In the pep talk Scott gave me last night, he told me a story of how he responded to the flurry of words the somewhat crazy director threw at him one day. He just let her talk until she ran out of things to say. Then he said nothing.

She barked at him, “You’re just looking at me.”

He said nothing. She shouted, “Aren’t you going to say something? Say something!”

Which, after a pause, he simply said, “Tell me more about. . .”

I admire this strategy. It compels a person who seemingly only wanted to talk (and not listen much) to activity seek a response. It would seem to make them listen.

I find I am often railroaded into talking before I’m ready or before the other person seems ready to listen. I end up feeling like I have no authority to have the conversation I want to have because I am so busy responding to what’s being thrown at me.

The problem with experience is that it does tend to beg this question. It becomes a little harder to just DO things. Shows, for example. In the beginning, you just dive in because it seems like it might be fun. You think, “I want to make a show! I have this play and I have this skill, let’s just do it!” And you do. And you discover how much work it can be and how much heartbreak there is to encounter along the road and how when it’s all over, those may be the only things you take with you. So the next time someone proposes “Just putting on a show” you cannot help but ask, “To what end?”

It is true, technically. It’s not like they’re there in Elsinore to attend the chestnut festival or something. They are there to visit Hamlet. They’re not there of their own volition, however. The visit is compulsory and covert and coerced by the king. But it is the only occasion. Well, that and the annual Elsinore Egg Hunt. I mean, who’d want to miss that?

At one point in my life, I did an extraordinary amount of visiting friends. It didn’t seem extraordinary at the time. At the time, it seemed to be the normal amount. But given how rarely I visit friends now, it strikes me as extraordinary. Now, if I visit friends, it’s coupled with another mission, to reconnect to some business contacts, to go to a conference, a wedding or a festival. I never just visit someone. I’d like to though. If I could, I’d buy a ticket to Vancouver and a ticket to Berlin. I’d buy one to Portland, one to Seattle and one to Bakersfield. I’d get one for Australia, too and for Spain. There would absolutely be a trip to Iowa and a trip to Montreal. To visit you, I’d go anywhere.

What does Rosencrantz have against ambition exactly? First, it’s the thing that turns Denmark into a prison for Hamlet and now he thinks it’s as insubstantial as a shadow’s shadow? Which is it? A really powerful transformation of experience or a light airy nothingness? Either way, it’s not a positive thing. I guess Rosencrantz doesn’t have any ambition himself? Or is he trying to hide it? He is after all, the friend of a prince. He’s also signed up to be a spy on that friend for the king. One could see that as a kind of ambition. Maybe Rosencrantz is VERY ambitious and railing against it to divert attention from it.

Denmark is too narrow for Hamlet’s mind? Is that what Rosencrantz is saying here? Is this meant to flatter Hamlet’s broadness of mind? Is he perhaps, trying to suggest that Hamlet’s got a big imagination and Denmark’s a little small for it? Or is the allusion to ambition in the line before touching on the succession problem? Is the reality of Denmark’s screwy royal bloodline the narrowness to which Rosencrantz is referring? Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about who should really have been King here?

O ambition! You fickle lover, you, you’re the kind I’d sacrifice everything for and then find myself destitute. When I come to you, penniless and hopeless, you pretend you don’t know me.

But when it’s good, when I’m chasing you, I’m trailing your wind to fly higher than ever. The problems come when you take a sharp turn and I fall from your current, so far, so far, sometimes crashing into hillsides and cliffs, face broken, skin torn, broken bones.

Then I wish I’d never met you then I wish I were the sort of person who’d never heard of ambition, the kind who might be content with what she has, with the comforts and structures of home.

I can sympathize with Rosencrantz’s position here. When The Prince of a Country is denigrating his homeland, you cannot possibly agree with him, lest you insult him. The country and its royalty are often so intrinsically linked that a king can get called his country. You could say, “Oh there’s old Sweden over there talking to Vietnam.” It even happens in this play that the king of Norway gets called Old Norway.

So you don’t want to put down a Prince’s country even if he wants you to.

On the other hand, you generally don’t want to disagree with royalty either. If a prince says, “These figs are delicious,“ it’s best to nod enthusiastically and agree. “Yes, yes, very delicious.” Even if you find figs sickly sweet.

So what can Rosencrantz say here?

He can’t say, “Oh yes, I see what you mean. You’re right, Denmark does seem to be a bit of a hell hole.”

And he can’t deny it and say, “You’re crazy. Denmark’s the most beautiful place ever.”

So he does the only thing he can do in this tight spot and just speak for his point of view. Well, his and Guildenstern’s.

What is Rosencrantz’s logic here? That as Denmark goes, so goes the world? That’s a pretty Danish-centric point of view. Which makes me wonder if Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Danish. They don’t seem to have Danish names. Or is Rosencrantz attempting to flatter Hamlet’s home state? Like, this place is so fantastic that if it’s a prison, then everywhere else must be, too?
Or maybe Rosencrantz is somehow making a joke like the one about the monk at a baseball game who orders a hot dog saying, “Make me one with everything.”?