Have Marcellus and Hamlet had a beer together?
Are they buddies?
Marcellus is always played as a guard
Or a nightwatchman
Or a captain
But what if he were also a friend of Hamlet’s
Brought to the parapets first
Because of his connection to the prince.
Then Marcellus goes to the next closest friend
(but also the one who hasn’t seen the prince yet) and gets a double confirmation. It is
Marcellus after all who knows where to find Hamlet conveniently. It is Marcellus who
Brings these people together.
What if they’re all friends somehow?
If so –
What happens to Marcellus?
After they see the ghost again
He disappears from the play.
He is sworn to silence and then vanishes.
Does he take off because the secret of a ghost and murder and an impassioned prince become too much for him?
Is Marcellus shaken so absolutely by this visitor from the other side
That he hops a boat to Asia to train as a mystic?
Where does Marcellus go?
Where has he been?

Is that you?
Where you been, buddy?
Haven’t seen you round the palace lately.
How’s the wife?
Really? How soon?

I didn’t realize you two knew each other
O and this guy –
What up, Marcellus?
(What’s this guy’s name again?) 
What are you doing on night shift?
My dad would never have asked you to do that.
Oh, right, the war preparations.
Oh, Marcellus –
Things might have been so different
Mightn’t they?
If I were on the throne now –
What am I saying?
If we had not lost my father –
If I’m wishing – I might as well wish myself that far back.

Shakespeare almost never starts a sentence with AND
And I almost always do.
I know I’m not supposed to
And maybe that’s why I do it.
It’s my grammatical way to take drugs and steal cars.
But the fact that Shakespeare has started this sentence with AND
Makes me wonder.
What is this AND doing here?
It feels like a very natural exchange between friends
“Bob, my good buddy! You’ve lost weight!
And what the heck have you been doing with yourself?
”

Except I still can’t quite work out
what “I’ll change that name with you” is doing in the middle of this exchange.
Yes, of course. Sir, my good friend. Clear as a bell.
I’ll change that name with you. Which name? How? Does he mean role? Does he mean identities? Why is he going to change a name with him?
Back to conversational speech that equates to “What are you doing here?”

In middle school, my social studies teacher taught us to write essays using
the “Bing. Bang. Bongo.” Structure. This sentence feels like Bing. Kaleidoscope. Bongo.

And there is And.
And I And and And and And
Because I want to add to what came before
And start anew
All at once.
And I cannot help myself.

It’s the classic classical tale
Royal Prince switches places with his humble servant who happens to look just like him
So that he might go out among his people freely
Unencumbered with his rarefied identity.
The servant is elevated to heights he has never seen before
Experiences softness all around him
When before he had only known edges.
Who fares better in this exchange?
I can’t remember how the story goes
Just that its always more complex than they think
It’s going to be.
I think sometimes they stay switched
With the servant delighted to be waited on
And the prince delighted to serve.
I think of it as a classic Freaky Friday
Where everyone understands and empathizes with one another a little bit more and they just can’t wait to get back to their own bodies.

He tends to fare better than his brother:
Sir My Mortal Enemy.
Their uncle, Sir Runs from Dragons Screaming
Gave them their names.
But he can’t be blamed, his father was
Sir Makes a Lot of Disgusting Noises in the Outhouse.

Conflating you with me
You become almost more recognizable than me. You have become my mirror
More than my mirror. I look into you more often than I do the looking glass.
You hold more truth
More love
You’re warmer
You judge less
You understand much more than the mirror does and you can explain it.
I start to know your face
Better than my face
Because I look at yours more
And mine has layers of memories on it-
My face at seven, my face at 19, my face at 37.
If I were to lose the memory of myself
I would remember you
Or if I forgot you,
I would not be far behind.

What’s he doing calling Horatio “you”?
Aren’t they friends? Shouldn’t they be thou-ing each other?
Thou-ing and thine-ing?
If they’re such good friends and Horatio has come
For the king’s funeral, then Horatio has been here a month.
A month gone by and this is the first time they’ve seen one another?
Is Hamlet suspicious of Horatio in just the way he is (rightfully) suspicious
of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? Are they not intimates?
Do they become so over the course of the show?
“I am glad to see you well” Also rings of formality.
It’s not, “You’re looking good.” Or “How the hell have you been you old badger?”
It might even be a standard princely response to “Hail.”
Or – what if there were a period after “you”?
I am glad to see you.
Well. . .
And suddenly, it’s awkward, because Hamlet can’t recall this guy’s name –
This Italian guy who he knows he knows from somewhere
But, boy, is he out of context –
“Oh, it’s school! I know his name. And he’s –
that graduate student in the philosophy department and look at me, forgetting that.
How embarrassing. I hope he didn’t notice. Let me make sure he knows I know him
after all. Ah, Horatio, my good friend, my fellow student, not a truant.”
I am glad to see you well.