It may be the fact that I’m a theatre artist but the entrance of the Players into this play at this moment is always a great relief. It feels like it releases some sort of tension, that the Players have come, everyone can relax now.
And it does have that effect for a while, everyone has hope that the play will provide a welcome distraction, that it could provide Hamlet a focus in his madness or just shake things up a bit.
The players do put a pin in the balloon of the play here. They collapse the play into something entirely new before they blow the whole thing up again.
The players’ arrival feels like the arrival of a long-awaited friend. And many of my friends are players so it does make some sense.
The Hamlet Project 