He’s got bushy black hair, little tufts of it come out of his ears and nose, in addition to the top of his head.
He carries a walking stick, though he doesn’t need it for walking. He mostly uses it for gesturing. His servants have learned to watch his movements carefully, to keep at least a stick’s distance away or be ready to move quickly out of it’s way. Everyone has a story about a time they got caught by surprise and ended up with a smack and bruise. Gonzago hardly notices when this happens. He is usually so caught up in his blustering monologue, even the sudden sound of a high-pitched wail of pain will not shake him from it.
He favors waistcoats with brass buttons, which he pops with some regularity. There is one servant whose principal duty is to sew buttons back on.
His wife of many years was originally impressed by her husband’s grandiosity but over the years has come merely to tolerate it. They mostly just keep out of one another’s way – except at formal dinners and festivities.
Because he holds a royal post, he has a steady stream of young men coming to request advice or funding. Gonzago very much enjoys receiving these fellows and giving them advice.

I wonder if it’s really this line that gets Claudius riled up.
He’s watched, theoretically, the action of the villain poisoning the king twice – first in the dumb show and now in the play. But he doesn’t rise until Hamlet starts talking. And this line is as true for the king of Denmark as it is for the character in this play.
Claudius definitely poisons King Hamlet in the garden for, what is effectively, his estate, if a kingship and country might be called an estate. And Hamlet, too, seconds this bit as what Claudius responds to.
He says, “Upon the talk of the poisoning.” Not the poisoning itself, no – but the TALK of the poisoning.
And while Claudius doesn’t say this when he talks about his sin later, I wonder if he’s more responding to Hamlet’s reference to the poisoning than the poisoning itself. Does he react so strangely because it suddenly seems like Hamlet knows? Maybe subconsciously – since he doesn’t mention it again and it is from here that he gets real keen on sending Hamlet to “England.”

How is this raven related to the one in Macbeth?

This raven is croaking – the one in Macbeth is hoarse. Is it possible that this is a family of ravens who just happen to have creaky voices? Maybe a family of Carol Channing ravens? Or Bea Arthurs?
Mama Croaking Raven bellows for revenge in Hamlet while Papa Hoarse Raven announces the fatal entrance of Duncan. Baby Ravens prepare to squeak out other horrors in other tragedies to come.

What is the murderer doing to inspire this? I imagine a melodramatic old school mustache twirler with a cape – the kind who ties damsels to railroad tracks and he’s making various evil expressions, warming up to do his evil business.

It makes me think of one of the opening scenes of The Imposters when Stanley Tucci and Oliver Platt are practicing acting in their bedroom. One gives the other an emotion and the other makes the face of that emotion. I imagine that this murderer in the Mousetrap is cycling through his villain faces just as those actors do in that scene.

What if God really was controlling everything?
He’d be like a grand stage manager, cueing good and bad. He’s got the world like a mock-up of a set in front of him. He brings in a murderer. Standby Murderer. Then he brings in a victim. Standby Victim. Murderer, Go. Victim, Go.
And thus he has orchestrated yet another event in his busy world. He’s busily moving things in and out, making sure it all balances, that he just keeps it moving.
It’s a hard job.
Does he get to take breaks?

Husbands. Plural.
What is Hamlet suggesting multiple husbands for Ophelia?
First it was a nunnery.
Then it was some innuendo, involving himself.
Now it’s multiple husbands.
I mean, in this day and age, there are some people with husbands, plural.
I know a few who’ve had more than one, the sort with First Husbands and Second Husbands even Third ones. But – in this period – having multiple husbands would indicate a death somewhere. A lady didn’t get more than one husband unless he died. And even then, it was touch and go. Unless – of course – Hamlet means the selection of a husband from an assortment of many potential ones. Or as a joke.
Which given his mood in this scene is not impossible.
Husbands who are better and worse might be a reference to far better and far worse. It’s a little bit of a stretch that. Say, not a very GOOD joke. Still better, and worse not being the MOST direct quote of the marriage vows. But it’s possible. So you must take your line analysis – not much better and worse.

What would make this wordplay perfect would be if a groaning were an actual coin of currency. Like if a groaning were like a farthing – or something that sounded like a groaning, like Matt Groening or Kroner even. Then it would be BOTH a literal bit of money AND the sexual innuendo of a groaning.

Why this is the cost of sex, I’m not sure. Moaning is actually a benefit as far as I can tell. And groaning isn’t that far from moaning. Is it that groaning is related to childbirth? I don’t get the sense that a groan is exactly the sound of childbirth, either. Groaning sounds like too mild a sound for the pain of birthing. Shouting, keening, yelling, grunting, growling all seem more likely.
But I know that in Shakespeare’s work – this joke about groaning and the cost of sex comes up a lot.
And here we have Hamlet suggesting that in order to un-sharpen his blade, as it were, he’d need to get busy with Ophelia.
Which would cost her.

And that is the unfortunate way sex shows up in so much literature – as something that a woman must pay for somehow. With a groaning, with a child, with disease  – or in a great many novels, plays and stories – with death. Anna Karenina enjoys some sexual pleasure but ultimately has to die for it. The cost of good sex is death. Which, you know, just doesn’t seem fair.

I was reminded of this trope recently when watching the film of Into the Woods – how we see the Baker’s Wife enjoy some sexual pleasure and is, in the next breath, dead.
And men’s sexual desire is the edge? Sharp painful – something to fear? Dangerous.

I’m done with this. Can’t both men and women just enjoy their bodies? Give one another pleasure? No edge. No groaning. No death.

I’ve worked with a lot of puppeteers and a lot of puppets over the years. One thing that unites them all is that sooner or later, there will be some playing around with the puppets. No matter the puppet, or the puppets’ purpose, it is very likely that there will be puppet sex. I’ve seen hand puppet sex, marionette sex, bunraku sex, shadow puppet sex, rod puppet sex and lots of inter-puppet species sex. Puppets don’t care if one is a marionette and the other is a bunraku style puppet. They will find a way to hump one another no matter the restrictions.

Which is why, when, in a show, the decision to have the puppets do it never shocks me. The writing has to be good, or justified story-wise. It’s just not enough to have two wacky puppets going at it. I’d need more than just the humping to be interested. I’d need the puppet courtship, the puppet foreplay, the puppet post-coital cigarette, the puppet break-up, I’ve seen a lot of puppet dalliances. I need good ones to stand out from the crowd.

Hamlet himself is currently nephew to the king. And yet Lucianus is not Hamlet’s surrogate in this play, but Claudius’. The layers of obfuscation continue.
Is there some implicit threat in the casting of the poisoner as closest to himself?
Is there some way he’s saying to Claudius, “I’m coming for you, watch out.” Or is it just obfuscation?

I totally thought withers were the same as udders. That made it a funny image to use for a couple of men. I thought it’d be funny for women, too – because we don’t have “withers” either. But – to jump both species AND gender seemed especially bold. Only a lady cow would have withers just like only a boy cow (AKA bull) would have a cowdong or bull balls. It’d be like if I were talking to my stepmother and was like – “Our bull balls aren’t bothered.” I can see maybe saying, “Don’t go busting our balls.” But the extra mile of referring to animal balls is especially far fetched.

And then I found out that withers are a completely different part of the body. Doh!

But aside from all of that – “our withers are unwrung” just sounds good. It is a beautifully musical phrase.