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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III.i. To Be or Not to Be

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III.i. Briefings - Classics Illustrated

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

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

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

III.i. Briefings - Tennant (2009)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

III.i. Briefings - Fodor (2007)

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.