If he be now return’d As checking at his voyage, and that he means No more to undertake it, I will work him To an exploit, now ripe in my device Under the which he shall not choose but fall:

July 19, 2019erainbowd

Claudius! Is this how you think? Are we seeing a Claudius thought being formed as you talk? Is that what’s happening here? I mean – this is one long meander-y sentence. I feel like Claudius must be one of those people who just starts talking and hopes he’s worked out what he’s going to say by the time he gets to the end of his thought.

It makes me think of a bit of advice that Anne Bogart gave in her book about directing. It was to just start talking – to say “I have an idea!” and start walking to the stage and just do whatever occurs to you as you go. I feel like Claudius is doing that here. His wind-up is the stuff about Hamlet’s return and then boom – he’s at an idea – a device. OR – he’s at the moment where he declares he has an idea but is probably not yet clear what it is.