Let’s re-frame. Let’s try to approach life like the Player King.
We’ll think of life as full of operant powers.
We’ll recognize their functions.
Instead of worrying over making a life, of making a living, of doing something of note – we’ll worry about giving our operant powers their due.
What can we do?
What functions do we wish to perform?
Even the most mundane are miraculous when you think of them. We not only feed ourselves, we find and prepare food. We walk. We talk. We dance. We have sex. We relate to one another in abundant ways.
There are those who expand their functions beyond the quotidian – those who become athletes and circus performers – those who become opera singers and virtuoso musicians. Functions at their peak – those who have abundant operant powers.

Why does the villain murder the king in this play when the king clearly believes he’s dying? Why doesn’t he just wait a little bit? Why throw fratricide into the mix when the natural course of events will lead to the same result?
Does the villain not realize that the king is already at death’s door?
I guess murderers aren’t generally known for their patience.

This is a confusing timeline.
At first hit, this marriage would seem to be thirty years long, if we imagine that Phoebus’ cart journey is reflective of a year. But generally, Phoebus, the sun, is thought to go round the earth every day – which would put us at thirty days.
Then we have thirty dozen moons? Thirty moons would be around 30 months. But what is thirty dozen? 12 x 30? – ah, yes, 12 months times thirty – which re-iterates the 30 years idea.
So really, the king here is saying it’s been thirty years again and again, in possibly the most obscure language possible.

My question then becomes – is this a mirror of Gertrude’s first marriage? It’s possible. Generally, Hamlet’s accepted age is 33. But I have yet to see where exactly that reference comes in. Is it the gravedigger scene? I can’t recall.
But – I guess this player marriage is at least in the Ballpark of the Gertrude & Hamlet partnership in terms of years. 30 to 35 years in that marriage? It’s all in the same neighborhood.

Hey, listen, Gobbo, since you didn’t bother coming to listen to the Prince of Fucking Denmark with us – he asked us to pass a message along to you. He says you can expect an order of execution sometime tomorrow unless you do the best performance of your life tonight.

Oh, alright, he didn’t order your execution – but I will, if you fuck around up there like you usually do. And I’m not kidding, he did have a message especially for you. I mean, – he went on for DAYS, or at least a few minutes, about shitty clowns – Am I right, fellas? Wasn’t it, like, an epic speech? It was the last thing he told us before sent us out. “Tell him” he said.

We’re telling you. No interrupting the play tonight. No catch phrases. No dancing around. None of it. Or we’ll all catch hell. You know what? Now that I think of it – we’re doing a tragedy tonight. We might be safer if you didn’t perform at all. It’ll be better for all of us – and none of us will get our heads chopped off. Fingers crossed.

Given Hamlet’s response to this line, I have to assume that “indifferently” means something different here than what I think of as indifferent – something more like “mostly” or “to the best of our ability.”
I mean, indifferent to me means without care. As in, I watched the sports game out of the corner of my eye indifferently.
But perhaps once upon a time, it might have meant something like “uniformly” at least that’s what taking the word apart might lead me to believe. Like – “in” different, like “un different, as in the same. I find it a curious choice of words from the First Player. It feels logical that the First Player means it in one way and Hamlet means it another. This exchange has the feeling of word play – but it is wordplay that is lost on me, due to my not QUITE knowing what in the heck the First Player means by indifferently.

Wee-ooo. Weee-ooo. Weee-ooo. Punctuation police on the scene. We see here that this sentence ends in a period as sentences are wont to do – but we’re here to investigate the possibility that this line could end in a dash.

Mightn’t the drive of the scene be a little stronger if the First Player were about to swear to something, not just a warrant for warrants sake, but a. . .”I warrant your honor, we do our best to avoid out heroding herod.” Perhaps. Or a “I warrant your honor, we will be as gentle as any sucking dove.” This thought would then be interrupted by Hamlet, rather than a little turn taking.
I warrant your honor –
Or I warrant your honor . . .
Rather than
I warrant your honor.

Now the punctuation police aren’t authorized to make any changes of course but we’re always on the look out for new investigations.

I listened to this interview with Fran Lebowitz the other day and she talked about the rare-ness of talents. Talented actors, she pointed out, are not rare. They are so common that 90% of them are unemployed at a time. And that’s really truly gifted actors. There’s a sea of actors who are not truly gifted and 90% are also unemployed at a time.

This thought has disrupted me a little bit. It makes a great deal of sense. And as an actor, I recognize the common-ness of this talent, while simultaneously imagining myself to be rare. A certain amount of self-delusion is necessary in order to continue to dive into the acting pool. You have to pretend that there is no one but you who might fulfill this role, when, in fact, there are thousands.

Mincing limbs?! No wonder Pyrrhus is covered in blood. It’s not enough to chop off someone’s head; You’ve got to slice his arms and legs up into tiny pieces as well? I guess Pyrrhus is the kind of guy who really takes pleasure in his work and he’s just lucky his work happens to be chopping people up professionally. What a lucky little warrior!

But clearly this is excessive. That’s the gist of this whole passage. But what’s odd is that imagining this scene doesn’t make me milch my burning eyes. It just makes me feel kind of sick and disgusted. Hecuba’s grief before we get to the limb dicing is the really moving thing as far as I’m concerned. But maybe you really have to push forward into deep gore to make the gods cry.

This sentence feels the most like A Line of Verse. It’s metrically so regular and all the inversions make it feel very VERSE-y. It’s also interestingly removed from the emotion that’s otherwise coursing through this speech. It almost feels like a pause in the destruction of Troy, like the verse takes a second to step away from bloody warrior, beheaded King and crying Queen.
And that’s mirrored in the content, too, I guess. Asking who could see this and not want to shout at Fortune is also a step away from the action.

Will someone paint this for me?
I’m not sure I understand exactly how this blanket is draped around this mobled queen. My initial picture was a blanket over her shoulders, like a cloak or a fire blanket or a sweater –
but then the blanket seems to be caught up in her “o’er-teeméd” loins. Is it then more like a diaper? Or a skirt? Is it acting as bandaging for wounds? Is it somehow worse for her dignity than just wearing a dirty old blanket instead of her royal weeds?
She’s barefoot, crying, a bruise or wound on her head and still it will get worse.