V.ii. Duel and Deaths - BBC '80

As the duel begins, Hamlet is all business, a rhetorical genius with a prepared speech for the benefit of the Court. His apology to Laertes has charm and grace, but no real emotion. It's meant as much for the public as it is for the younger man, and indeed, much of it is spoken to his mother. Somehow, and this is what keeps Laertes so "aloof", Hamlet paints himself as just another victim. he would have made an excellent lawyer, and we can see why he was so loved of the Danish populace. Wary Laertes' own speech feels practiced, but then, it's part of a murder plot, so it surely is. And where he might have gotten off the script, Claudius walks up and touches his shoulder, keeping him under control and on point. Since the beginning of the play, Claudius has shown a preference for Laertes anyway, and treats him more like a son than he ever did Hamlet, so this gesture does not seem out of place.

The Prince doesn't understand why Laertes' attitude is so venomous, and the lines are given deductive intentions. When he questions the foils' lengths, he seems to be wondering if this is where the trap he senses lies. As the fight begins, the first exchange is mostly played for comedy. Laertes is disarmed (of his rapier, not his dagger) right away, and reaching for it as if it were a simple bad start, is touched on the arm. But don't go thinking this television production skimps on the fight choreography. The second exchange is quite good. Fast, dangerous-looking, violent and as far as I could see, all done by the actors. At this point, Gertrude drinks and I am reminded of why I originally had little use for Patrick Stewart's Claudius. He just doesn't seem affected by Gertrude's doom. His aside is passionless, just a statement of the fact, and this is followed by anger at Laertes, a realization that he allied with someone who won't be able to get the job done. Through this series of articles, I have of course found many things to like about Stewart's 1980 performance, but my parting impression of his Claudius necessarily comes from this scene.

Laertes is a self-centered jerk as well, and to get shed the blood he needs to shed, he lets Hamlet hand him the poison rapier handle first, grabs it, and twists it into the Prince's hand. More fighting ensues, and he is wounded himself, but I don't get the impression he's really sorry once he knows he's dying. "Almost" against his conscience is the word to keep in mind. When he blames the King, it's not because he suddenly sides with Hamlet, it's just to take someone down with him. The King's to blame... for his own woes. Laertes remains unapologetic, at least until he panics about his place in Heaven. Claudius tries to embrace Hamlet, calm him down - and odd moment that doesn't play very well - and when stuck like a pig, tries to get help from the stunned courtiers. Alas.

Hamlet won't accept Horatio's embrace, and only seeks him out when he realizes he won't have time to explain the plot. By this point, Horatio is close to the camera, contemplating sympathetic suicide, his back to Hamlet. But when the Prince sees the cup, he pleads for his friend to stay in this world and continue suffering in his stead. It's an interesting notion: That Hamlet insists his overlong grief (from his first scene) continue even without him, though Horatio, through Shakespeare, through the 400+ years since the play was written.

Another interesting twist on the line about Fortinbras, "He has my dying voice". Literally, it means Hamlet names him as successor (or at least accepts this is the natural succession). The way it is presented here, and considering this world is a stage, it's like Fortinbras is stealing his spotlight and his "voice". During the death scene, cannons blare out and several Courtiers leave the room, more interested in the new arrival than Hamlet's departure. The cannons are what we might call today "stolen thunder". Fortinbras only enters when Hamlet's soul has left this world.

As Hamlet is carried out, we might recognize the shot and pose as the one Branagh used 16 years hence. And as the credits roll, we might also recognize the kind of shadow play funeral Olivier used 32 years before. These three actors have a connection that bears this out. Traditionally, when the premiere Hamlet of his generation sees a newer Hamlet that he considers to have bettered his own, he passes the baton officially (I think there's some gift involved, I can't remember, probably an antique copy of the play). Olivier passed the mantle to Jacobi this way, and Jacobi to Branagh (according to the documentary Discovering Hamlet).

V.ii. The Readiness Is All - BBC '80

Robert Swann's Horatio is often invisible, but his wet, empathic eyes give this scene an extra injection of pathos. We're with him as Hamlet recounts his murder of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern with some relish. The prince licks his lips, and all his friend can do is ask questions in the hope that the answers will absolve him of any guilt. But he can't punch a hole into this story, and there's the sense that "What a king is this" could be about Horatio's own liege lord, Hamlet, and not Claudius. Faced with this all-new, rash Hamlet, Horatio becomes the thinker of the duo, and is the one who makes Hamlet realize England will soon get word of this to Denmark. Hamlet HASN'T thought this through. His reaction doesn't comfort Horatio, who sees his friend's death wish for the first time.

Enter Osric. Peter Gale is quite funny in the role, pushed to the limits of his courteousness to the point where he delivers his lines through subtly gritted teeth. Hamlet mostly ignores him, speaking his lines to Horatio, or turning his back to force him to go around the table, or rising when Osric would sit down and sitting when he gets back up again. As in Olivier's vision, he waves his hat about because he's sweating bullets. Whether that's the temperature or his nerves is up to debate. When Hamlet and Horatio hear Laertes' name mentioned, they share a meaningful look. Right then and there, they know this is a trap. They give Osric more attention then on, but mostly to mock him. Where Osric pronounces "continent" à la French - as much to elevate his language as to wink at Laertes' Frenchification - Hamlet starts pronouncing every work shared by English and French the same way. Horatio's "Is't not possible to understand in another tongue?" becomes a nice punchline. The way Hamlet interrupts Osric consistently makes him hit his lines harder, giving more resonance to "to know a man well, were to know himself", as indeed, the mirroring of Hamlet and Laertes has been very consistent throughout the play.

As Orsic leaves, with his own shame and odd hits, the two other men grow wistful, Horatio especially. He has sympathy for Osric, just as he perhaps had sympathy for R&G and Hamlet's other victims. And perhaps his pity extends to Hamlet, or the Hamlet lost, the one that was sent off to England and apparently never came back.

V.i. Ophelia's Funeral - BBC '80

One thing the Derek Jacobi version of Hamlet does really well is motivate the text. There are several instances of this in the sequence. For example, by having Hamlet and Horatio hide behind a tomb, unable to see the action, motivates and justifies the Prince's lines describing actions the audience sees quite well. He recognizes Laertes' voice, he realizes who they are talking about, through sound alone. (And in the staging, though this isn't all that important on television, all participants would be facing the audience.) In another example, when Laertes jumps into Ophelia's grave, it's to cover her face with her shroud, not mere melodrama. His gesture is a kindness, getting us away from images of incest.

Situations call for lines, but characters react believably to them as well. A pair of notable double-takes tell the story that's found between the lines, for example. The first is Laertes' look at Gertrude when she claims Ophelia was in line to become queen. In that surprised look may be found shock that his sister almost married the man he hates so much, but also a sense of shared responsibility in Ophelia's madness and death, since his misjudgement of Hamlet and the royals caused him to warn her away from the Prince, and quite possibly to betray the couple to Polonius. You can just about see Laertes connect these dots to their fatal end in that moment. Gertrude also registers surprise when Laertes curses the person he deems responsible for her death. She doesn't know Claudius has already poisoned Laertes' mind, and does not see the confrontation coming.

That confrontation, for all its emotion, shows Hamlet in control. Men have to hold Laertes back until his energy is spent, but no one makes any such move against Hamlet. As ever, the Prince is all words, while Laertes would be action. He fights for release, spits at Hamlet (the Prince's own "spitting" is flinging the dog reference at the King, as contrast), and gets a menacing rebuke from Claudius after all is said and done. The King threatens patience into him.

On the issue of this production's minimalistic "exterior" set, it does create an irony here that informs the dialog. When Laertes prays for flowers to bloom on Ophelia's grave, one has to wonder if anything can bloom in this wasteland. Prays fall on deaf ears in a land ruled by an entrenched sinner, and one could say Laertes has inherited his father's capacity for misprision. The blooms he hopes for are impossible in this location, and his emotion blinds him to the fact, as it does to other facts.

V.i. The Gravedigger Scene - BBC '80

Tim Wylton is a more overtly clownish Gravedigger, but one with no less personality. He is a self-important sort, whose jokes are geared to exalting his profession above that of others, and proving his superiority to his associate and to the two noblemen who stop by his grave. He is also a common sort, crass and gross, sleeping on a mound of freshly excavated earth and human remains, eating and drinking there as if unaware of how macabre it is. Because it isn't for him, and in the decaying Denmark metaphor, there is nowhere one can eat and rest that isn't a grave. Interesting staging on the suicide discussion: The Gravedigger uses a pail and a thigh bone to represent water and man. Even more interesting reading: The way he pronounces "will he, nill he", with the proper emphasis on the "h" sounds where many modern readings use "willy-nilly", recalls the original meaning of the expression - whether one wants to or not, as opposed to today's in haphazard fashion - but it also a sort of pun. The suicide wills their own annihilation; Ophelia "nilled" herself.

When Hamlet approaches, he seems tired and bitter. In the skulls flying from the grave, he sees a truth: That everyone, himself included, returns to that state. Everyone is the same in the end, even the noblest is on even terms with the lowest in society. And the Gravedigger represents this. He acts like he's the master of his realm, though others might consider him the lowest of the low, the unclean who touches the dead. Sleeping and eating at the grave, and later kissing Yorick's skull, his world is death and decay, and this is normal. Death and life are equated further in the way he tells Hamlet water is a "sore decayer of your whoreson dead body" as if it were a threat. It evokes the idea of Hamlet thinking of himself as a "whore's son", and that in dramatic (tragical) terms, he is already dead. And hasn't he just been to sea? Water is also associated with Ophelia and her death, which makes the comment even more twisted.

For Jacobi's Hamlet, Yorick's skull is truly repulsive and he does gag at it. He can't even bring himself to stroke it directly, but keeps his fingers at a short distance. His realization that we all return to dust goes from a tired melancholy, to anxious disgust, finally to accepting mockery. His thoughts on Alexander and Caesar see the black humor in it. When he smells his fingers at the very end, is it Yorick's deathly stench that stings his nostrils, or his own?

Through all this, Horatio seems sad and a little spooked by the scene. There certainly isn't the sense of camaraderie evident in Branagh's Hamlet, where the two fellow students team up to chuckle at the Clown. It feels like Horatio can sense what is about to happen and where the Prince's fatalistic dialog will take him. Everything he hears confirms this and he dare not give Hamlet his blessing. Not the most exciting performance, but the minimalism isn't out of character.

IV.vii. Ophelia's Death - BBC '80

The staging here is fairly standard, with the scene playing on a stunned Gertrude, no flashbacks, etc. Interesting things about the performance include her looking straight at Claudius when opening on "woes" (though there's no sign of ironic intent from her), and a breathless delivery, as if she was fighting the urge to pass out.

David Robb's Laertes is slightly over the top at times, but he makes some interesting choices too. His "Oh", a line that can come off as risible, plays as a sigh as he sits down, the wind taken out of his sails. And at the end, he positively shouts the tears out of his eyes, his voice blazing with anger, giving Claudius' reproach to Gertrude the carp of truth. Since Laertes does look angry, Claudius could be setting up Hamlet's death in the duel. He did his best to calm the boy down, but in the end, that's why the duel went wrong. Laertes as willing patsy.

Second Quarto vs. Folio
The Folio, usually used as master text, has Ophelia singing snatches of old tunes. The BBC adaptation uses the Second Quarto's "snatches of old lauds" instead. "Lauds" in this context are hymns praising God, while "tunes" is a more generic term that would easily include the bawdy snippets heard earlier from Ophelia. Critics have been divided on the word choice, some finding contradiction in the sexual nature of the songs we do hear and Ophelia's Christian values in her final moments. Is there though? Her last lines on stage were a prayer for mercy for all Christian souls, and it's in that frame of mind that she went to her watery grave. Her fury, sexual/marital frustration and grief all spent, a calmer, more nihilistic madness came over her in the end. It's possible Gertrude is fudging the details to comfort Laertes, but her expression makes this unlikely.

IV.vii. Claudius' Seduction - BBC '80

Though lines were not cut from the top of this version, the direction still makes it seem like we're catching a conversation in progress. Claudius has been telling Laertes the story of Hamlet's madness and of Polonius' murder. But it hasn't made the best impression. Laertes is still bitter and the performances sell the idea that while the younger man does not think the King is responsible, he still has a lot to answer for in the way he dealt with the aftermath. So it's up to Claudius to disarm Laertes, which he never really manages to do. Showing himself vulnerable, laughing at Laertes' (earnest) "jests", complimenting him on his skills, asking for his counsel... Claudius tries it all. What seems to resonate best is mirroring his bitterness, accusing him of being less than dutiful and such. But Laertes never lets down his guard, never smiles or gets excited. He's a dead man walking.

How much of Claudius' dialogue is sincere is difficult to gauge. It's a safe bet that asking Laertes for advice is a ploy, because Polonius' son is a rather dense character. (As with Olivier's version, Laertes recognizing Lamond is cut from the script, which reinforces his lack of wit.) Patrick Stewart's performance while Laertes explains his plot to poison his sword adds a new wrinkle as well. Given that being the instrument of Hamlet's death and this poison sword business are both Laertes' contributions and not Claudius', it makes sense for the King to see them as wild cards. Though Laertes' scheme is meant to ensure Hamlet's death, it's specifically what makes Claudius start spinning back-up plans. Why? Unless he doesn't really think Laertes' skills are up to the job? He may believe they are initially, but if Laertes himself was confident, he wouldn't need to use poison and lay his hopes on a mere scratch. So if Laertes only hopes for a scratch, then maybe the King would do well not to expect even that. Their failure is all laid in ahead of time here.

IV.vi. Hamlet's Letter - BBC '80

A most unusual staging, but completely supported by the text. We're in a public space, with plenty of people milling around. Horatio is reading at a table when the two sailors walk in. They look around them, not so much to find the one learned man in all of Elsinore, but to make sure they aren't noticed. The lead sailor has a smile on his face, one that might indicate he knows something others don't, a fact that amuses him. The body language speaks to a covert mission, but then, so does the dialog.

Note for example how Hamlet's name is not spoken. They call him the "ambassador bound for England" instead. Then, they make sure the man they are speaking to is indeed Horatio. When Horatio tries to steps away to read the letter, the sailor grabs his arm, restrains him. He won't let Horatio out of his sight, or perhaps it's the letter he's been told not to lose sight of. It mustn't get into the wrong hands, even by accident. One might imagine the sailors taking back and destroying the missive between scenes. And the letter is complimentary to the messengers, as if Hamlet knew full well it would be read in their presence, ennobling the pirates by calling them "warlike".

As they leave, the camera lingers on gamblers throwing dice. A comment on the situation's precariousness?

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. 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.

Act IV, Scene 4 - BBC '80

Though the studio-bound production is spare in its scope - the white plain a set, and Fortinbras' army a small collection of extras, reproducing the feel of a staged play - the scene is still well set, with flags and sound effects that evoke an army on a war-footing. A fairly soft war-footing, as it turns out. As part of the staging, Fortinbras' last line, "Go softly on", isn't spoken to the Captain, but to another soldier staying with the main of the army as if to evoke a sense of stealthy movement to Fortinbras' troops. They're asking for permission, but perhaps Claudius doesn't know exactly where the army is going, or how many men it represents. Fortinbras is hiding something.

The conversation between Hamlet and the Captain features some of the rare cuts in this adaptation of the play. The Danish Prince doesn't ask as many questions and doesn't react out loud to the futility of this war. Sending Rosencrantz & Guildenstern ahead, he turns to the camera/audience, as usual, to speak his soliloquy in quiet and intimate terms. The contrast with Branagh's bombastic call to arms is striking. Jacobi's Hamlet is bitter and rueful, at once angry and sad that he hasn't yet been able to take revenge and lay his father's ghost to rest. Where Branagh motivated his army of one, Jacobi explains and reasons, until only one conclusion can be drawn from it. His thoughts are now "bloody" as he looks over to R&G, an implied threat, and one the camera lingers on. We are slow to exit the scene and are meant to understand that these two men, Hamlet's untrustworthy escort, are to become his first victims. And there's a certain sadness in Hamlet that it must be so.

Act IV, Scenes 1-3 - BBC '80

Scene 1
Watch how masterful a politician Patrick Stewart's (first take as) Claudius is. In Scene 1, he's obviously angry at his wife and wants her to stop crying long enough to get the answers he needs from her. And he's visibly shaken when he investigates the site of Polonius' death by the sight of blood on his hands. This relates to his previous scene, the blood on his hands reminding him of his own murder. Indeed, we're reminded here that Polonius' death is ultimately his fault as well, since the old man wouldn't be skulking around Elsinore if he hadn't tasked him to, nor would Hamlet be so dangerous had his father not been killed. There's a dramatic reason why Hamlet Sr. was poisoned - it's a poison that courses through their entire family tree and the whole of Denmark. A murder that SPREADS. He wipes the blood off in a panic, as if trying to hide his own sins from the world, which is exactly what he will do politically. He's seen his way out of the situation and it's as a politician that he next addresses Gertrude. He'll exile Hamlet in such a way that even his mother can't argue. He makes a case that they're both in this together (no one is safe) and further that she shares in the blame for loving Hamlet too much and letting the situation get out of hand. She tries to argue Hamlet's case, but it won't work this time. Claudius is on more solid ground. But when he tells her to come away with him, she stays behind, the staging telling us their relationship has been split asunder.

Scene 2
Catching up to Hamlet, we find him "safely stowed" and not running, speaking to camera as he does, in the dark, waiting to be discovered. When he is, by Rosencrantz & Guildenstern's posse, he still doesn't run, but rather continues to undermine their authority over him as he did in the previous Act. However, Rosencrantz is done playing games, and sensing that he and his partner now have the King's favor over Hamlet, becomes very cold towards his former friend. He refuses to acknowledge any meaning in Hamlet's words. Derek Jacobi, as usual, puts enough of a spin on each and every line that *I* can't possibly take R&G's lead. He makes me want to find meaning in his mad dialog, and new meaning at that. For example, I'm now trying to read "The body is with the king, but the king is not with the body" with the "King" relating to Hamlet Sr. rather than Claudius. Certainly, the Ghost could be a "thing of nothing", but I still get lost in the verbal alchemy.

Scene 3
The text has Claudius "attended" in this third scene, but it's often staged with him starting on his speech alone. What a difference it makes when he's giving orders to Courtiers. Here we have the politician once again, explaining the situation, his plan, and most crucially, that "we're all in this together". By implying that the peasants love Hamlet, he threatens rebellion if they don't agree with his plan, making them all accomplices. Hamlet comes in, sits on the desk, inspects the sealed letters casually, and everything in the staging reveals the power shifting in Elsinore. Hamlet is sitting higher than the King, is far less anxious (does Claudius fear the Prince will expose him in front of everyone?), and having now killed, he is at least the "actor" Claudius is. The King must retake control of the situation and does, standing and once again playing the politician. The way he tells Hamlet of his exile, it's like he's helping him escape a worse fate. Again, it's a case of "being in this together", this time, as a family. It doesn't really work on Hamlet, but there are other people in the room. Hamlet actually leads them out, as if the trip was his idea, pointing at the attendants to fire them into action. We're left believing Hamlet won the scene. He leaves head held high, while Claudius, with tired sighs, asks England to do his dirty work for him.

III.iv. The Closet Scene - BBC '80

As we find Gertrude, she's taking her rings off, getting ready for bed. It's hard not to see this as symbolic, since it prefaces a scene where she is asked to divest herself of a husband. She's agitated and angry to start with, at Hamlet more than at Polonius getting above himself, which comes to a head when she slaps Hamlet for his impertinence. Though it's a good performance, Derek Jacobi overwhelms the scene as usual, so mercurial as Hamlet that any given line may evoke some new analysis. For example, this is the first time Gertrude's "idle tongue" line resonates with so much irony for me, as his delivery of "go, go", a thoughtless reflection of her "come, come", is "idling" in every sense of the word. She makes him idle, just as his line makes her wicked (thus, the slap). As she attempts to leave, he blocks her with a drawn sword, the same he then uses to repeatedly stab the arras.

Anguish is on his face as he commits the blind murder, rather than anger, Jacobi truly making this about Hamlet killing the more ethical part of himself, and finally giving in to the revenge he's denied for so long. Contrast with his counsel to the Queen that she should throw away the worst part of her heart. He has done the opposite. Uniquely, Polonius takes some time to die after he's fallen, extending a hand towards his killer, much as Hamlet Sr. must have done towards Claudius, making the scene even more unbearable for Hamlet. After he's dead, Hamlet shouts his warning of danger at the corpse, as if trying to reach him in the afterlife, and bringing up the question of what happens to the soul after death, central to his early delay of action and his father's true fate (indeed, does the Ghost's appearance in this scene have any relationship to Polonius' sudden entry into Hell?). The emphasis on the line also makes us think of the Ghost as a "busy" schemer, whose machinations will bring on more danger.

From there, Hamlet frequently alternates between quiet kindness and violent accusations. The pictures of the two husbands on each character's necklaces is not a new trick, but Gertrude's reaction to these is always of interest. She refuses to look at either man, especially Hamlet Sr., seeming to grieve anew for him. She tries to flee her son, pacing back and forth in the antechamber, until Hamlet throws her into the bedroom and onto the bed. Here, it becomes a little disturbing, exploiting the Oedipal connections violently and sarcastically. The King's "compulsive ardour" is actually mimed, Hamlet humping his mother frenetically before he breaks down, his face in a pillow. Just when you think it's over, he starts on the "enseamed bed" section and tickles her cruelly, yipping like a lascivious loon on each beat. This behavior is not Oedipal in the sense that Hamlet seems truly in love with his mother, but is rather a parody of the Oedipal compulsion, showing the unnatural in the Claudius/Gertrude relationship through a grotesque lens.

The Ghost appears, still in armor even if many productions choose to dress him in more relaxed attire. But this is not a relaxed Ghost. He is very strict with his son and only mellows slightly at Gertrude's plight. The visitation is fairly standard otherwise, but what comes after provides more examination of the lines through Jacobi's unusual line readings. It's the word "ecstasy" that brings Hamlet back down to earth, when he goes cold and mean to his mother. The tone Jacobi uses makes it clear that the Prince is essentially saying "Don't you DARE say my madness and not your sin is the cause of all this". This Hamlet is far less forgiving than others, even after the Ghost has interceded on her behalf. And yet, he's looking for a way out, and believes he's found it when she says her heart has been cleft in twain. He starts laughing with relief. He believes she can be saved. But can she? She hugs him, seems to believe all will be well, but when he warns her about sleeping with Claudius, she stops. In fear? In shame? Remembering her love or lust for Claudius? In hesitation because she DOES love Claudius? His warnings turn to supplication and back again. There's still anger there, and contempt. Jacobi turns "I'll blessing beg of you" into an attack at her ability to repent, as if to say "You can judge me only when you've admitted your own sin". He is so changeable that you can hardly trust him when he says he's "essentially not in madness". Stern one minute, repentant the next, showing a flash of anger when his mother forgets he's off to England, and then giggling as he imagines his revenge on his school friends.

Polonius' eulogy fits this same pattern. Hamlet is able to choke back a sob by the end (but is he crying for Polonius, for Ophelia, or for his own soul?), and yet still make a Bondian death pun. Notably, he puts the murder weapon on Polonius' body, in a parody of a soldier's funeral, as if to represent machinations "fall'n on the inventors' heads". This is part of Hamlet's denial of action, justifying the accidental murder by blaming the victim. As the scene ends, we're treated to a staging that reveals Hamlet Prince of Denmark as a black comedy, Hamlet dragging a dead body while cheerily wishing his mother good night.

III.iii. The Confessional - BBC '80

Claudius is a man upset by Hamlet's play, and struggling to keep his emotions in check. He's not just enraged, but guilt-ridden as well, making for a scene with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern that's more emotional and intimate than most. Here, Rosencrantz's speech about the realm empathizing with its King becomes a way of consoling Claudius, and he even feigns(?) being moved, makes his voice tremble, etc. The sycophancy works and Rosencrantz gets a manly embrace from the King. Often painted as irrelevant cogs in the courtly machine, the R&G of this version seem to be in better graces, at least at the moment. This fits within its theme of Claudius preferring (and showing fatherly affection) to every young man BUT Hamlet, though he may simply be in a sort of daze, acting automatically. Indeed, when Polonius comes in, he gets no reaction. By the time the King breaks with his daydream and answers, Polonius has already rushed off. And then there is a sudden explosion of emotion, a sneeze as much as a sob, and though alone, Claudius still tries to maintain his facade.

Patrick Stewart gives his lines a strong measure of sarcasm to make Claudius reject his own capacity to be forgiven, and this is something that's quite important to the Medieval point of view - the idea that the King is the voice of God, the head of the stately body and true origin of the realm's welfare. We've seen how this is true of Hamlet's Denmark, a weakened and corrupted country, and it's in his role as God of Denmark that Claudius rejects his own salvation. His damned state is of his own making, and at the very end, his final line is a full acceptance of his evil and damned state. It doesn't matter what he does to repent, his fate has been sealed, and so he may give in to evil since once damned is thrice damned. It's not that he rejects divinity, quite the opposite, it's that he sees himself as forever unworthy of divine grace. His later "sin will pluck on sin" is less an observation than justification for his wrong-doing.
From his desk, Claudius forces himself to a small altar to pray, every move an effort, and Hamlet comes upon this scene by accident. Unlike the close calls of other adaptations where Hamlet gets quite close to Claudius, here he never even crosses the threshold. The soliloquy is spoken directly to the camera, which gives Jacobi's Hamlet an opportunity to explain himself. It's the audience that doesn't understand this particular delay when Hamlet has just vowed to finally act, and he feels compelled to justify his non-action. It's no harder to reconcile than his apparent relish at describing the compromising positions he might catch the King in, including everything he hates about him, such as his "incestuous bed". Regardless of how it is played, the text itself is contradictory in this. Hamlet at once WANTS to catch his stepfather in bed with his mother, and then expressly FORBIDS his mother from sleeping with him. But that's Hamlet's own wretched state, balanced between putting a stop to Elsinore's evils and maintaining them to fuel his self-pity. He knows who he is now, but who will he be when it's all been said and done?

III.ii. Critical Reception - BBC '80

Like Olivier's before him, Jacobi's Hamlet sings the opening lines of this sequence, and like Branagh's after him, he infuses the word "friends" with sarcasm and has similar, almost violent mannerisms (for example mock-punching Rosencrantz at "pickers and feelers", and almost jamming the recorder into Guildenstern's teeth). However, there's something very different being done with the staging, something that inspires a new reading of the text. There looks to be a very definite play, on Jacobi's part, on class/position. Hamlet starts out standing on a chair, then comes down eye level to R&G, falls on his knees before them, and finally kisses their feet. From prince to slave over the course of a conversation. This is intriguing because it's a conversation in which Hamlet also claims to lack advancement. He's being incredibly ironic, not only mocking the rise of R&G as sycophants seeking just such advancement, and warning them that the grass is indeed also growing for them. All gardening metaphors are suspect in the play ever since Hamlet called Denmark a rank and unweeded garden, and here, the grass proverb is "musty". Things grow in corrupted form in Hamlet's Denmark, and R&G are liable to choke on the weeds (and in a way, do).

In the text, there is also a play on class in regards to Horatio, but those few lines are some of the rare cuts in this adaptation ("You might have rhymed" and so on). This Horatio is less brazen than other interpretations of the character, and less able to speak truth to power. There is obvious fear of Hamlet in his performance, and a sense that when he says "I did very well note him", he rather means "I did very well note YOU". In this version, remember, Claudius did not really give himself away. There was a stand-off, but the slick politician seems to have come out of it unblemished, while Hamlet appeared completely out of his mind. As usual, Hamlet will dismiss those he doesn't agree with before he hears what he doesn't want to hear.
When Polonius comes in, Hamlet seems to notice the camel-shaped cloud for the first time, and appears genuinely distracted, but the bitterness that ensues reveals it's probably an act. The cloud exists in this version, on a fresco that acts as backdrop to the play-within-the-play. Not that any of its clouds look like particular animals. It's against this background of gods in the heavens that Hamlet's hellish soliloquy is ironically spoken, his hands full of weapons, yet promising not to use them on his mother. As the staging piles on the ironies, so too does the text's ironies become more noticeable. Think of it: Hamlet has just (in his mind) exposed the King's guilt, and is ready to finally do violence, and yet it's to his mother's closet he now goes. Upon her invitation, of course, but if he is so ready to act, why not go directly to the King and murder him? It's because he finds her guilty as well, and indeed makes her the priority over the King. This inner battle has been going on since the start of the play when, in fact, the Queen started out guiltier than the King. Before the revelation of a murder, there was only the betrayal of a husband. It's a fact that continues to blunt Hamlet's purpose.

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

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

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

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

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

III.ii. Instructing the Players - BBC '80

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

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

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

III.i. The Nunnery Scene - BBC '80

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. To Be or Not to Be - BBC '80

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. Briefings - BBC '80

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.

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

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.