Hamlet endures due to its complex characters, psychological depth, and exploration of universal themes such as death, revenge, and the human condition. Its enduring popularity is also attributed to its poetic language, memorable quotes, and its influence on literature, film, and popular culture. Hamlet’s themes and characters continue to be studied and adapted in various forms, making it one of Shakespeare’s most famous and frequently performed plays. Its timeless appeal lies in its ability to speak to audiences across generations, cultures, and languages, and its place as a cornerstone of Western literature.
I was sent this video from the producer/creator/Ophelia, Emily Newhouse, and I found it amusing enough to post for Shakespeare Day.
What if Hamlet and Ophelia went to couples therapy? Yes, “You killed my dad!” / “Why can’t you let that go?!” does come up.
[ Full link here, in case the player’s not working properly for you. ]
I think my favorite part (which happens to be in the screenshot, I notice) is when Hamlet shifts over to puppets, and puppet Hamlet is also manning tiny puppet Ophelia and puppet Hamlet.
Of course, counseling or psychoanalyzing Shakespeare’s characters has been popular fodder for ages. Who can forget Monty Python’s Hamlet at the Psychiatrist?
This Thursday, October 15, you might be lucky enough to see Benedict Cumberbatch’s Hamlet in your local theatre!
This is a Hamlet for a world on the edge: a warning from history, and a plea for new ideas from a new generation
-Variety
A fresh, dynamic staging with a vivid, supple performance at its heart.
-Financial Times
Is anybody going to get to see this? I have an event at my kids’ school that night (and it may be with gritted teeth but kids come before Shakespeare), but the web site does say Encore Performances on Oct 22, so maybe I’ll get lucky!
UPDATE : After relating this story to my kids they were all, “Daddy, of *course* you go see the Shakespeare. This school thing happens every year, and you’ve already been to them the last couple of years anyway. Shakespeare over this.”
Huzzah!
I then discovered that all my local showings are sold out. 🙁
On the one hand I’m happy that there’s this much interest in a Shakespeare event! But, of course, bummed that I’m not going to be a part of it. Hoping for a DVD release hot on the heels of the live show :)!
At any point during a Shakespeare tragedy should we just kind of look at it and think, “Dang, you know, that was just really unlucky”? How about Polonius being behind the arras in the first place? Sure, it was pretty impulsive of Hamlet to just go all stabby all of a sudden, if he’d done that literally any other time when somebody wasn’t back there, the play would go totally differently.
The article linked above asks why we feel obliged to pretend luck doesn’t play a factor. Luck suggests that even if you don’t do the right things, you can still come out ahead (people like to cite Bill Gates, college drop out, as a great example here). Or, that you can do everything right and still one day tragedy strikes and you lose everything. It’s hard to accept that sort of randomness, because it acknowledges a complete lack of control. If I choose a certain path, I want to expect that certain things will happen. If an unexpected thing happens, my brain wants to go back and create a new path that I must have taken to get myself to that spot.
Personally I believe in the theory that says, “At any given time, you are the sum total of your experiences and decisions up to that point.” I always take issue when people say something like, “I’m happy with my life, I just wish that X had been different.” You can’t have it that way, because if X had been different, then everything that came after X would also be different.
Luck, therefore, is part of the definition — a thing happened at a certain time because of conditions that all your previous decisions got you into. Luck is basically the uncontrollable bit. Sure, Hamlet decided to go to his mother’s room, get all upset, and murder the tapestry. But nothing he did was responsible for putting Polonius back there. Sure, sure, you could argue that the whole play-within-a-play, which deliberately pissed off Claudius, set Polonius into action, but ultimately Polonius has free will as well that Hamlet does not control.
I guess the whole point is, does the tragic flaw exist? Or is it just a construct we put in place after the fact, to rationalize what is ultimately just a series of uncontrollable events, making your choices like waltzing through a mine field and hoping your next one doesn’t blow up in your face.
Horatio at Hamlet’s death. Image via Wikipedia commons
He doesn’t. He’s what you sometimes hear referred to as the “exception that proves the rule.” Like how at the end of Hamlet, everybody dies. Except Horatio.
The official body count in the final scene (Act 5 Scene 2) of Hamlet is four: Gertrude, Laertes, Claudius, Hamlet. Enter Fortinbras, who says “What happened here?” and Horatio is left to tell the tale.
Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film version may have also killed off Osric (the referee, for lack of a more description term), it’s difficult to tell. In Branagh’s version, Fortinbras is actively invading the castle while the final duel takes place between Hamlet and Laertes. Osric is seen being taken by surprise and stabbed. However, he then returns to the scene to deliver his line about Fortinbras’ “warlike volley.”
In some interpretations, such as Ingmar Bergman’s 1986 production, Horatio is killed at the end of the play. When Fortinbras orders, “Bid the soldiers shoot,” some directors have taken that as license to execute Horatio, presumably as the last remaining witness to all that had taken place. It’s important to note that there is nothing in the text to indicate this (just like Osric’s death above). However, there’s two ways to die in a play. Either the script says you die, or else you eventually just run out of lines. Once you’re no longer part of the action (such as Osric), you might fall victim to artistic license and find yourself dead at the end of Act 5 whether Shakespeare wanted it that way or not.
There’s a short and easy answer to the question of why Hamlet killed Polonius. It was an accident. A case of mistaken identify, if you will. What he did next, however, certainly was no accident.
The story so far: Hamlet has sprung his mouse trap, playing out Claudius’ crime in front of him with the help of the actors. Claudius reaction has, as Hamlet anticipated, “caught the conscience of the king.” Gertrude, upset with her son for angering her husband, has requested Hamlet come to her bedchamber so she might speak with him. Polonius offers to spy on Hamlet by reaching the queen first and hiding in the arras (curtains).
Hamlet, in exultation at having proven Claudius’ guilt, comes to his mother’s bedchamber and intends to tell her off:
Hamlet. Now, mother, what’s the matter?
Gertrude. Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
Hamlet. Mother, you have my father much offended.
Gertrude. Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.
Hamlet. Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.
Gertrude. Why, how now, Hamlet?
Hamlet. What’s the matter now?
Gertrude. Have you forgot me?
Hamlet. No, by the rood, not so!
You are the Queen, your husband’s brother’s wife,
And (would it were not so!) you are my mother.
Hamlet’s mood at this point is pretty obvious. He’s been unhappy with his mother and is letting it all out. You have my father much offended. You question with a wicked tongue. You are your husband’s brother’s wife.
If Hamlet had stormed off at this moment, having made his point, the play would have gone differently. Instead, Gertrude stands up and says, “I don’t have to take this!” and Hamlet shoves his mother back down, because he’s not done with her yet:
Gertrude. Nay, then I’ll set those to you that can speak.
Hamlet. Come, come, and sit you down. You shall not budge;
You go not till I set you up a glass
Where you may see the inmost part of you.
Gertrude is not prepared for Hamlet to put his hands on her. Remember that the whole castle believes Hamlet to have lost his mind. So it’s hardly unexpected when she yells to Polonius for help:
Gertrude. What wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murther me?
Help, help, ho!
Polonius. [behind] What, ho! help, help, help!
Hamlet didn’t know someone else was in the room. He stabs blindly through the arras:
Hamlet. [draws] How now? a rat? Dead for a ducat, dead!
[Makes a pass through the arras and] kills Polonius.
Polonius. [behind] O, I am slain!
Gertrude. O me, what hast thou done?
Right now the audience is thinking the same thing that Gertrude is. What just happened? Hamlet’s a thinker and a talker, not a doer. Up to this point in the play he hasn’t really done anything. Until now. Heard a noise? Kill it!
Hamlet. Nay, I know not. Is it the King?
Gertrude. O, what a rash and bloody deed is this!
Hamlet. A bloody deed- almost as bad, good mother,
As kill a king, and marry with his brother.
Gertrude. As kill a king?
Hamlet thought Claudius was hiding behind the arras! During this exchange, in fact, he still believes he has killed Claudius, which perhaps explains why he so blatantly accuses his mother of the crime, thinking that he has now avenged his father.
Hamlet discovers Polonius. Image via Wikipedia commons
The timing here is subject to some debate. In the previous scene, on his way to his mother’s bedchamber, Hamlet had already passed Claudius at prayer. He has an opportunity there to kill him, but chooses not to take it. So, then, does Hamlet think that Claudius somehow beat him to the same destination? It’s possible that Hamlet took his time getting to his mother’s room eventually. Or that castles do tend to have secret passages and if there was a shortcut to Gertrude’s room, Claudius knew it. It’s also likely that in the heat of the moment Hamlet simply never thought of this.
So, Polonius’ death was an accident. What happens next is not. Hamlet hides Polonius body, refusing to let him have a proper burial. Act 4 scenes 2 and 3 are actually devoted entirely to the search for Polonius’ body:
Rosencrantz. What have you done, my lord, with the dead body?
Hamlet. Compounded it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.
Rosencrantz. Tell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence
And bear it to the chapel.
And then, when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern can get no answers out on him, Hamlet is taken before Claudius:
Claudius. Where is Polonius?
Hamlet. In heaven. Send thither to see. If your messenger find him not
there, seek him i’ th’ other place yourself. But indeed, if you
find him not within this month, you shall nose him as you go up
the stair, into the lobby.
So Hamlet uses the dead body of his girlfriend’s father as a prop so he can tell Claudius to go to hell. Is this part of his crazy act? Or at this point does he truly care so little about such things that he doesn’t think twice about defiling a corpse?
