III.iii. The Confessional

At the top of Scene 3, Claudius' sycophants report in, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern desperate to ingratiate themselves despite their failures (this is often cut from productions as there is something necessarily tedious about it), and Polonius to inform him of his plan to hide in the Queen's closet. We then get to the heart of the matter as Claudius confesses his crime in a prayer/soliloquy. This is where Shakespeare lets go of any ambiguity concerning the crime, but to better forge a cruel irony. Hamlet walks in, sees an opportunity to kill Claudius, but stays his hand because the King is at prayer and his soul thus likely to rise to heaven, whereas his father's is trapped in hell. Or it is just another excuse not to commit to his action, regardless of his previous soliloquy. Hamlet is yet a man of words, not of action. Before we look at the play's various featured productions, and how they staged this very theatrical double-aside, let's look at Shakespeare's text (in italics) and shine some light on some of the lines.

SCENE III. A room in the castle.
Enter KING CLAUDIUS, ROSENCRANTZ, and GUILDENSTERN

KING CLAUDIUS: I like him not, nor stands it safe with us
To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you;
I your commission will forthwith dispatch,
And he to England shall along with you:
The terms of our estate may not endure
Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow
Out of his lunacies.

The hazard, at this point, is that Hamlet gives Claudius away and reveals his guilt more plainly to Court and Country. After the next scene, he'll be better able to justify the exile as a different "hazard" is realized violently on Polonius.

GUILDENSTERN: We will ourselves provide:
Most holy and religious fear it is
To keep those many many bodies safe
That live and feed upon your majesty.

As if knowing the punishment (exile) doesn't fit the crime (putting on an outrageous play), R&G immediately jump to Claudius' defense, justifying his order for him and making sure he knows they are absolutely on his side. Without meaning to, Guildenstern creates a Hamletian image of a rotting King on which maggot-subjects feed. Words and kingly diets will turn up again soon.

ROSENCRANTZ: The single and peculiar life is bound,
With all the strength and armour of the mind,
To keep itself from noyance; but much more
That spirit upon whose weal depend and rest
The lives of many. The cease of majesty
Dies not alone; but, like a gulf, doth draw
What's near it with it: it is a massy wheel,

In Rosencrantz' wheel metaphor, one might see the Wheel of Fortune, Hamlet's strumpet, and an again-accidental warning that what goes around, comes around, proclaiming another king's death in the future. He should do well to heed his own prophecy, because he's one of the lesser things annexed to that royal wheel, and will share its fate. The King will sigh (his last), and he will groan.

Fix'd on the summit of the highest mount,
To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things
Are mortised and adjoin'd; which, when it falls,
Each small annexment, petty consequence,
Attends the boisterous ruin. Never alone
Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.
KING CLAUDIUS: Arm you, I pray you, to this speedy voyage;

Small ironies: Claudius "prays" them, and in a few more lines will pray God. From the lowest to the highest, but with no change in intensity or value.

For we will fetters put upon this fear,
Which now goes too free-footed.
ROSENCRANTZ GUILDENSTERN: We will haste us.

Exeunt ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN
Enter POLONIUS

LORD POLONIUS: My lord, he's going to his mother's closet:
Behind the arras I'll convey myself,
To hear the process; and warrant she'll tax him home:
And, as you said, and wisely was it said,
'Tis meet that some more audience than a mother,
Since nature makes them partial, should o'erhear

The idea here is that Claudius does not trust Gertrude, and believes she will always be biased in Hamlet's favor. This is a variation on the first arras scene, in which Gertrude was sent away.

The speech, of vantage. Fare you well, my liege:
I'll call upon you ere you go to bed,
And tell you what I know.
KING CLAUDIUS: Thanks, dear my lord.

Exit POLONIUS

Here begins Claudius' confession, and one might compare it to "To be or not to be", in that it is a strong example of something losing "the name of action". If Hamlet refuses to commit murder (or self-murder, if you believe he's really talking about suicide), Claudius refuses to repent. Both men have this moment of weakness where they cannot do what they should. In both cases, we can invoke pride. These men follow "To thine own self be true" to the letter and are doomed by it. Though they can reflect on the possibility of change, change is actually beyond them (at least, at this point in the play). We will discover over the next few weeks if directors have acknowledge this parallel between the two characters and the two scenes.

O, my offence is rank it smells to heaven;
It hath the primal eldest curse upon't,
A brother's murder. Pray can I not,
Though inclination be as sharp as will:
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent;
And, like a man to double business bound,
I stand in pause where I shall first begin,
And both neglect. What if this cursed hand
Were thicker than itself with brother's blood,
Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens
To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

The same idea is explored more fully in MacBeth, in which a similar image of unwashable blood represents guilt tempered by ambition. There as here, the true villain's ambition triumphs over his guilt and he resolves not to repent, but to commit further murders to hide the first. MacBeth is, in truth, an anti-Hamlet that may deserve its own entry one day, a Hamlet told from Claudius' perspective and where rashness replaces delay.

But to confront the visage of offence?
And what's in prayer but this two-fold force,
To be forestalled ere we come to fall,
Or pardon'd being down? Then I'll look up;
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murder'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murder,
My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain the offence?

If Denmark is a moral universe, now corrupted, then it could be that once Hamlet has done his own murders and set the country's moral compass a-right, he has to die. Hamlet will not retain the advantages of the deaths he has caused, and Denmark passes into the hands of an entirely different monarch.

In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law: but 'tis not so above;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature; and we ourselves compell'd,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? what rests?

In another mirrored moment from "To be or not to be", Claudius wonders at the undiscovered country himself, and he too sees it as a place to fear, a place where he cannot hide from justice as he has done in our own corrupt world.

Try what repentance can: what can it not?
Yet what can it when one can not repent?
O wretched state! O bosom black as death!
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged! Help, angels! Make assay!
Bow, stubborn knees; and, heart with strings of steel,
Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!
All may be well. [Retires and kneels]

Enter HAMLET

Note that Shakespeare makes it clear Hamlet only comes in after the speech and once Claudius is on his knees. He does not hear what is said, though of course, Claudius does not hear the following words. On stage, this is often played with Hamlet standing right over him with a blade. As we'll see, films have attempted many different stagings to make this moment less theatrical and more realistic.

HAMLET: Now might I do it pat, now he is praying;
And now I'll do't. And so he goes to heaven;
And so am I revenged. That would be scann'd:
A villain kills my father; and for that,
I, his sole son, do this same villain send
To heaven.
O, this is hire and salary, not revenge.
He took my father grossly, full of bread;
With all his crimes broad blown, as flush as May;
And how his audit stands who knows save heaven?
But in our circumstance and course of thought,
'Tis heavy with him: and am I then revenged,
To take him in the purging of his soul,
When he is fit and season'd for his passage?
No!
Up, sword; and know thou a more horrid hent:
When he is drunk asleep, or in his rage,
Or in the incestuous pleasure of his bed;
At gaming, swearing, or about some act
That has no relish of salvation in't;
Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,
And that his soul may be as damn'd and black

Readers today may not realize how violent and even blasphemous this passage is. Hamlet is not just contemplating the murder of his king and uncle, but also of making sure Claudius' soul isn't saved so that is doomed to hell. Christian doctrine, which Hamlet adheres to, often showing a Puritanical vein, would have him allow his uncle to repent before his death/execution. Hamlet's choice puts him on the path of evil, which possibly adds an ironic layer to Horatio's invocation of angels upon his death. What undiscovered country will Hamlet go to?

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays:
This physic but prolongs thy sickly days.

Exit

KING CLAUDIUS: [Rising] My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:
Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Exit

And there's the punch line. The irony is that Claudius' prayers are empty and that he was basically communicating his refusal to repent. Hamlet could have killed him then after all. Hamlet's words are truer than he realizes. It is indeed a "physic", i.e. purely physical state. that prolongs Claudius' days. Of course, different stagings and performances may change how we perceive this scene. Is Hamlet convinced by the prayer, or just looking for yet another excuse to delay his action? Does the setting, both physical and temporal, change how we interpret these Christian ideas? The next articles will address these issues and more.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Classics Illustrated

The original
The black comedy of the recorder exchange between Hamlet and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern cannot be easily reproduced on the comics page, not with the page count inherent to the format, so I'm sad to report the sequence was cut from both version of Classics Illustrated. R&G still show up to deliver the Queen's message, but it acts merely as prologue to Hamlet's soliloquy. This is especially true of the original comic, which has Hamlet spare his cruelties, unless one considers an abrupt answer "cruel".Note also how the bloodier language was excised from the speech, pitching it to its younger audience.

The Berkley version
Tom Mandrake's adaptation uses an entire page, but is still very economical. Hamlet's delirious rhymes are kept, but spoken over the panel in which the King runs off, showing more clearly that he is the "stricken deer" of Hamlet's song. Mandrake's gloomy Hamlet has a very different expression from the original Classics Illustrated too, replacing joy with anguish. Gone is the euphoria, and in its place is the realization that now he must carry out a bloody revenge. For this Hamlet, it's made things worse and it seems he'd rather have been told that the Ghost was lying, tormenting him.
R&G's arrival restores a lot of dialog lost in the original comic, but still no recorder business (which would probably have been bitter and violent rather than manic). In fact, Hamlet's response, cutting to a later line in the scene, is almost a non sequitur. "By and by is easily said" seems strange here, but it is basically Hamlet telling them what answer to go, without the prompt of it being their own, plain answer. The comics form shows another of its weaknesses at adaptation when Hamlet starts his speech in the same panel he dismisses his friends, making it look like they'll hear that part of it. However, it does kind of work, and makes the witching hour the reason for their dismissal. Instead of saying it's late, Hamlet goes into poetic detail the likens night to evil. I could see this used in a proper staging of the play as a way to give Hamlet another "madness" moment in front of the traitors, putting a mirror up to their own evil or acting as a veiled threat.
The rest is the speech is as written and performed alone, either with Hamlet in close-up, or walking towards his mother's closet.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Slings & Arrows

The only part of the sequence that makes it into the performance montage is the soliloquy, but we don't see it. Instead, we're with the play's director, Geoffrey Tennant (Paul Gross), mouthing the words backstage, praying to the Shakespearean gods for a good outcome. In the show, he was a much-praised Hamlet until he cracked on stage, and the "witching hour" in terms of that story is when he must redeem himself and walk back from that disaster (through a proxy). As the soliloquy ends, he signals the number of soliloquies to the actress playing Gertrude, a countdown that refers to the five key moments an actor must nail as he gets through the play, something he told "Jack Crew" to reassure him that this performance was possible. In relating it to the play, it refers to Hamlet's delay of the action, a self-imposed countdown that creates the tension in the play. Hamlet is a time-bomb, each soliloquy counted down a means to talk himself into taking action. By the end, when all soliloquies are done, words turn to action, and the dialog shrinks until the rest is, indeed, silence.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Tennant (2009)

The sequence doesn't start with the usual rhymes in this version, but instead with Horatio trying to tell Hamlet that was he noted most definitely was NOT conclusive proof of Claudius' guilt. Hamlet won't listen, of course, an almost violent euphoria overtaking him. He asks for music, but also grabs a silver tray from a servant, banging it in the man's face like a gong. Horatio attends him and laughs at his jests, but he doesn't speak or try to broach the subject of the King again. The focus changes, in any case, to Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, surely Horatio's rivals in the friendship department, so perhaps there's a psychological, personal reason why he falls in with Hamlet again despite the unspoken disagreement.

David Tennant's Hamlet is at his funniest in this scene. His "with drink?" is impish and a confidential "he's drunk again eh? yeah, that happens a lot", traitor's talk that makes R&G co-conspirators if anyone were listening. As they continue, Hamlet more or less ignores them, putting the Player's crown on his head, using the silver tray as a mirror, hiding his face from them. He's their mock King, the King that should have been if only they (and the rest of the Court) would follow the right man, the true heir. He's also mocking Claudius, sitting on the throne misunderstanding everything they say on purpose. It is a sly condemnation of Claudius' decisions to date, prefiguring Denmark's downfall at the hands of Fortinbras. When they demand an answer from him, he raises his hand excitedly, like a school boy, only to reveal he can't make a wholesome one. It's with mock pride that he says the "oh wonderful son" line. It's all a caricature of his false King/Father.

And he does the same with the friendship he bears these men. At "pickers and feelers", he gets up to tickle Rosencrantz, freaking him out. And he should. They are failing at their appointed task, and that will have consequences. For this Rosencrantz, it's really about getting it over with so he can leave this hellish place before the axe falls on him. He tries to keep back, he's rather sincere when he asks Hamlet to stop what he's doing before it ruins them all. Guildenstern is the more political, albeit gauche, animal. He tries to find the right words and hopes to get favor from the King. But of course, neither of them are aware that Claudius may be a murderer and usurper. They just don't get it, perhaps because they can't. It's shown, for example, when Rosencrantz gives Hamlet a blank stare at "While the grass grows". There's a funny beat before the next line, and Hamlet obnoxiously slaps him, but doesn't awaken him to the very real danger of trusting Claudius.
The recorders arrive, and the production plays on the plural in that line to make Hamlet throw one to Horatio, which will come into play later. The interplay between Hamlet and Guildenstern is sweeter and less violent than usual, initially, Hamlet acting all innocent, not understanding why Guildenstern won't play and laughing at the irony. Guil, for his part, tries to understand what is being said and takes the Prince's explanations with a measure of respect, as if he agrees he's been rumbled. Then BAM! A rare musical sting accompanies Hamlet attacking Guildenstern with the pipe, trying to choke him, even as Rosencrantz tries to gently separate them. What actually does it is Polonius' arrival.

Coming into a violent moment, Polonius gets a loud pipeful in the face, followed by Hamlet and Horatio playing a tune together over his words. By having the old councilor mouth words at R&G with a certain degree of ire, the production motivates his presence. Thematically, I've said that Polonius is entirely redundant in the scene because he always makes the wrong choices, and that Hamlet feels he's irrelevant all the time. Here, he comes because R&G are taking too long. We have to remember he plans to hide in the Queen's closet (even if he hasn't said so yet), so his impatience stems from that. He's been kept waiting as much as the Queen has. Showing impatience and even anger is rare for him, so perhaps his head too, is on the chopping block. When the King is angry, chaos reigns in Elsinore. And it's because he's impatient and in a hurry that Hamlet chooses to play the game of clouds with him, pushing him to show disrespect. Polonius catches himself each time, but his composure does break.
The soliloquy is done straight into Hamlet's movie camera, a point of view we get to see. Sitting askew on the throne while he speaks of being cruel to his mother creates a visual inversion of what is natural, and may put the lie to his words. Hamlet looks quite demented here. His successive victories over Claudius, R&G, and Polonius have pushed him over the line of what may be reasonable or acceptable.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Fodor (2007)

After the King leaves, Hamlet's insane clapping draws a hateful look from Polonia, who in this universe, is Claudius' lover. Polonius's change of gender has several effects, but one of them is creating a dynamic that makes attacks on Claudius that much more personal for his councilor (and chief accomplice?). The King obviously "blenched", and Horatio really did note him and shares in Hamlet's joy. There is no bitterness in them, Fodor treats this as a victory as yet untinged by what must come after. When Hamlet calls for the recorders, it's in a gently mocking, celebratory tone, a way of smoothing over the fact that it's a clarinet and not a medieval recorder he finds. It's amazing how an actor can simply put a little humor or sarcasm into a single word and modernize it immediately. Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, dangerous bullies in this world, are really angry and do a lot of shouting out of their frustration. They're at the end of their ropes. In fact, their reaction is so strong that Hamlet's "I am tame" shames them into a quieter stance. They're the ones who seem crazy, not him. Instead of the aggressive, threatening madness most Hamlet put on in this sequence, this one instead goes for innocent playfulness, as a man-boy who doesn't understand why people are angry at him. Ever his partner in this affair, Horatio quietly smiles next to him, somehow acting as Hamlet's irony. It's how R&G know they're being laughed at. No matter how much they threaten him with body language and tone, Hamlet doesn't lose his composure. On "as easy as lying", he makes it a discovery, an answer inspired by looking at them. And there's no violence in the business with the recorders. He just gives them the clarinet and begs them to play it, more a petulant child than a dangerous man in his own right. They hesitate before admitting to not knowing how and roughly disassembling the instrument before giving it back, again an implied threat. By the time Hamlet gets to "you cannot play upon me", Polonia is standing behind R&G and the remark is addressed to her as much as to them, if not more. Through the innocent act, he lets slip that he knows they're all in league with each other. The imaginary cloud in the ceiling plays out as a power struggle, Polonia refusing to be intimidated, her responses dripping with sarcasm to let him know she's quite aware of what he's doing. There is further osmosis between the conspirators at the end of the sequence when "by and by is easily said" is spoken to R&G instead of Polonia, but they put a further twist on it. R&G each get one "by" thrown in their direction, making it "bye" and "bye", a pun on their quick dismissal directly following. Horatio then leads him out of the room by the hand, a gesture that could be interpreted as either romantic or childish, but a tense sound stops him. Does he feel the Ghost? A gun left on a chair - it might have fallen out of R&G's pockets - draws his attention, and he fondles it as he says his speech, a prayer to the gods of violence. These choices are informed by the modern staging of the play in the film. Hamlet does not carry a weapon, so much procure one. And the "witching hour" cannot be heralded by bells or some such, so a strange feeling comes upon the Prince instead. It's a supernatural occurrence, this weapon suddenly materializing when Hamlet needs to kill the King, and supernatural forces may well be at work.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Hamlet 2000

In Hamlet 2000, we don't stay in the theater long. Horatio and Marcella noted Claudius' blenching at the movie screen (as did we), but seems more confused than certain. Still, in cases where the actor playing the King isn't ambiguous in his reaction, there's no real need to dwell on Horatio's. Hamlet races off into night as we hear the song's words in voice-over. It takes an entirely different bent spoken as internal monologue. In the play as written, the lines are a manifestation of Hamlet's exultant victory. Here, it becomes commentary on the evening's events. Some must watch, some must sleep and so it goes. He is saying that only a few, like him, are vigilant, and the world outside is still oblivious to Claudius' crimes. There is still much work to be done, and the melancholy of Hamlet's tone shows him weary still, despite his small victory.

He hails a cab and jumps in, and that's where Rosencrantz & Guildenstern catch up to him, box him in. As the cab drives off, we hear words on the radio, but not from the play, a commercial for buckling up about cats having nine lives. It informs the scene only in the smallest degree. It's about danger and safety, something all the participants are ignoring. They're all playing a dangerous game. The difference between R&G and Hamlet is that the twins don't know it. In fact, Hamlet will survive his deadly encounter with them (he's the cat) and they will not. But here, the Prince is caught and though he tries to remain aloof, he does wipe at his wet eyes from time to time. In the absence of recorders - this version frequently does away with lines about anachronistic props - their conversation ends at "my wit's diseased". He cannot give an answer and that is that. He's not playing coy as other Hamlets do, he's frankly telling they are unlikely to get anything from him.
When he gets off, part of the "witching hour" speech is done in voice-over. It's all about mood. Heavy metal leaks out of a revolving door (the Ghost's passageway to and from the undiscovered country?), steam blows out of sewer grates, and in a few moments, as we cut to Claudius heading out of Elsinore, he crosses paths with a child dressed as a ghost who boos at him.
It's Halloween in New York, apparently, and it's a nice ironic image that a dead child would haunt the King at this point, he who has killed his brother, someone he grew up with, was a child with. It comes after a mysterious scene in which Hamlet is seen bothering a limo driver, but as we'll see, it is merely set-up for the confessional scene.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Kline '90

In a small ironic twist, Hamlet runs around with a dagger at the beginning of this sequence - false fire indeed! And euphoric, he lets himself fall into Horatio's arms from off the stage, a foreshadowing piece of staging, as well as a call back to his feeling faint after meeting the Ghost. This is the midpoint between getting the mission and seeing it done, the turning point, and each one a blind fall backwards. Does Horatio believe Claudius showed his hand? Or does he just play along with the Prince dangerously swinging that knife around? There's simply no room to play the ambiguity as Hamlet jumps right back onto the stage and starts playing the recorder.

Rosencrantz & Guildenstern come running, and spin out their speeches while Hamlet pipes through them. The recorder is his weapon, used either to drown out their words, or swung as a dueling sword. Rosencrantz seems particularly earnest in trying to reason with him, honestly trying to save him from this reckless path he's set himself on. The old friendship appears more tangible in this adaptation. Consequently, Hamlet is less manic, though there are still moments of mad energy, such as on the "pickets and stealers" line, pulling handkerchiefs out their pockets like a stage magician. Regardless, Hamlet is more in control of his words. For example, "I lack advancement" is said with a smile, like he's pulling unconvincing reasons out of the air just to see how they'll respond.

A moment that made me stop and think is Guildenstern's contention that "if [his] duty be too bold, [his] love is too unmannerly" met with a real pause from Hamlet before answering that he doesn't understand that. He pauses, so we do as well. What surprises him in that line, or alternately, what makes him point out Guildenstern's delusion or hypocrisy? To paraphrase, Guildenstern's lack of manners are attributable to being oh so worried about Hamlet. Oh really! The Prince goes on to attack his credibility, so he clearly doesn't believe a word, that somehow these former friends care about him more than they do themselves. And he's very serious and calm throughout the sequence, adding to the earnestness. The scene is usually played with Hamlet being "idle", playing up his madness, and R&G as panicking hypocrites. In this adaptation, it is closer to an honest portrayal of a friendship breaking down. Or any relationship, in fact, because Hamlet is much the same with Polonius.
Of course, Hamlet's claims about imaginary clouds seems like madness no matter the tone. At least, Polonius thinks it so, looking sideways at R&G, trying to get a sign from them about the Prince's state of mind. He awkwardly agrees with everything, trying not to wake the beast, so to speak. Hamlet, too, is giving meaningful looks. Polonius IS the weasel that inspires the cloud simply for accepting the initial premise. A white lie, but one told by a liar nonetheless.

The soliloquy has a trigger: Midnight bells, rung at the "witching hour", giving the whole of the speech a funereal air, and giving the dagger, pulled back out, a fatal and dread resonance.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Zeffirelli '90

An important difference with this adaptation is that the revels continue even after members of the Court scurry for the exits. It's an odd choice, one that devalues the King's power, though it does better match Hamlet's state of mind. His own song and dance is even more over the top than elsewhere, and he clearly sends such words as "wounded deer" in the King's direction so that it might be heard. This entire performance is witnessed by Gertrude who stands shocked and amazed before finally leaving. Hamlet doesn't have much of a conversation with Horatio before running off, so his friend's reaction remains ambiguous, though Claudius was pretty obvious in HIS reaction. And in the wake of all this, we keep finding fragments of the Nunnery scene - Hamlet tells Ophelia to leave one more time, kisses her, and gives a matter-of-fact farewell. You can practically see her mind breaking.

A change of venue, and we're on a parapet somewhere else, though not too long later since Hamlet has a drum around his neck and a recorder in his hand. He is accosted by Rosencrantz & Guildenstern, but he's obviously had time to settle down and is relatively serious and friendly with them. The better to take a darker turn in the middle of a line, specifically at "It is as easy as lying". Guildenstern is particularly sarcastic with his "I have not the skill", which sets Hamlet off to violence and to choking him with the pipe. The true irony is, in fact, that they really DON'T have the skill, neither in music, lying or getting information from Hamlet. One could probably write a dissertation on this idea. People in the play are consistently required to do things for which they "have not the skill", whether it's R&G's undercover work, Polonius' counsel, Claudius' confession, or indeed, Hamlet's bloody revenge. What is easy, on the surface, may not be so simple, and I am constantly reminded of "to thine own self be true" as the key to to the play. Polonius does not feature in this sequence, so no mysterious clouds, etc. Instead, R&G get some of his lines and are left to "easily" transmit the Prince's message. Of course, "easy" has so far been beyond their grasp.
Hamlet runs down the stairs, away from them, for his brief soliloquy, which is even briefer, ending the scene on "Now to my mother". In other words, he places no conditions on that visit, and after speaking of drinking hot blood and doing bitter business, the lack of such makes us believe he's off to murder Gertrude. It's an omission that creates tension, certainly, but thrown on top of the change of venue, it beggars the question of why Claudius is not more in his thoughts. The guilt of the King spreading to the Queen is a central ambiguity of the play (I could, in fact, have switched King and Queen and still been correct), but by forgetting the King entirely, that ambiguity is not well served. Once again, I find myself frowning at Zeffirelli's cuts.

III.ii. Critical Reception - BBC '80

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

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

III.ii. Critical Reception - Olivier '48

As the Court leaves the "theater", Hamlet sings his lines, throwing his torch in the air jubilantly. He becomes so manic, in fact, that Horatio can hardly keep up and isn't given enough time to confirm or deny the King's reaction (although it was pretty dramatic and clear). Olivier compressed a lot of the action, so there are a number of cuts, including (sadly) the pipe metaphor. This is, after all, a version of the play without Rosencrantz & Guildenstern. A few of their lines are given to Polonius instead, which tends to make him less scatterbrained for the start of the sequence and then seems to make him press the issue as he repeats the summons in his own voice.

Instead of focusing on Hamlet's madness in this moment, Olivier makes lines like "My wit's diseased" as level-headed as any. There's a solid confidence in his treatment of Polonius, and when he points to clouds out in a dark corner of the castle, never even looking in that direction, he is serious and cruel. He's not acting crazy, not seeing things, or even feigning hallucinations. He is testing how far Polonius' sycophancy goes. He never takes his eyes off the old man, implicitly telling him that he owns him: "I am the master here and you'd do well to know your place, you who would command me to go to my mother's closet." A brilliant representation of what is going on under the surface of the cloud exchange.

"By and by is easily said" isn't spoken to Polonius, but as a thoughtful aside. Olivier takes a verbal dagger and points it at Hamlet himself. "By and by" means "in a moment", and implies a delay, so of course we're reminded of his forever-delayed revenge. Easily sworn, but the deadline is something that lacks definition, and the doing is much more difficult. It is somewhat moving that the camera lingers on Horatio after he is dismissed. He wasn't really consulted and sees that he cannot truly help his friend, especially since he strikes me as someone who would never counsel going through with a murder.
The following soliloquy starts with Hamlet his back to us, so that you can't initially tell if he's speaking the words or using voice-over. He is facing utter darkness. When he turns, we see he was indeed speaking the lines, but the original confusion has put you in the right frame of mind - we are hearing a man's inner thoughts. He then starts to go up some stairs towards his mother's closet, looking up at a god-like beam of light. Olivier has crafted an image here that shows Hamlet going from dark to light, from doubt to decision, and at the same time, relates to the King's own dilemma, as in the next scene we will see his words going up, but his thoughts remaining below. Hamlet's own pledge here will be as empty as the King's own prayers.

III.ii. Critical Reception - Branagh '96

In the whirlwind of words and black comedy that follows, I had never really noticed before that Nick Farrell's Horatio doesn't actually confirm the King's guilt in Branagh's version. He looks for the right words before coming up with "I did very well note him" and is not particularly enthusiastic. Hamlet has a moment of doubt where he goes "ahhh" before other characters walk in. Not doubt that the King is guilty, but doubt in the trust he placed in his friend. But what should he expect? At the top of the sequence (which will be another one of those whirling one-shots), Horatio is calling him out on his bad poetry as if they relationship was always one where Horatio brought the prince down to earth with a dose of acerbic wit.

But the moment quickly passes as Rosencrantz & Guildenstern arrive and Branagh uses the line "Some music" to herald that arrival. Yes, he's about to be handed a recorder, but Hamlet is really announcing the music of words that's about to ensue. Their lies and his vicious mockeries - the music of repartee. Hamlet is still giddy from his perceived victory and continues to giggle, impishly overact, sing-song lines in a parody of meter, and openly mock their every word, speaking to them as if they were deaf or dumb, and making grandly theatrical gestures. He's still at the theater. For their part, R&G have grown bold enough to show their anger towards him. They know Hamlet has gone too far and fully throw their support to the King. This is a mistake, and as if to foreshadow their eventual fate, Hamlet becomes violent with them. The prince handles that pipe like a weapon, here choking Guildenstern, there slashing the air with it as if it were a rapier.
There is another sudden change of attitude in Hamlet when Polonius walks in, another fool who now thinks nothing of showing angry impatience at the mad prince. Hamlet basically gives the same performance twice here. He's impish and overly theatrical, and turns to bitterness and anger. He just does it all much more quickly. It's really a reaction to Polonius' tedious redundancy, repeating behavior more efficaciously. For once, Polonius doesn't want to drag things out either, so he agrees to every fantastical cloud in the ceiling just to get it over with. The sequence ends with Hamlet asking his "friends" to leave him, the word dripping with sarcasm.
One of the few changes made to the play's structure in Branagh's integral adaptation occurs here as we cut to Act III Scene 3 before the short soliloquy that usually ends Scene 2. In Scene 3, R&G play sycophants to Claudius, Polonius tells the King he'll hide behind an arras in the Queen's closet, and the King heads for the chapel. The function of the edit is to get Hamlet's "I'm now ready to do anything" speech closer to Claudius' confession. In fact, the soliloquy is dropped in just before the confession, and its last lines even juxtaposed to Claudius entering the confessional, so that "my soul, consent!" precedes Claudius' prayer, highlighting the thematic connection between the two. In both cases, what is done falls short of what is said. Hamlet will not kill Claudius, and Claudius does not repent. Neither man's conscience manages to become more like the other's, a failed osmosis.

III.ii. Critical Reception

The scene's final sequence concerns reactions less to the play than about everyone's reactions about the play. Hamlet wants to know if Horatio saw Claudius' reaction. Guildenstern & Rosencrantz react to Hamlet's wildness and bring a message that the Queen wants to speak with her son. Polonius arrives to do much the same, ever the tedious, redundant cog in the works. Shakespeare never fails to entertain when his genius confronts his fools, but after the laughs, he puts a button on the scene, a short soliloquy that allows Hamlet to react to himself, what he has seen, and what he now means to do. As usual, we'll be looking at the text first, Shakespeare is in italics.

HAMLET: "Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away."
Would not this, sir, and a forest of feathers-- if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me--with two Provincial roses on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?
HORATIO: Half a share.
HAMLET: A whole one, I.
"For thou dost know, O Damon dear,
This realm dismantled was
Of Jove himself; and now reigns here
A very, very--pajock."
HORATIO: You might have rhymed.

The closeness between the two characters is well represented here, with Horatio teasing his friend in spite of the class difference. For directors who want to make Claudius' guilt ambiguous could use it to their advantage - Horatio is very critical of Hamlet's prowess as a player (he undervalues the first ballad and critiques the second), and may be critical of Hamlet's conclusions regarding his uncle. Even if the director doesn't go that route, the lines still have an ironic bent. Hamlet is here representing himself as a Player, but he broke character during the play with some outrageous behavior that undermines his entire experiment. Damon, by the way, is a character from Greek myth reputed to be a trusted friend. The realm dismantled of Jove is Denmark, as Hamlet Sr. is compared to Jove in the play. And a "pajock" is a peacock, which I've often heard directly substituted into the text for modern clarity.

HAMLET: O good Horatio, I'll take the ghost's word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?
HORATIO: Very well, my lord.
HAMLET: Upon the talk of the poisoning?
HORATIO: I did very well note him.

The text seems clear that Horatio saw the same thing as Hamlet and agrees with him about Claudius' guilt. And indeed it will soon become clear to the audience as well when we hear the King's confession. Depending on the staging, it may still be prudent to have Horatio unsure at this point, which does make him a less sincere character, albeit a more skeptical one.

HAMLET: Ah, ha! Come, some music! come, the recorders!
For if the king like not the comedy,
Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.
Come, some music!

Re-enter ROSENCRANTZ and GUILDENSTERN

GUILDENSTERN: Good my lord, vouchsafe me a word with you.
HAMLET: Sir, a whole history.
GUILDENSTERN: The king, sir,--
HAMLET: Ay, sir, what of him?
GUILDENSTERN: Is in his retirement marvellous distempered.
HAMLET: With drink, sir?

Hamlet is mocking R&G and the King, but since we know drink to be one of Claudius' weaknesses, the line may be taken as a stage direction to have the King drink during the play, perhaps as an explanation for his extreme reaction.

GUILDENSTERN: No, my lord, rather with choler.
HAMLET: Your wisdom should show itself more richer to signify this to his doctor; for, for me to put him to his purgation would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.
GUILDENSTERN: Good my lord, put your discourse into some frame and start not so wildly from my affair.
HAMLET: I am tame, sir: pronounce.
GUILDENSTERN: The queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.
HAMLET: You are welcome.
GUILDENSTERN: Nay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed. If it shall please you to make me a wholesome answer, I will do your mother's commandment: if not, your pardon and my return shall be the end of my business.

A word like "breed" always alerts Hamlet's reader, since breeding, succession and yes, sex, are important themes. Hamlet is answering them with the wrong breed of courtesy, answering their own insincere breed of friendship, coming as they do from the wrong breed of King.

HAMLET: Sir, I cannot.
GUILDENSTERN: What, my lord?
HAMLET: Make you a wholesome answer; my wit's diseased: but, sir, such answer as I can make, you shall command; or, rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: my mother, you say,--

Hamlet's hatred for the various members of the Court guilty of his father's murder/disrespect is spreading, and lines like this one, where Gertrude and R&G are osmotically linked and interchangeable are a poetic reflection of that. When Polonius comes in later with the same news and request, he becomes interchangeable with R&G and thus the Queen. Later, Hamlet will play word games to make father and mother equivalent, including Claudius in this guilty ensemble. And despite the Ghost's return to try and reign Hamlet in, the psychic damage is done, and the play will have each of those characters die, sharing punishment along with guilt.

ROSENCRANTZ: Then thus she says; your behavior hath struck her into amazement and admiration.
HAMLET: O wonderful son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother's admiration? Impart.
ROSENCRANTZ: She desires to speak with you in her closet, ere you go to bed.
HAMLET: We shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade with us?
ROSENCRANTZ: My lord, you once did love me.
HAMLET: So I do still, by these pickers and stealers.
ROSENCRANTZ: Good my lord, what is your cause of distemper? you do, surely, bar the door upon your own liberty, if you deny your griefs to your friend.
HAMLET: Sir, I lack advancement.
ROSENCRANTZ: How can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?
HAMLET: Ay, but sir, 'While the grass grows,'--the proverb is something musty.

For a more careerist vision of Hamlet who is driven not just filial duty, but by ambition, this line becomes important. Claudius may have said in open Court that Hamlet will succeed him, he nevertheless cut in line, as it were, by marrying Gertrude. What else is he capable of? Hamlet's exile to England has already been planned after all. As time goes by, Claudius may change the arrangement, have Hamlet killed, or even have another son. Claudius must die in order for Hamlet to become King. An entirely political reading of Hamlet would see it this way.

Re-enter Players with recorders

O, the recorders! let me see one. To withdraw with you:--why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?
GUILDENSTERN: O, my lord, if my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.
HAMLET: I do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?
GUILDENSTERN: My lord, I cannot.
HAMLET: I pray you.
GUILDENSTERN: Believe me, I cannot.
HAMLET: I do beseech you.
GUILDENSTERN: I know no touch of it, my lord.
HAMLET: 'Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages with your fingers and thumb, give it breath with your mouth, and it will discourse most eloquent music. Look you, these are the stops.
GUILDENSTERN: But these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony; I have not the skill.
HAMLET: Why, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops; you would pluck out the heart of my mystery; you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass: and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ; yet cannot you make it speak. 'Sblood, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, yet you cannot play upon me.

One of my favorite exchanges in the play, just for the wit of it, even if Hamlet does use a mixed metaphor (pipes and strings). But then, the pluck and fret puns are too good to pass up or criticize.

Enter POLONIUS

God bless you, sir!
LORD POLONIUS: My lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.
HAMLET: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel?
LORD POLONIUS: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed.
HAMLET: Methinks it is like a weasel.
LORD POLONIUS: It is backed like a weasel.
HAMLET: Or like a whale?
LORD POLONIUS: Very like a whale.
HAMLET: Then I will come to my mother by and by. They fool me to the top of my bent. I will come by and by.
LORD POLONIUS: I will say so.
HAMLET: By and by is easily said.

The whole exchange about the clouds have posed problems for modern stagings of the play. In Shakespeare's day, the play would have been performed under an open roof, and I imagine crowds looking up and trying to spot that cloud, or actors changing the animals perceived based on the clouds that day. But for Hamlet, who is in Elsinore... are they outside? Do they have access to a skylight or window? Or is it all just a feigned hallucination Polonius buys into as an obsessive yes-man? Each director must answer that question for him or herself.

Exit POLONIUS

Leave me, friends.

Exeunt all but HAMLET

Tis now the very witching time of night,
When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out
Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood,

Hamlet foreshadows here the return of the Ghost.

And do such bitter business as the day
Would quake to look on. Soft! now to my mother.
O heart, lose not thy nature; let not ever
The soul of Nero enter this firm bosom:
Let me be cruel, not unnatural:
I will speak daggers to her, but use none;
My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites;
How in my words soever she be shent,
To give them seals never, my soul, consent!

Exit

Hamlet promises to hurt his mother with words, probably by revealing the truth of his father's death and accusing her of "damned incest". What he WANTS to do is hurt her physically, so the closet scene will have that tug of war between his violent impulse and a more reasoned approach. Eruptions expected.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - French Rock Opera

Un trône sans roi/Throne Without a King is a transitional piece of music on Johnny Hallyday's album, but if you use your imagination, you might see how it would have underscored action in the staged rock opera. It is placed where the Mouse-Trap would be, and through the repetition of the dirge motif Le vieux roi est mort/The Old King Is Dead already used twice before, has a similar recap function. Here is the text and a quick translation.

Un trône sans roi
Le vieux roi et mort
Depuis moins d'un mois
L'herbe sur sa tombe
Ne pousse encore pas

Le vieux roi est mort
Le temps d'une messe
Il est notre roi
Il cale ses fesses

Throne Without a King
The old king is dead
For less than a month
The grass on his tomb
Still does not grow

The old king is dead
The span of a [church] service
He is our king
He sinks his ass

It is telling that the chorus sings here and not Hamlet, though as we know from the play, he has written their words. This is the murder as presented by the Players. We could well imagine the processional music underscoring the arrival of the Court to the playhouse. Then, suspenseful stings over the dumb show, probably dance-like. Finally, we end with the result of a king's death, and the familiar Dead Old King theme. The first two lines are the same, but reiterate, as Hamlet does in the text, the temporal collapse caused by his grief. Using the chorus/Players translates that collapse to the People, foreshadowing their later rebellion. In fact, the lines here go further, from "less than a month" to "the span of a church service". The King has been forgotten by the time his funeral service is over.

And then time is collapsed even further when a new King shows up in the next line, so Hamlet Sr. has been forgotten in the breath between two lines. Those final lines do play on an ambiguity, as the "king" is actually two separate characters in the play. On the one hand, there is a resistance to a new leadership, the dead king being that of the people, even as his descent into the ground is mocked with colorful language. On the other, the new king is now that of the people - speaking to an ironic interchangeability as far as commoners are concerned - and a mockery of his sitting on that empty throne, now filled. That is the story of The Mouse-Trap.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Classics Illustrated

The original
Surprisingly, the old "boys' adventure" comics version includes both the dumb show and the speaking play, though it makes huge cuts through the use of captions to fit them in. In other words, they both "happen", but are not necessarily seen. The pantomime that precedes the play is visual, of course, so becomes the backbone of the comics version.There are number of interesting touches, as if the artist, freed from the Classics Illustrated constraint of heavy work balloons, has finally been allowed to show his quality. As the Player Queen leaves the sleeping king, for example, there's an odd expression on her face. Is she worried she might wake him? Or is she colluding with the murderer, but already feeling guilty? I also like the purely graphic juxtaposition of crown and poison separating the two bottom panels, showing how one can act as a gateway to the other. The sequence continues on the next page, where the Queen is offered jewels, but she seems to refuse from her body language. So it's not always clear what she's thinking.

A puzzled Ophelia asks about the argument of the play - the only live commentary made in this heavily edited version - but Hamlet leaves it to the Prologue. There is no cruelty towards Ophelia or the Royals, the play being the only possible impetus for Claudius to lose it. Hamlet's antics do not play a part or muddy the waters. On purpose perhaps, the Player Queen is a dead ringer for Ophelia, wearing the same kinds of clothes as well.
After a few words from the Prologue, the action cuts to Claudius' fit. We've seen the play's action through the pantomime, and we know the story because it's a mirror of Hamlet Sr.'s murder, so this is quite economical, while respecting the events of the play. Needlessly? If Claudius had reacted to the dumb show, it would have made more structural sense. As is, even though we know everything we do, there still seems to be a scene missing. It makes you want to see the trigger.

The Berkley version
Hamlet is likewise more pleasant to Ophelia in Tom Mandrake's version, his smiles turning cruelties into mere teasing. His art makes good use of shadows throughout the sequence, often keeping the Royals hidden, even when they speak lines. The darkness of their sins and their initial ambiguity make justify it, but it is starting to feel like they are shadows, ciphers or otherwise non-characters. Even the "protests too much" line is given to Ophelia instead of Gertrude. One place where shadows are better used is in Hamlet's face. The darkness of Ophelia's lap plays across it when he turns more serious and thinks of his father, ironically while entering a motherly womb.
Mandrake does away with the dumb show in favor of the spoken play, his painted Players in various cultural costumes separating the heightened reality of the Mouse-Trap with the Medieval trappings of the play outside the play, though I'll never get used to Claudius' Santa Claus outfit.
In the absence of a preceding panto, Claudius now sees the accusation for the first time, and reacts. Again, there are few public antics from Hamlet, so his idleness is not what distracts or affects the King. Both comics versions have chosen to make the King unambiguously guilty.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - A Midwinter's Dream

It's likely this version of Hamlet, if actually staged, would be exhausting to both audience and actors. Because it is presented as a quick-paced montage, its energy level is consequently very high. It drives the montage well however. Maloney's Hamlet is always moving around with a barely contained fury. Every line is an attack that justifies a more defensive tone from the Royals.

This short sequence takes us from "Madam, how like you this play" to "The Mouse-Trap", the latter spoken in the direction of the audience, played as an important reveal. In the montage, it plays the role of "the play's the thing" and tells us how those early scenes with the players could be removed from a particular staging, hiding from the audience Hamlet's true purpose until Act 3 Scene 2.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Slings & Arrows

The very brief part of this scene used in Slings & Arrows amounts to Hamlet's opening insults to Ophelia, but there are still lessons to be gleaned from it. On staging, you'll note that Ophelia and Hamlet are sitting/crouching near the ground, which fits the low-brow humor of the "country matters" line. Hamlet is in full madcap mode, rubbing his hands with devilish glee as Ophelia is continually hurt.

Hamlet turns to the audience to say "That's a fair thought to lie between maids' legs" and gets a laugh without need for Ophelia's questioning retort. The audience gets it because the punchline precedes the joke. In the text, the fact that Ophelia asks for the joke to be explained isn't strictly necessary, though it does inform her traumatized character and works within the rhythm of the scene. By making Hamlet's line an aside, Ophelia does not have to react to it and comes off as even more wounded, unable to properly interact. An aside at this point, and once that elicits a laugh at that, makes the audience share in Hamlet's cruelty. Because he shares his lewd thought with us, we empathize with him, which makes us his accomplices. Subtle, but subversive stuff.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - The Banquet

Set in China, The Banquet of course presents the play-within-a-play as Chinese opera. The full court is in attendance, but the Royals are quite far from the stage. It's all dumb show, with masked acrobats, but interestingly, the Hamlet character is sitting on the stage, masked, facing his parents and keeping the beat on a drum. A ghost clad in white (the color of death) comes to kill a ref-faced king and already, even before a puff of scorpion venom is blown into the figure's ear, the King recognizes something. As the opera makes its points, close-ups of the King and Queen reveal unease, while those of Hamlet rather show a cold fury, thought it's difficult to divine the expression behind the mask. These are intercut with close-ups of the previous King's armor, shedding tears of blood. In this way, this version of the play includes the Ghost.
In fact, the Ghost is quite prominent, not only in the cuts to the armor that has come to represent it, but in the garb of the people on stage. There are two white figures, including Hamlet whose facelessness turns him into a ghost himself. This osmosis presents characters doing the Ghost's bidding, as if he were the one putting on the play and observing well the guilty party.

At the end of the dumb show, the murdered Player King keels over, a shot that is played over and over again, lending it psychological weight. The Royals gets up from their thrones and walk over to the stage where the King examines the dead body. Cool and collected, smiling even, he starts a slow clap filled with sarcasm, though the court doesn't take any chances and starts to applaud as well. In this mockery, he hides his own guilt. He then turns to confront the Prince in what seems a mirror of the Prince's first scene of the play. "Hamlet" is asked to remove his mask (i.e put an end to his mourning) and in seeming madness, doesn't want to be touched by the King lest the black scorpion venom get on him. In response, the King sends him on a mission to the North because it is time he resume his service to the country. This combines the ideas of Hamlet's first scene and the exile forced on him after he has killed Polonius, making the Mouse-Trap reason enough for the Prince's exile, one during which he will suffer an assassination attempt.

This being a Chinese martial arts epic, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern will however be replaced by snow-tunneling ninjas...

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Tennant (2009)

Tennant's Hamlet is a petulant and mischievious child in this scene. The audience's entrance is scored with the Danish national anthem, as a barefoot Hamlet insolently whistles along. They ignore him, and we get the sense that his parents are already tired of his shenanigans. They do not appear to be particularly excited at the prospect of a night at the theater with him, and indeed, the audience is rather small. This is an intimate affair, not the public one other versions have created. We are definitely in the wake of Hamlet's attack on Ophelia. She comes in with her head down. Her father looks ever so puzzled. No one trusts Hamlet's mood. As if to give them reason, his giddy idleness is immediately disrespectful, throwing in an army salute with the chameleon's dish line, mocking the normal obedience one should show a father and a king.

In the early part of the scene, everything is more intimate. Hamlet asks Polonius about his acting days in private conversation, and only Polonius laughs at the prince's pun. It's interesting however to see Polonius so confounded by the fact he had to be killed in the play, a precursor to his actual senseless death in THIS play. Hamlet runs off with Ophelia, grabbing her out of her seat and to a position from where he can better observe the Royals. At this, Polonius breaks the fourth wall to ask us if we "mark that". Again, the scene's intimacy prevents him from being more public about his thoughts. Hamlet drags Ophelia down to the floor and wraps her arms around himself, mockingly bites her arm. It is a parody of a normal romantic relationship, and in a sense, perhaps a disguise. Sitting across from his parents, he appears to be getting back together with his girlfriend, but his cruel, unheard words tell another story. Tennant underlines the dirty pun in "country matters" (cunt-ry matters) to make it harsh indeed. And yet, his "as woman's love" later is a private statement, sounding more sorry than mean.

These private moments contrast with the moment when Hamlet actually flings an accusation his parents' way, as he shows more and more difficulty reigning himself in. At the jig-maker line, he gets up and dances humorously on the rug that will serve as a stage, making his mother laugh, which is the moment he chooses to begin his open cruelties. His very bitter delivery of "die two months ago, and not forgotten yet" gives it a strong ironic bent. For Hamlet, two months is no more appropriate than two hours, recalling the Hamlet from earlier in the play who was told to stop his grieving.
The dumb show is a most depraved affair meant to shock perhaps more than amuse. A tiny king with giant ears comes out of bald, fat queen's skirts and speaks unintelligibly (I was reminded of Pingu) until he is poisoned by a glam murderer with a heart over his crotch which, when removed, reveals an uncoiled slinky. The dead king's shroud becomes a ghostly sheet that runs off to let them have sex. Through this ridiculous piece of bawdry, Claudius laughs not at all, holding his temper in check. We do see his reaction to he mock poisoning, which makes this Claudius quite aware of the insinuation from early on. He stews in his own guilt longer as a result. As the dumb show starts, Hamlet takes out his camera and starts filming it, or really, the Royals' reactions to it. In this way, the film keeps the energy up by layering in Hamlet's point of view. When does he look at the characters and at what gestures or words do he focus in on his mother or stepfather?
The play itself features rather extreme Elizabethan costumes, and a staging that mirrors that of the Royals (king-left, queen-right). Gertrude is bitter and impatient at the text. She knows very well what she is being accused of and finds it insulting. With great poise, she questions whether the Player Queen protests too much, and gets a laugh from the audience. It's a show of power against Hamlet, and the audience seems to be on the Queen's side in this. As for Claudius, the cracks start to show. Silent up to this point, he asks if there's offense in it, in fact proposing there is, at which Polonius makes an odd gesture as if to stop him from speaking out. Have they decided prior to the play to let Hamlet have his fun and show no reaction? Reacting, even with a smaller audience, is dangerous at this point because Hamlet is filming them. The (Mouse-)trap is theirs to get caught in.

After mouthing many of the lines himself, it's time for the murder, and Hamlet can't help but get up and spoil the ending, just to force the reaction he's looking for, triumphant even has he ruins his own device. Does he succeed? The king rises, but walks calmly to a stagehand and requests light. He then brings the lantern over and shines it on Hamlet, as if revealing the prince's madness for all to see. He shakes his head as if to say "You won't get me so easily". To the assembly, this may instead mean that he pities and softly chides Hamlet, but we know better, and the slightest of smiles from Patrick Stewart speaks volumes. That Hamlet thinks he's found a chink in the King's armor may be wishful thinking on his part however.

III.ii. The Mouse-Trap - Fodor (2007)

The Mouse-Trap is translated into a German experimental film in Fodor's vision. It was made very quickly, although the play does allow for temporal anomalies like this, as we've often discussed. In the film, we first see a hammer and a screwdriver, the murder weapons, as it turns out. Then the murderer, thinking, plotting. The Queen getting her picture taken, an image of the people's adulation. At this point, we cut to Hamlet in the audience, nodding along. Even in the text as written, the Queen hammers her point a bit stridently - Gertrude's evaluation is not far off - so this might indicate that her dialog was manipulated by Hamlet. A similar idea is used here to "get" Gertrude as well as Claudius. In the text, it makes her a betrayer of her word. In this version's film, she is a co-conspirator whose motivation seems to be greater fame and power.

The film continues... The Queen is having dinner and flirting (insincerely) with the King. In the audience, there are uncomfortable shots of Claudius and Polonia - in this version, his new mistress. Does she see herself onscreen? Is she actually the Queen character who seduces the King to slip him poison? We assume it's the Player Queen, because that's what it is in the text. Fodor's gender-switching game may give a different interpretation where the character is both women. On screen, drinks are brought to the table, and in the audience, it sparks Ophelia's "You are merry", but as with most of the dialog that should intercut the Mouse-Trap, it is done in voice-over, making it very ambiguous as to when these words were actually spoken. Usually, we can assume they were said before the start of the film. In others, such as Getrude's "The lady doth protest too much", that wouldn't make sense. Are these words just the imaginings of Hamlet, taking the place of memories? Or since we never see her "protest", are we hearing something said in an earlier part of the projection?

Back in the film, the King drinks and topples over (Polonia and Claudius share a look, and again we wonder if she's the woman). Horribly, the poison is just a knock-out drug and the murderer must stab the King in the ear, driving the screwdriver down with his hammer. At the first stab, we hear a horse neighing, perhaps an image imposed by Hamlet to represent his noble father.
Claudius starts getting hot under the collar, and at the murder, Fodor flash cuts to every character's reaction. Shock is registered on almost all faces, even on Rosencrantz/Guildenstern's, though he soon starts to laugh at how cool the violence is like the sociopath he is. Children's laughter is heard on the soundtrack at this point. The King rises and distraught, goes to stand before everyone, the movie projection flickering on his face. He's lost it completely and he stands revealed, the projection putting the murder on him, like blood on his hands. Everyone then leaves behind him, and only a judgmental Gertrude stays a moment to give her son a stern look (setting up the next scene), before leaving Hamlet and smiling Horatio alone in the dark to enjoy their victory.