sings] And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha' mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi' ye.

Exit

LAERTES: Do you see this, O God?
KING CLAUDIUS: Laertes, I must commune with your grief,
Or you deny me right. Go but apart,
Make choice of whom your wisest friends you will.
And they shall hear and judge 'twixt you and me:
If by direct or by collateral hand
They find us touch'd, we will our kingdom give,
Our crown, our life, and all that we can ours,
To you in satisfaction; but if not,
Be you content to lend your patience to us,
And we shall jointly labour with your soul
To give it due content.
LAERTES: Let this be so;
His means of death, his obscure funeral--
No trophy, sword, nor hatchment o'er his bones,
No noble rite nor formal ostentation--
Cry to be heard, as 'twere from heaven to earth,
That I must call't in question.
KING CLAUDIUS: So you shall;
And where the offence is let the great axe fall.
I pray you, go with me.

Exeunt

Ophelia exits and Claudius ruthlessly exploits Laertes' vulnerability by returning to arguments of his innocence. And yet, Ophelia just delivered a coded message about the Royals' improprieties. But Laertes doesn't have all the information that would link his father's death to a sequence of events that go back at least to Hamlet Sr.'s. Not as worthy as Hamlet, Laertes will not try things further or uncover the truth until it's too late.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Classics Illustrated

The original

Probably because there was too much sexual subtext in the sequence, the original Classics Illustrated adaptation chose to explain Ophelia's madness in no uncertain terms in a caption (Claudius will repeat some of this information in verse in his short speech), and reduced the scene to two mostly harmless snatches of song (though "cockle" survived as a rude pun, as did "maid" which is implicitly sexual). In fact, it's all about Hamlet. Nothing about Polonius' death, despite what the caption might say. Note also Ophelia's flowers which will play a part in her next (and last) appearance.

Gotta love the royals' comic take in the first panel. They're also given a panel (not shown) in which to despair, again in mirroring poses that would suggest these versions of Claudius and Gertrude are still a solid couple. The adaptation sadly doesn't do a lot to flesh out the characters, so the underwritten Gertrude is more underwritten (underdrawn?) still, often just an ornament on Claudius' arm, placidly receiving dialog more than she ever doles it out. We can't really know what she thinks of the King, if anything.

The Berkley version

The Grant/Mandrake version has also been sanitized, cutting everything that relates to Hamlet, so Claudius is right to invoke her father's death as the reason for her madness. In this adaptation too the royal couple seems as solid as ever. Look at the staging: It's Gertrude who brings Ophelia to the King, placing the Queen in a servile position. As for the art, I wondered what those pill-like shapes on the edge of the first panel were and decided they were hinges. Unstuck from the second panel, they're an image of the "unhinged". A clever little piece. I've looked and it's not a recurring motif. A clue that Ophelia's madness is real, whereas Hamlet's was not?

Claudius gets to say his piece on the next page, and you'll note the bloody wash that frames the panel, the same kind of wash that framed Polonius' murder. It gives Claudius' speech about "murd'ring" an ironic bent, showing how selfish he is to moan about his woes when those of others are much greater (and indeed, stem from his own misdeeds). Ophelia in this panel becomes a dark figure, disappearing into the walls of Elsinore. She has become a truth-speaking ghost, not unlike Hamlet Sr. though less intelligible. Of course, the Ghost was an enigmatic figure until Hamlet came. This time, Hamlet will come too late to wring any meaning out of Elsinore's resident ghost.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Tennant (2009)

Starting in front of the broken mirror, a metaphor now for Ophelia's broken mind, Gertrude's broken spirit, and Claudius' broken Denmark, we see tensions run high in Elsinore. Only Horatio's calming influence makes Gertrude agree to see Ophelia. Left alone for an instant, Gertrude speaks her only soliloquy in the play, laughing bitterly at the irony of it all, but keeping it brief as if unwilling to look (and speak) into that mirror for too long. When Ophelia walks in disheveled, it's like the Queen sees her for the first time and is suddenly worried for her (rather than the realm). It's made real. But for the audience, it takes a moment longer before we're shown Ophelia directly. We initially remark on her madness only as it plays on Gertrude's face. Is this an image of the Queen's greatest fear about herself? Is one of the reasons the Queen doesn't want to see Ophelia that she feels herself slipping into madness and can't bear one more "spill"?

Ophelia begins with a sad song, but as soon as either of the royals try to touch her - as Claudius walks in with papers that later prove to be news of Laertes' rebellion - she grows manic, screams "PRAY MARK" and starts whirling about the room. She's a dangerous creature to the realm and that sense is given by sudden moves, like her jumping at the Queen's hair, or ripping off the King's jacket. Director Greg Doran apparently rehearsed Ophelia separately from the other actors at first, so that their reactions would be truthful and the mad girl's antics all the more surprising. As she moves to the mirror and goes to touch a sharp shard of glass, they fear she might do a desperate outrage to herself (and she will, through something else that gives a reflection). Some of her madness is real, as in the moment where she looks vacantly into the distance reliving her father's burial, but sometimes she feigns madness to terrorize the royals. The story about the owl, for example, is accompanied by an epileptic fit to mime the transmogrification. This ties her more solidly with Hamlet. She's his mirror, but perhaps in more realistic psychological terms, her imitator. Note also the hilarious reading of the line "I hope all will be well" as a mockery of Patrick Stewart's mannerisms and voice. As such, it means Ophelia does not hope all will be well, and indeed wishes doom on this entire family at her brother's vengeful hands.

The production does not shy away from the more sexual aspects of the scene. In her manic state, Ophelia quickly removes her dress and slip during the tumbling song and refuses the Queen's attempts to drape a shawl over her nakedness. Although Ophelia still has underwear, Claudius looks away embarrassed, contradicting Hamlet's portrait of him as a lust-filled beast. She runs off, clothes in hand, when she suddenly finds herself vulnerable with the thoughts she'd been avoiding all along, those touching her father's death. But make no mistake, this was a coded attack on the royal family.

Claudius, ever the unctuous politician, seems all too calm about the situation, his priority to cajole the distance Gertrude into his frame of mind. His smooth tones betray his intentions, this is a spin job, and he makes sure to blame Hamlet for their problems, an accusation she shrugs off angrily, as if it's been his mantra now for a while and she's tired of hearing it. But he's not exactly wrong.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Fodor (2007)

The more extreme relationships in this version of the play transform the meaning of almost every line in the scene (at least, those that survived the edit). It occurs under a quay on a muddy beach where Ophelia is brought to the Queen by Horatio and the Gentleman, where they exchange sarcastic barbs. It's a reversal. Instead of the Queen trying to avoid the mad young girl, she instead has the disruptive Ophelia brought to her for a scolding, either on her orders or by Horatio's initiative. Why is Gertrude so aloof? We have to remember that in this version, the slain Polonia was Ophelia's SISTER, a sister having an affair with Claudius. The Queen may be transferring resentment to the mistress' sister. The scene also suggests a similar adulterous relationship between Claudius and Ophelia, as the songs (here just shouted rhymes) about "tumbling" are thrown the King's way. And he seems particularly empathetic, though again, this may be transference as she was his lover's sister. Either way, the mistrust in the Queen's eyes is what creates the ambiguity.

Oddly, the songs are not gender-translated like the rest of the play. "He is dead and gone" can now only mean Hamlet, because Ophelia has lost no father. Hamlet isn't dead, though they might have said that to comfort her. She might be talking about Hamlet Sr., as she is one of the people who seems able to see the Ghost when she's high on heroin. Fodor had a perfect excuse for Ophelia's madness even in his modern context, but he doesn't seem to use it here and the scene is the weaker for it. Polonia was Ophelia's pusher, and the girl could have been crashing hard at this point. However, the performance has none of that, and the way Ophelia recites the songs by rote, without inflection or inner discourse, doesn't work either as withdrawal OR madness.

Fodor suggests a number of dark happenings in both past and present, but they don't come together satisfyingly in this scene.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Hamlet 2000

Hamlet 2000 uses heavy cuts to ramp the scene's momentum up, focusing on Ophelia's disruptive influence at "court". The scene is set on an interior balcony overlooking a central atrium. On several levels, there appears to be a company function going on, some cocktail party attended by shareholders perhaps. Ophelia seeks the Queen, going round and round the concentric balconies, an image of her own mind spinning out of control. She finds Gertrude laughing, drink in hand, and seemingly untouched by the feeling expressed by her speech, done in voice-over. This is the face she shows the shareholders, a brave front to keep confidence in the company up, which makes Ophelia's intervention all the more destructive. She stumbles into guests and Gertrude naturally tries to smile over the incident and lead the girl away. With this more sinister Queen, it becomes possible for the song "How should I your true love know / From another one?" to be directed at her, the mother-in-law who has apparently spurned her and spurned her own son. One of Ophelia's transgressions is to question the love Gertrude bears her son (which she let the King exile), and her loyalty to Polonius' family (who died while theoretically under the Queen's protection).

The King walks in with a bodyguard in tow and Ophelia gets more and more agitated. Not feeling like they're listening to her, she screams "Pray mark". Gertrude turns to the King for help, her smiles still trying to cover for the girl's antics. "When they ask you what it means", she tells the royals to convey not the original song, but an incredible scream that startles the guests (pictured above). The film translates her trauma differently than the play does, cutting out most of the "nonsense songs", replacing them with moments such as this, which we might call "nonsense sounds". What we lose in poetry we gain in visceral immediacy.

The rest of Ophelia's performance, including the warning about her brother, is given while being dragged away by the bodyguard, again keeping things moving. The scene's rather surprising punchline is that Laertes comes out of nowhere before the King can utter more than one line of the final speech, grabbing him by the throat. Ophelia's appearance was but the first volley in this "rebellion", played rather more personally in this version of the play, as we'll discuss when we tackle the next scene.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Kline '90

Diane Venora has such a deep voice, it's hard to see her as anything but an adult version of Ophelia, but perhaps that's why her descent into madness as a kind of intermittent return to childhood, works. She's a woman acting like a little girl, dancing, clapping, singing and giggling in her night gown. It's a complex, mercurial, if sometimes over the top performance, with some interesting elements of mise en scène. First and foremost is her lack of animosity towards the royals. By removing the early sequence in which Gertrude doesn't want to see her, Kline makes the Queen more sympathetic, and Ophelia runs to her arms as if a mother. She puts on a brave face when the King arrives, but won't have anyone speak of her father's death. If there is a dark side to their relationship, it may be apprehended during the song about the two lovers. She plays director to the story, puts the King's hand into the Queen's and indicates how he's the boy in the story, and she the girl. Is she inferring something about the royal couple? That perhaps they'd been having an affair before Hamlet Sr.'s death? Or is it more likely she's throwing up a mirror for a future Hamlet & Ophelia that will now never come to pass?

Venora really presents two Ophelias. The child who dreams of being Queen, who sees imaginary ladies-in-waiting (in lines which, on the stage, might well be directed at audience members), sings and dances and passes notes (what is the significance of the crumpled piece of paper she gives Gertrude? An old love letter? Is this a corruption of the scene in which Polonius reads on to the royals?). The other Ophelia is the traumatized, grieving daughter who scratches at the floorboards (where the audience knows ghosts live), rhymes rather than sings, moans and beats her chest. They don't co-exist. When she moves from orphan to child at one point, she realizes her face is wet with tears and starts wiping it, as puzzled as she is ashamed. Ophelia is out of joint.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Zeffirelli '90

As usual, Zeffirelli plays fast and loose with the sequence of lines, but to good effect. Helena Bonham-Carter's waifish Ophelia is first seen sneaking around outside the castle, wet and dirty, but seemingly free to roam like Hamlet was. As Gertrude watches from the window, the girl approaches a guard at attention, rubs his face, his chest, and quite suggestively, his belt (reminiscent of Greek comedies and their leather phalli), singing the more sexual songs from her repertoire. The uncomfortable guard plays the role of a substitute Hamlet, the "true love she cannot know from another one". These songs she will repeat to herself at the end of the scene, confirming the main reason of her madness, loss of love (the reverse of Hamlet's condition). Someone soon comes to get her, but inside, she starts calling for the beauteous majesty of Denmark, Ophelia's actual entrance in the play, something that fills Gertrude with deep fear. Why is this madness more disturbing to her than her own son's? The truth of it may be that it isn't their first such meeting.

Here they meet on the giant steps, where Ophelia's songs are more about her father's death. They come off as accusations and always end dissonantly, prettiness turning to hardness as she comes upon the Queen. A chase ensues as Gertrude tries to escape the girl, but Ophelia is quicker and manages to catch up to her, fingers the crucifix the Queen was piously fingering earlier. In fact, she chases the Queen right into Claudius' arms. The baker's daughter comment is clearly leveled at Gertrude, a warning to the King that his wife may not be what she seems. Is Ophelia then siding the the murderous King? Why wouldn't she? Her father was slain in the company of the Queen and Hamlet. She seems to suspect Gertrude had a hand in it. Strictly speaking, she's wrong about that, but the warning should not have fallen on such deaf ears regardless. Without knowing it, Ophelia has warned Claudius that Gertrude's allegiance is now with Hamlet, though that remains in dispute. Gertrude running for Claudius' protection in this scene would seem to say she's too weak a person to reject her King. She may well land wherever her position is strongest. We don't know what she may be either.

Believe it or not, these are her moments of lucidity. Ophelia's words are interrupted by painful memories that bring her to the ground. Horatio and some sad guardsman surround her, ready to take her into custody. The sudden realization that her brother will know of it makes her smile and grow manic. This is a departure from other performances of the role we've looked at, but completely justified. Though the occasion is tragic, Laertes is all she has left and his return is to be celebrated. She kisses the Queen's hands, offers the King her own to kiss, and off she goes through the castle. With the dilated timeline (rebels are not at the gates), Elsinore is still full of people, there to witness Ophelia's madness. The "sweet ladies" actually exist, and some nuns do run off after her to help, along with Horatio who finds her wailing and clutching at a wall, and who takes her up in his arms. Gertrude walks off sobbing, leaving Claudius to his thoughts.

Time lapses still, with cutaways to Hamlet at sea (we'll return to this in due course), before Laertes' arrival at some later point.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - BBC '80

In this version, Gertrude clearly feels helpless to help Ophelia, which makes the girl's angry defiance even more shocking. Lalla Ward's Ophelia is angry at the Queen, her songs are vicious attacks, her eyes drill right through Gertrude. It's an Ophelia in the Olivier mold, but more extreme. It would seem she blames the Queen in some way, speaks of HER as the "baker's daughter", not what she seems, and is sarcastic when she wishes God at her table. There are several ways to justify such a performance. First, there's the fact that Polonius died in the Queen's closet, making Gertrude partly responsible. The second transfers Hamlet's guilt to the mother that bore him. Without Gertrude, there is no Hamlet (doubly so, as without her sin, there is no mad Hamlet). The overall effect creates a strange mirror of Hamlet's early attitude towards his mother, but even more unreasonable.

Enter Claudius, and here Ophelia's attitude is much different, taking the Queen's role by caressing his beard, singing the Valentine's Day song seductively, and grinding the uncomfortable King. Again, there's emotional transference at work, with Claudius becoming Hamlet for those few seconds. A past Hamlet, when the lovers were together. A future Hamlet who would have become King. Ophelia is trapped in a jealous love triangle from a projected (and now aborted) future. The identities of Claudius as Hamlet, and the Queen as rival are delusions just like the invisible coach and ladies. When Ophelia breaks from this fantasy, it's to weep, or to rage. "My brother shall know of it" is particularly fierce and a violent announcement of what is to come.

In Claudius' ensuing speech, he explains why Gertrude should fear just as he does, a deft manipulation to make her hold on to him harder. We know not what she may be, this baker's daughter, true to her husband, or true to her son? Like Ophelia, her changeability is tied to the men who dominate her.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Olivier '48

The scene starts with foreshadowing of Ophelia's suicide as we see her reflection in the famous brook, taking a flower floating upon the water. As she plucks it, her image is naturally distorted, a metaphor for her broken mind. She screams, we see her on the river bank, her hair undone and tangled with bits and pieces of plants. She runs off, over a long that acts as a bridge over the brook, to and through the castle, only stopping after she crosses Horatio and the Queen, walking the halls.

There is something defiant about Jean Simmons' performance as Ophelia that gives a rebellious edge to some of her lines (she is, after all, a rebel's sister). Her back is turned when she asks where the "beauteous majesty of Denmark", but she's already seen the Queen. Is this mark of disrespect intentional? She is clearly not feigning madness, as Hamlet was, but that madness has dispelled her native inhibitions and given her permission to be insolent. The line could be read to mean she does not see the the Queen as "majesty", and indeed, her exit asking for her coach and giving her farewells to invisible attendants could be a fantasy in which SHE is Queen. Like Hamlet, her ambition has been aborted by the Royals' meddling and ultimately, Claudius' fratricide. Ophelia's ambitions are those of a child, aspiring to marriage in a naive way, but she still knows she's lost something, not just a father and a husband, but the future she believed was hers.

More insolence: She won't endure the Queen's consoling. Every time Gertrude attempts it, Ophelia starts on a song (and Simmons has a beautiful singing voice), even moves away. This is even more true once Claudius happens on the scene. She won't let him touch her. There's a sense that, consciously or not, she knows who's responsible for all their sorrows. She moves between smiles and tears, silliness and wisdom, girl and woman, and though the dirtiest song isn't used, there is a moment of sexuality as yet unseen in the character when she lets Horatio help her up. She notices him as a young woman would a handsome gallant, flushed by his touch.

Gertrude flees Claudius' touch too, mind. Hamlet's parting words have had an effect on her, though she hides it in distracted sadness. Claudius, sensing she's slipping out of his control, embraces her from behind and visibly frustrated, lays a manipulative speech on her. He talks about OUR son and threats to OUR own person, physically showing they are, as Hamlet had said, "one flesh". In other words, "we're in this together, baby". If his regime falls, she falls with it, and better behave like the Queen he needs her to be, obedient at his side. It's not often discussed, but one of the great evils perpetrated by this corrupt Denmark is how it uses women for its own ends. It has broken Ophelia and will undo Gertrude, the puppet queen as well.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Branagh '96

In one of Branagh's few changes to the text, he reorders Claudius' end speech (starting with "When sorrows come") in this sequence to serve as a recap of the action to date as we return from intermission. It's a clever change that, using voice-over and a montage of previously seen (and some repurposed) images, gives urgency to what would normally be repeated information. The voice-over starts on the gates of Elsinore, which foreshadows, along with the lines about single spies and battalions, Laertes' revolutionaries, Hamlet's skulking back into the country, and Fortinbras' invasion. The montage also reminds us of who Laertes is - we haven't seen him since the first Act - reveals how all of this is weighing on Claudius, here seen pacing in the chapel, and reveals slightly ahead of time that Ophelia has gone mad, reusing the shot of her screaming after her father's corpse.

The better to prepare us for the next shot: Ophelia in a padded cell, being observed through a grate from above, straight-jacketed and wearing a gray cap, a creature more like the Tempest's Caliban than the lovely girl we met earlier in the play. She's ramming into each wall like a trapped animal. Gertrude's attitude then isn't annoyance, but fear. Caught between Horatio and the doctor (a black, female doctor, in line with Branagh's other anachronistic casting choices) who share the unnamed Gentleman's lines, she eventually relents and agrees to see Ophelia. Cut to the shot above, Ophelia all trussed up on her stomach, an inch worm asking to see the Queen. It's at once funny and pathetic, but also harks back to Hamlet's worm metaphor and to the abuse historically suffered by the mentally ill. In other versions and other Shakespeare plays, mad characters seem to have free reign of the locations, enjoying a sort of immunity to reprisal, perhaps through the mystical notion that madmen speak poetic truth. Often, these characters are allowed to rant and speak to power with insolence, without interruption (the mad queen in Richard III is another example). Madness makes people uncomfortable, unsure of what to say. We should note how differently mad Ophelia is being treated compared to mad Hamlet. Is this the effect of class or gender? Probably both.

The cell, you'll notice, is right adjacent to the throne room. As it's unlikely this is a normal feature of Elsinore, we might see it as a sign of changing times. Used to be the King and Queen were constantly attended, the Hall of Mirrors full of courtiers, but with Hamlet in exile, rumors abound and revolution brews. Claudius' Elsinore, like his Denmark, is changing. It's probably not safe to let the Prime Minister's mad daughter leave the castle, or even let it be known she's gone insane (it's a surprise to Laertes later). So a makeshift padded cell has been built into one of the secret compartments so she can be treated at home. This is an isolated Elsinore where visitors are no longer welcome. Halls made to look big and empty in wide shots. The Royals are small and vulnerable in their marble cocoon.

Before Ophelia can rant, she must be free, and Gertrude does her this kindness, untying her sleeves in an effort to comfort her. The rant takes the form of songs (many of them ribald), but that's probably the only things she knows. A young girl in a royal court wouldn't be trained in any useful skill. Her life would be songs and the meaning of flowers, skills to charm and impress a father and husband. That's all she has to try and express the inexpressible. Claudius comes in during one of the songs and tries to help her up, and the dynamic changes. Not that Ophelia can tell he's responsible (though she does throw the owl line at him), but he's a man, and men have been her undoing. At the mention of her father, she screams and stumbles off, and even the camera is kept at bay, suddenly uncertain and shaky. From Ophelia's point of view too, other characters seem far away. A distance in understanding. When she approaches them again, it's to rudely bump Claudius on the word "cock", and to disturbingly reenact her "tumbling" on the floor (with unnecessary but pointed flashbacks of Hamlet in bed with her).

In the middle of this, a moment of lucidity (from "I hope all will be well") and a realization that her brother will be coming. This moment is covered in a close-up of Ophelia, for the moment coming into focus, her cheeks and eyes ruined by too many tears. Her mind is broken, but she's still in there, and through those lines that are not "nonsense songs", we discover a certain self-awareness, one that she's trying to escape from. The metaphor echoes into reality as she struggles not to be tied up again, refusing Claudius' touch, avoiding him as she defiantly calls for her coach and runs off with Horatio and the doctor after her.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness - Slings & Arrows

Allow me to upend the usual order by starting with Slings & Arrows, but while the scene is part of the onscreen performance (above), the show also features, in the season's penultimate episode, one of my favorite moments of dramatic criticism, and it relates to that scene and to this entire endeavor.

One of the subplots of the show around the play focuses on the character of Claire (Sabrina Grdevich), a talentless brown-noser the play's director, Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross), has inherited. In rehearsals, she's going on sense memory to simulate Ophelia's madness, reenacting what it's like to be stoned because she surmises that it's the same thing. So it's a whole lot of staggering about, mouth open, twirling... After all, there's nothing Claire can take from the text. Ophelia is just singing nonsense songs.

Geoffrey's intense piece of advice to Claire is wasted on her (hilariously, she's back to twirling in the background of the next scene), but I can't watch it without tearing up. Let me just reproduce it here in toto:

"Ophelia is a child. She has been dominated by powerful men all of her life and suddenly they all disappear. Her brother goes to France. Her father is murdered by her boyfriend. And he is shipped off to England. She is alone for the first time, grieving and heartbroken and guilty because, as far as she's concerned, it's all her fault. She ignored her brother's advice and fell in love with Hamlet and now, her father is dead, all because of her. And the pain, and the loss, and the shame, and the guilt, all of this is gnawing away inside that little child's mind, and it comes out as little... songs. 'And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No, no, he is dead.' My father is dead and I killed him."

This is dead on, and hearing the quote he uses spoken by a man, reveals how the songs also relate to Hamlet's own situation. He too has gone mad from losing a father (or three, if we count surrogate Yorrick and stay-at-home uncle who betrayed his trust Claudius), and Geoffrey makes us feel that loss and how guilt played a part in his own bout of madness. We almost intuit what his own legendary Hamlet was like.

Thankfully, something happens to Claire and understudy Kate (Rachel McAdams) must take over for her. Her performance as Ophelia, make-up dripping, voice shaking and breaking, even gets to Claire, who bitterly wipes a tear away in the audience. Ellen (Martha Burns) playing Gertrude is also visibly affected, another case of seeing the actress behind the role, not expecting that level of emotion. It makes me realize how important Gertrude's reaction to Ophelia is in this scene. In the text, she isn't particularly kind to her. She doesn't even want to deal with her at the moment. But if she lets herself be touched by this moment, or if she visibly doesn't, it changes how we might understand Gertrude's later narration of Ophelia's final moments. On one end of the scale, deep empathy, on the other, the sense she might have played a sinister. part in those events.

IV.v. Ophelia's Madness

Scene 5 can be split into two sequences, Ophelia's descent into madness and Laertes' return (though the latter eventually dovetails into the former), so we'll take them separately. Scene 5 is the scene by which we judge all Ophelias and indeed, it is her last. She thereafter only appears in the story of her suicide as told by Gertrude, though of course, films often show us something of that action. Though the difficulty for the actress is obvious, there's also a difficulty for the director because Ophelia's madness manifests as snippets of old folk tunes. What melodies does one use, and how do these change the way we understand and interpret the songs? Before addressing the relevant performances, let's look at the text itself. As usual, the Bard is in italics, and my comments break through unitalicized.

SCENE V. Elsinore. A room in the castle.
Enter QUEEN GERTRUDE, HORATIO, and a Gentleman

QUEEN GERTRUDE: I will not speak with her.

Some time has passed since Polonius' death and Hamlet's exile, enough that the Queen doesn't want to deal with Ophelia anymore. This line is often forgotten because Gertrude does indeed go on to see Ophelia, but it is nonetheless there. Is the Queen annoyed, tired or afraid? That's up to each actress, but there is cause for any or all those feelings.

GENTLEMAN: She is importunate, indeed distract:
Her mood will needs be pitied.
QUEEN GERTRUDE: What would she have?
GENTLEMAN: She speaks much of her father; says she hears
There's tricks i' the world; and hems, and beats her heart;
Spurns enviously at straws; speaks things in doubt,
That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,
Yet the unshaped use of it doth move
The hearers to collection; they aim at it,
And botch the words up fit to their own thoughts;
Which, as her winks, and nods, and gestures yield them,
Indeed would make one think there might be thought,
Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.

There is, in the Gentleman's speech, the mirror of how an audience can, should and does infer meaning in poetry (and in Shakespeare's plays themselves). Ophelia's speech is "nothing", meaningless, and yet the human mind cannot but try to give meaning to it. This is a wonderful preamble to a scene where the audience (and the characters in the scene) are asked to do just that. We will look for poetical meaning, what Ophelia feels about her lover killing her father, but the King and Queen may be looking for something else - Ophelia leaking the very information they tried to keep quiet by sending Hamlet away, or else implying the Royals had something to do with it (something gets back to Laertes, who has that distinct impression when he returns to Elsinore). In fact, Horatio seems to be of the same bent.

HORATIO: 'Twere good she were spoken with; for she may strew
Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding minds.

Now, I find Horatio's presence very odd. Hamlet is off and away, but he has stayed at Elsinore. Furthermore, he's here thinking about the Royals' PR. That's behavior you'd expect from Rosencrantz&Guildenstern! Since he later receives word from Hamlet, the simplest explanation is that he's under orders from the Prince to stick around, perhaps to take care of Ophelia, certainly to keep an eye on Claudius. Still, ingratiating himself into the Court might speak to a more self-serving agenda, one that finds its fullest expression at the very end when he is left to tell the story. His interest in "spin" in this very line might very well mean he'll embellish or change some details...

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Let her come in.

Exit HORATIO

To my sick soul, as sin's true nature is,
Each toy seems prologue to some great amiss:
So full of artless jealousy is guilt,
It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Re-enter HORATIO, with OPHELIA

OPHELIA: Where is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?
QUEEN GERTRUDE: How now, Ophelia!

OPHELIA [Sings]: How should I your true love know
From another one?
By his cockle hat and staff,
And his sandal shoon.

Knowing true love from false seems a pretty obvious reference to Hamlet's betrayal. Gertrude's a bit dense, in denial, or looking for confirmation in her next line:

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Alas, sweet lady, what imports this song?
OPHELIA: Say you? nay, pray you, mark.
[Sings] He is dead and gone, lady,
He is dead and gone;
At his head a grass-green turf,
At his heels a stone.

This one is about her father, clearly, and in the next interrupted line from the song, she sees him in a white shroud. It's a symbol of purity that implies her father wasn't guilty of anything, nor deserving of his fate. It seems the fault all lies on Hamlet's shoulders.

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Nay, but, Ophelia,--
OPHELIA: Pray you, mark.
[Sings] White his shroud as the mountain snow,--

Enter KING CLAUDIUS

QUEEN GERTRUDE: Alas, look here, my lord.
OPHELIA: [Sings] Larded with sweet flowers
Which bewept to the grave did go
With true-love showers.

Note the connection made between the flowers on her father's grave and those she will hand out in the next sequence, and the garlands that are part of her death scene.

KING CLAUDIUS: How do you, pretty lady?
OPHELIA: Well, God 'ild you! They say the owl was a baker's daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

There is a strange legend about a baker's daughter who was transformed into an owl after being stingy to Jesus Christ, which is what Ophelia refers to. It's possible Ophelia blames herself for her father's death (after all, it was his theory that she was the cause of Hamlet's madness), so this allusion of transformation is appropriate. Tragic or extreme events can unlock our true form, just as these have unlocked her madness. More dangerously, she might be implying the King has yet to show his true colors.

KING CLAUDIUS: Conceit upon her father.
OPHELIA: Pray you, let's have no words of this; but when they ask you what it means, say you this:
[Sings] To-morrow is Saint Valentine's day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn'd his clothes,
And dupp'd the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.

An indication that Hamlet took her maidenhead. She's a maid (a virgin) in the first half of the song, and in the second, her lover is rising from the bed and putting his clothes on, and she leaves, no longer a maid. If staging it so that Ophelia and Hamlet never consummated their relationship, Ophelia could instead be referring to a loss of innocence caused by her father's murder, or else visualizing a reality that might have been had the events of the play not occurred. The next song, however, pretty much seals the deal.

KING CLAUDIUS: Pretty Ophelia!
OPHELIA: Indeed, la, without an oath, I'll make an end on't:
[Sings] By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do't, if they come to't;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha' done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

The meaning is fairly clear. Hamlet has already made love to her on the pretext that he would marry her later anyway. Events prevented the latter from happening, so Ophelia is doubly betrayed, both as a daughter and as a (potential) wife.

KING CLAUDIUS: How long hath she been thus?
OPHELIA: I hope all will be well. We must be patient: but I cannot choose but weep, to think they should lay him i' the cold ground. My brother shall know of it: and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Good night, ladies; good night, sweet ladies; good night, good night.

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS: Follow her close; give her good watch,
I pray you.

Exit HORATIO

O, this is the poison of deep grief; it springs
All from her father's death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,

There are too many references to Hamlet in Ophelia's songs for her father's death to be the only cause of her distress. It's actually quite amusing that Polonius spent the better part of the play insisting Hamlet's madness was due to neglected love, while in truth, it was his father's murder that pushed him over the edge. Now, Ophelia's mad and it's Claudius insisting the complete opposite. He thinks her father's murder is to blame, but it may well be that neglected love is the more potent reason behind Ophelia's tears.

When sorrows come, they come not single spies
But in battalions. First, her father slain:

Foreshadowing Fortinbras' attack, possibly? While the King is distracted by single threats like Hamlet (still a threat because his exile has caused the populace to whisper rumors) and Laertes (whose ear these rumors have reached), he misses the bigger danger completely.

Next, your son gone; and he most violent author
Of his own just remove: the people muddied,
Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers,
For good Polonius' death; and we have done but greenly,
In hugger-mugger to inter him: poor Ophelia
Divided from herself and her fair judgment,
Without the which we are pictures, or mere beasts:
Last, and as much containing as all these,
Her brother is in secret come from France;
Feeds on his wonder, keeps himself in clouds,
And wants not buzzers to infect his ear
With pestilent speeches of his father's death;
Wherein necessity, of matter beggar'd,
Will nothing stick our person to arraign
In ear and ear. O my dear Gertrude, this,
Like to a murdering-piece, in many places
Gives me superfluous death.

Here we should address the idea of putting poison in one's ear, which was Claudius' method for murdering Hamlet Sr., and the poetic justice of the King being threatened by metaphorical poison poured in Danish ears. Because the truth of Polonius' death could not be revealed, Claudius fears the rumors (poison) has reached Laertes and may fuel a rebellion. Claudius uses the word "ear" again and again as his anxiety mounts, a sort of veiled confession only we can decode.

Other Hamlets: Kill Shakespeare

What happened to Hamlet on his way to England? The play tells us through a letter to Horatio, but writers Conor McCreery and Anthony Del Col, along with artist Andy Belanger, have a different idea. In the 12-issue comics series Kill Shakespeare, they basically use Hamlet's exile as a launching pad for a story in which Hamlet finds his way to the shores of a fable-land where all of Shakespeare's creations co-exist. A prophecy proclaims him the "shadow king" that must one day find the lost creator, William Shakespeare, and two factions try to lay claim to him. On one side, Richard III, Lady MacBeth and Iago, on the other, Falstaff, Juliet and Othello. The first wants to kill Shakespeare and steal his power over creation, the other to convince Will to rid the land of evil.

It's a fun exercise, more approachable than League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, though more contained than Fables, its two most obvious antecedents. McCreery and Del Col make a lot of references to the Shakespearean canon, not just with the characters, but in tropes (there's a play, cross-dressing, a tempest on the horizon), details (place names are in-jokes, Hamlet and Juliet speak through a chink in a wall, some of the action takes place on Twelfth Night), and dialog (many lines are referenced). It certainly keeps readers who know their Shakespeare interested. But they also don't mind fiddling with the stories so they can interact regardless of their fates in the original plays.

Of course, we're here to talk about Hamlet specifically, and there are some interesting changes made to his particular tale that can inform a new staging of the play. Elsinore is translated as Helsingor, and its king dies a month ago. Since then, Hamlet's mother has wed the king's brother and events have quickly spun out of control. Hamlet, believing he is killing Claudius on behalf of his ghostly father, accidentally murders Polonius...

The writers make certain choices that change the tenor of the play. For one thing, it takes three days for Hamlet to admit his crime and return the body to Polonius' family. You shall indeed "nose him". Second, this weighs far more heavily on Hamlet than in the play, and his exile is more or less voluntary. Though Claudius officially sends him away and decrees he shall never return on pain of death, Hamlet's guilt is a major motivator. As he prepares to leave, he says goodbye to his father's tomb and feels as if he's been set free. This is not the Hamlet whose thoughts are bloody, so the comic becomes his journey to his eventual return, changed and ready, to Denmark's shores. In fact, when he is visited by other spirits (attempting to draw him to the land of Shakespeare), he protests again and again that he is no killer.

An important difference in the comic is that Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Hamlet's true friends.

They expose Claudius' plot and suggest Hamlet raise an army to regain his throne. But Hamlet accepts his punishment for the murder of Polonius and finds himself unworthy of the Danish crown. If there is a parallel with Act IV Scene 4, it's that Rosencrantz shows Hamlet how to make a difficult choice by betraying Claudius. But fate (or rather, the forces who want to control the "shadow king") intervene and leads pirates to Hamlet's ship. His friends are killed in the melee and he is cast away on alien shores. This is all part of issue 1's introduction, and from there the story proceeds apace.

Issue 7 is another important issue for Hamlet scholars. A dark troupe of players throw Hamlet on the stage in an effort to manipulate him and force him to play a part in The Murder of Gonzago. It's not clear if he also had the play presented before the Royal couple before killing Polonius, but he presumably did. He plays the role of the assassin, forcing him to connect his own murder with that of Claudius. Up to this point, Hamlet has been unwilling to accept his destiny, a mirror of his reticence to do the same in Helsingor, so forces are pushing him to confront his demons. He runs into a Hall of Mirrors where he does just that.

There he confesses his murder to Juliet, a five-fold crime in his eyes because it struck more than just Polonius. Ophelia and Laertes lost a father, Gertrude lost a son (he believes Gertrude now sees him as an abomination), and Hamlet is the last victim, having forsaken his own self as penance. He also explores his feeling towards his father, a cold and distance man of violence who was so paranoid as to wage war on all his neighbors until only internal threats were left, a man suspicious of his brother, yes, but also of his own son. Hamlet Sr. is painted as a Richard III, someone who might well have done away with Claudius and Hamlet if he feared, rightly or wrongly, they coveted the throne. Did Claudius only kill his brother in preventative self defense? Or is Hamlet only justifying, once again, why he hasn't killed Claudius in his father's name? Hamlet comes out of the experience ready to be a hero, but no to go back home.

The idea that Hamlet is the only character that can find Shakespeare is a perfectly legitimate one, even an obvious one. He is the character that perhaps most escaped his author's control. Hamlet's delays in the play are an overt attempt to stymie the play's inevitable tragedy. Hamlet does not want to die and forces his author to keep him alive and interesting. When we finally encounter Will in the final act, he admits to having given his characters free will, a Judeo-Christian allegory sure, but also commentary on how alive his characters seem. After his first few plays, imitating the "cartoons" of Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare found a way to make his characters truly life-like, able to hear themselves speak and change in response to their own thoughts. In the world of Kill Shakespeare, it's caused a civil war, strife in the land at the hands of the more evil characters, but also the chance for redemption.

Though the series ends at issue 12, Hamlet does not return to Helsingor. Not yet. A new series, subtitled The Tide of Blood, has since begun publishing, continuing Hamlet's story. We shall have to return to this book again one day...

Act IV, Scene 4 - Classics Illustrated

The original adaptation omits this scene entirely, but the Berkley version doesn't, though by staging the action just as Hamlet's party leaves Elsinore does have a variety of effects.

First, it puts Fortinbras' army very close to the Danish throne, and reinforces the idea that Claudius is a fool to trust Norway. We're looking at a huge army within a stone's throw of what looks like a largely undefended castle, overgrown with weeds and surrounded by crumbling walls. Denmark is on the wane, and artist Tom Mandrake represents this visually. Another change is that the Captain's lines seem to have been given to one of Hamlet's guards, which justifies the cursory information given when you cut most of the Captain's lines.

Removing the Captain's lines about the futility of this particular battle means Hamlet's condemnation of it as a "trick of fame" is really a condemnation of all war. He doesn't need to know the details of the Norway-Poland engagement to know many men will die and for what? Their leader's glory and some patch of land? This tells us something about Hamlet's relationship to his father, reputedly a great warrior. He's an academic and as the play has made clear to date, a man more of words than actions. He sees something of his father in Fortinbras, and that compels him to finally act, but he's also critical of the type of action. Even in a speech about finally committing to action, there is still a resistance, an attempt to justify why HE might act when others' violence is so distasteful to him. To become one's father, or to forge one's own way, is in many ways Hamlet's dilemma.

Mandrake's active pose in the last panel does a good job of visually representing that leap into a new mode of being for our Prince.

Act IV, Scene 4 - The Banquet

The Banquet (sold in America as Legend of the Black Scorpion) must be the only version of Hamlet that includes snow ninjas. While the story is often very different from the play's, the Prince's exile definitely evokes Hamlet's own, as he is escorted on horseback through a snowy plain. As in the play, he spies an army from afar, and it is a mirror of himself on that other road. No Fortinbras, but a fake Prince who will act as tribute to the country standing in for England while he is assassinated by his own escort, here, now. In other words, what if Claudius, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern were far more treacherous than they appeared? The Prince is rescued by the timely intervention of, yes, snow ninjas burrowing from beneath and killing the murderous escort with their crossbows. It is a wuxia film, after all.

The rescue party is led by the Laertes figure working on the orders of the Queen who, more villainous in this story than in the play, is holding his sister hostage. He is also ordered to then tell the King that the entire party was silenced, escort and all. This "Laertes" has no real love for "Hamlet" and in a scene that takes the place of the IV.4 soliloquy, he dares tell the Prince his course for revenge will cost many lives before it is over, and that he puts "Ophelia", "Polonius", everyone in danger so long as political machinations continue to center upon him. Better everyone believe he is dead. For the Prince, this acts as a wake-up call, that his readiness to die should not be his readiness that the people he loves die. When he returns, in spite of Laertes' admonitions, it will be to end it once and for all, but it will be too late for many of the characters.

What I find very interesting about these important changes made to the story is that they don't in any way diminish the drama, but rather give viable alternatives to the events and motivations found in the play. When one isn't tied down to the text (and a Chinese version - or any translation - wouldn't be), one can better experiment with the Bard's structure. It may even be possible to do it within the confines of the text as written. Imagine a Laertes who colludes with Hamlet during his exile. A Laertes that returns to Denmark to cause trouble and prepare the way for Hamlet, possibly depose Claudius in his name. One who believes Claudius responsible for Polonius' death (has Hamlet lied to him?). But it all goes wrong when Claudius denies the charges, when Ophelia walks in completely mad, and when finally, she commits suicide. Hamlet returns to find Ophelia dead and Laertes a surprise enemy. It could give the Hamlet/Laertes relationship an additional layer of complexity.

Act IV, Scene 4 - Slings & Arrows

In the play inside the show, Luke Kirby's Jack Crew is getting into the "home stretch", as this is the last of six soliloquies. What we see of it in the montage is a simple close-up, but it shows how Jack, an insecure Hollywood actor, has become much more confident by this point in the performance, which can also be said of Hamlet. Meta-textually, one might very well see how the actor on stage would get an energy boost from knowing his exile (long-over due break) was coming next. The story structure must play into the mood of the actor.

But that's not the only meta-textual trick Slings & Arrows plays on its audience. As Jack/Hamlet speaks his words, his director Geoffrey is reminded to get his mentor's skull for the Yorick scene, and has to make a mad dash for it. As he does, we stay in touch with Hamlet through the backstage P.A. system, and the mention of a "delicate and tender prince" seems to give Geoffrey that association. If Fortinbras is a mirror held up to Hamlet, and Hamlet is an actor/director, taking on various roles and instructing the Players on how to act, can Fortinbras be any different? And in that context, the futile enterprise, the "egg shell", of his war with Poland IS, in a sense, the act of putting on a play. So much goes into the endeavor, and yet, each performance is ephemeral.

The juxtaposition made here makes Hamlet chide himself for not giving his all when the actor who plays him obviously is. He is himself the First Player, able to conjure emotions out of thin air for a world imaginary. Hamlet keeps breaking the fourth wall and running into itself.

Act IV, Scene 4 - Hamlet 2000

You'd think this modern adaptation, with countries represented as corporations, would cut Fortinbras' "powers" and this scene altogether. You'd be wrong. Instead of a snowy plain, we're on an airplane. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are sniggering, reading Wired and eating peanuts in the aisle opposite Hamlet who is watching in-flight television and looking at postcards that symbolically represent his exile. A plane taking off, a nude painting, a stone mask. We're heading back in time, to parts unknown, to Hamlet's reptile brain, and away from the civilization and intellectualism that has plagued him to date. On the television is Fortinbras, or so a flight attendant says when Hamlet asks. At least, he looks like a flight attendant, until he puts the drink he's holding to his mouth. Is he then just an officer of some kind? In the play, it's Fortinbras' captain, but here, is he the plane's captain? If so, he shouldn't drinking or walking around the craft. It's an odd moment. If I were to give it purpose, I'd say it's a representation of Norway usurping Hamlet's Danish power. A steward approaches with a drink, but then doesn't give it to the passenger and drinks it himself. It foreshadows' Fortinbras' corporate takeover. Not that this is is any way clear.

One thing that is missing from the exchange is the idea that soldiers are about to die for a useless cause in Poland. Because we know the play, we might infer it ourselves. Fortinbras dismantles a Polish company for no other reason "than the name", costing untold numbers their jobs. But there's no way to show this with Shakespeare's text, so Hamlet's exhorting examples don't have anything to do with Fortinbras' war. This Hamlet lives in the modern world and is surrounded by "examples gross in nature", many of which he's used in his art films. We accept his growing determination without it needing a trigger. The staging is crucial. Hamlet heads for the bathroom at the other end of the plane, speaking his soliloquy as he walks down the aisle, an echo of "To be or not to be" in Blockbuster's aisles. This forces him to walk through economy class - largely empty, a sign of severe class divide? - and sees a woman holding a baby. The examples before him, though different than in the play, may still cause his personal call to arms. Seeing other children and other parents only reinforces the unnaturalness his own family relationships.

The plane seems incredibly long, and the dramatic vanishing point behind Hamlet makes him akin to a bullet in a cannon, about to be fired. In the bathroom, he speaks to himself in the mirror, gives himself a mission. Has he become the Ghost himself? He dares himself to act, nose to nose with his reflection, and he will take that dare.