This is curious. We see Claudius leave the play. He doesn’t SEEM particularly angry. He’s upset, certainly. He wants light and he leaves. The next time we see him, he’s in a state but it’s not choleric. Emotional. Anxious. Turning himself inside out. But choleric? Not so much. This indicates one of two things. Either Claudius has swung through a wide range of emotions, traveling a whole emotional spectrum from stunned to disturbed to choleric and back to disturbed. Or Guildenstern has no idea what he’s talking about. Or Gertrude is making things up and passing them through Guildenstern back to Hamlet.
OR! Maybe Claudius has gotten uncharacteristically mad at her. Has he suddenly shut her out, sent her way so he can wrestle with his conscience all by himself?
That actually makes a lot of sense to me.
I’ve seen many men lash out at women and seem angry when they’re really just troubled.
I’m interested in Claudius’ anger. He’s not much of a stormer. We don’t see him angry much, even though we know him to murder, we don’t see him full of fury for long. We just get flashes.
The Hamlet Project 