The Osric, in the production I was in ages ago, was played by a woman. I’m thinking about that now because I’m thinking about how these power dynamics would be so complicated by gender. In that production, her Osric didn’t seem to be really gendered. He was just a fop – a Monty Python character with an American accent. And our Hamlet was about her same size. They looked like brother and sister. (Did they play Sebastian and Viola in our accompanying Twelfth Night? I’m actually pretty sure they did, yes.)
But – if the size differential had been bigger, if Osric wore a dress..I don’t know – all these fun orders would read a lot differently.
Author: erainbowd
I beseech you, remember –
I do love a good hat lazzo. On again, off again. It will become even funnier if every time Osric puts his hat back on or takes it off he does a little flourish of some kind. If he can’t help but twirl it, brush it off or wave its feather and give a little bow or something? And every time he engages with the hat, it gets a little faster. The lazzi of the hat. Yeah.
Sir, this is the matter, –
This is one of those moments where the slowness with which I manage to post these little moments comes around in such an uncanny circular way. I wrote this post during the Kavanagh hearings and I then went to post it on the day that Amy Coney Barrett, handmaid of the patriarchy, was confirmed and sworn in. I did not post on that day. I felt there was something I needed to add here, at the top, where I could point to the circles of time that make all these things revolve and revolve in such a terrible way.
It’s also a curious circle, in that, this Kavanaugh situation prompted me to write a blog post about becoming a dragon. It was a small hit. And a few months later, that blog post inspired a piece that has since become the audio drama podcast that I’ve been making throughout this pandemic and am just one episode away from completing. In seeing the beginning of this Kavanaugh cycle, I’m now wondering what horrors this new awful Supreme Court confirmation will yield and what blog posts it will inspire, which maybe, if I’m lucky inspire me to make another piece of work.
A lot has happened in two years.
I don’t know what madness might be in the air when you read this but I hope that it isn’t this particular pocket of enabling again.
*
My sympathy for Osric is slightly reduced today. I find that the goings on in the Supreme Court Confirmation news has made me less sympathetic to enablers of shitty powerful men. Today I am full of fury and am ready to destroy the patriarchy – starting from the shitty head of this country and just going full beserker outward. Osric would not escape my revolutionary fury today. Today I see him as all the enablers on Twitter trying to say that a little attempted rape at age 17 isn’t really a big deal, boys will boys, boys will just cover the mouths of women screaming to be let go, boys will just turn up the music to avoid being caught raping. Today I see him delivering these kinds of messages, the invitations to power’s center, the welcome to the bloodbaths.
But, my lord, his Majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a Great wager on your head.
Now, why has Claudius sent Osric, of all people, to get this message to Hamlet? Did he look at his cadre of assistants and nobles, messengers and lords, servants and ministers and think, “Ah, yes, Osric. He is sure to annoy the hell out of Hamlet as he delivers this message. Maybe Hamlet will be so distracted by his water-fly behavior, he will not have time to get suspicious – thus increasing my likelihood of killing him. Or rather, having him killed.”
Is that why?
Or did Osric volunteer for the message?
I’m thinking the former. Claudius is a crafty bastard.
Exceedingly, my lord; it is very sultry – as ‘twere, – I cannot tell how.
I have become concerned with what the actual temperature is in this scene. I mean, I understand that Hamlet is messing with Osric and getting him to agree to whatever he says. But there is also an objective temperature – and one statement or the other is in conflict with that.
I suspect it is actually very hot. This sentence is supporting my sense of the earlier line wherein Osric seems to be disinclined to put his hat on, due to the heat.
In fact, it is Osric who brings up the temperature. He is the first to declare it is hot – which leads me to believe that it is, in fact, hot. This line has a sense of relief to it – yes, it is. Hot. Very hot. We’re back on to solid ground here and Osric can fan himself with his hat if he wants to if he cannot tell how hot it is.
What’s funny to me about this is that I have never paid the slightest attention to what the actual circumstances were in this scene, temperature-wise. It always was just Hamlet messing about with a sycophant.
But yet methinks it is very sultry and hot for my Complexion.
All these years into my life with Shakespeare and I never really examined “complexion” before. I thought of it how we mean “complexion” today – that is the color or state of one’s face/skin. Which – apparently it could also mean at the time of this play’s writing – but –
complexion originally meant one’s temperament and its relationship to the four humors. It only meant FACE as it related to how one’s personality or temperament was reflected there.
I feel like I want to go back in time and play Viola in 12th Night again. I’m not sure it would have come through but the line about loving someone of Orsino’s complexion would have meant a lot more to me if it had been about his temperament instead of his FACE coloring. I mean – it always struck me as so shallow and racially uncomfortable to have characters be so obsessed with their love interests’ complexions – that is, the hue of their faces. But it wasn’t about that at all, I learn now from a cursory etymological search.
It’s hot for Hamlet’s “complexion” – not because of his skin tone – but because of his temperament – his humors. I know a scholar who has done a bunch of research on the humors and I remember that she identified which of the humors Hamlet seemed to be – I want to say wetness was involved? And darkness? And also that the humors were associated with geography as well. Spain is hot and dry. Denmark is cold and moist. Is this right? Anyway. A sultry and hot bit of weather would not suit Hamlet’s humors. His complexion, that is, his face, would not be a factor.
It is indifferent cold, my lord, indeed.
This line would be much funnier if Osric were sweating profusely as he said it. If sweat were pouring off him, if he had pit stains and circles of sweat at his back and then declared that it was indifferent cold…
The wind is Northerly.
In my citified life, I never have cause to think about the direction of the wind. I notice which way it blows my skirt – ahead of, or behind me- but which direction it comes from never enters my mind. I expect, in more open climates, the direction from which it comes is quite a bit more significant. Maybe you can feel the chill coming in from Canada or the heat from the rains down in Africa.
Here in NYC, I’d have to consciously think through which way the wind was coming from to know if it were Northerly.
No, believe me, ‘tis very cold.
I know Osric is a tool and a suck up and a water-fly. But I also think Hamlet is being kind of a dick. Like – who has more power – a prince or a landowner? I mean. Hamlet is abusing his authority a bit just because he’s not a fan of this guy. But he’s punching down, really.
It helps if Osric is played by someone who we want to see taken down a peg. It helps if we want to see Hamlet put him in his place.
On paper, though, I find myself sympathetic to him. He has no other recourse but to suck up to authority. He doesn’t really have any.
I thank your lordship, it is very hot.
Does Osric comply with Hamlet’s directive?
In a general way, I always thought so – but now that I look at it more closely, I wonder. If it is hot – why would he put his hat on? Unless it’s a sun hat? But if it’s any other kind of hat, putting it on will only make Osric hotter, so this thanking of his lordship and stating the weather, might, in fact, be a kind of resistance.
Thinking of him that way makes me like him more.
I mean – here is Hamlet, essentially abusing his authority by insisting this guy take his hat on and off – it’s not particularly kind.
If Osric wasn’t here to send Hamlet to his death, I might be inclined to feel bad for him.
The Hamlet Project 