III.i. Briefings - Fodor (2007)

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

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

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

III.i. Briefings - Hamlet 2000

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

III.i. Briefings - Kline '90

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

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

III.i. Briefings - Zeffirelli '90

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

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

III.i. Briefings - BBC '80

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

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

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

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

III.i. Briefings - Olivier '48

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

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

III.i. Briefings - Branagh '96

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

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

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

III.i. Briefings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

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

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

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

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

Her father and myself, lawful espials,

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

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

Exit QUEEN GERTRUDE

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

Exeunt KING CLAUDIUS and POLONIUS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Exit

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

Other Hamlets: Hambat

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

Other Hamlets: Gilligan's Island Revisited

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

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

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

II.ii. The Players - Classics Illustrated

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

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

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

II.ii. The Players - Tennant (2009)

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

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

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

II.ii. The Players - Fodor (2007)

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

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

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

II.ii. The Players - Kline '90

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

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

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