Lawful espials, huh? This language does have the air of the lawyer about it. It has the sort of formal tone, the equivocation, of someone attempting to sound very reasonable. Lawful espials (espials, instead of spys, somehow makes it more lawful?)

Frankly judge, gather. . .are all more words than are strictly necessary to say, “We’re going to watch him with Ophelia.”

Seems to me that Gertrude wasn’t particularly sold on this explanation for Hamlet’s behavior. She’s thinking it’s more a death and remarriage of his parents situation than a “my girlfriend returned my letters” situation. So it does seem very possible that Claudius is working hard to convince her. What was Claudius’ job before King? Was he perhaps the royal legal counsel?

How in the world could Hamlet not be on to those guys? Claudius summons Hamlet to this spot. When Hamlet turns up, no one’s there. Does the King often summon people to a place where he isn’t going to be? Seems pretty fishy. Then Ophelia just happens to turn up? After Hamlet’s done a pretty bang-up job of setting up his “madness” gambit with Ophelia and playing Polonius like a lunatic violin? Seems like a recipe for suspicion. I find it hard to believe Hamlet doesn’t suspect that Claudius and Polonius are there from the beginning. Might he be looking for them throughout?

He’s probably doing a command performance all the way from the big speech to the nunnery bit. Could the entire nunnery scene be a gambit to bring Polonius out of hiding? In other words, the more abusive he is to Ophelia, the more likely Polonius would be to reveal himself.

Of course, Polonius doesn’t. He stays hidden. Hamlet clearly suspects Claudius of hiding – given the sword he puts through the curtain in the closet scene later. But I imagine they’ve all done their share of lurking. I’d like to see a version of this scene wherein we see Hamlet performing for his audience of spies, when we see him adjust his position to give them a better view, where he asks Ophelia where her father is and she tells him with her eyes while she says, “At home” and Hamlet adjusts their physicality to give Polonius the better view. Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet does that a little bit. It’s one of my favorite things about that version.

Why does Claudius send Gertrude away here? What, she can’t spy on her son with his girlfriend, too? Is it a men’s only Spy Club? Or maybe the thing they’re planning to hide behind is only big enough for two? Or is spying only men’s work?

When I played Gertrude (age 22) I got upset with Claudius for sending me away but only because he was sending me away as if I were a servant or Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. And we either cut the speech after this line or I wasn’t really thinking about what was happening here. Now in reading this, it seems possible that the reason the king is still talking is that he feels like he needs to win the Queen over – that somehow he’ll be able to provide an explanation that will satisfy or pacify here.

I find it curious that she says, “I shall obey you” in response. She’s not endorsing the plan at all, just agreeing to do what her husband is asking her to do.
This makes this whole section a lot more interesting – if, rather than being a simple announcement of a plan, it is a negotiation between two complex married people who have to negotiate a thing – things any other married people do, royal or no.

I’m curious about this further edge. I picture it like someone standing on a plate and you tip the plate slowly farther and farther until you are standing on the edge. If the edge goes far enough, it could really only send a person in one direction, thus driving a person in some particular direction.

Lately I feel like I’m on a plate like that, Art is tipping me toward the further edge, toward an inevitable leap or fall. I scramble against the porcelain trying to get my footing but the edge is definitely coming.

I try to imagine a world wherein a parent might be pleased to hear his child was interested in theatre. Maybe if everyone worked for a company like Footsbarn and Theatre was the Family Business and therefore being interested in theatre meant staying in the fold, maybe that would be good news.

If I had a child and he or she let me know that theatre was his or her calling, I’m pretty sure I would sigh deeply. Because there would be some inevitability in that interest probably. Probably the love for it would travel through my genes and into anyone I passed them to, no matter how much I’d hope otherwise. It would be like passing along an addiction on some level. You’d understand why this thing has a powerful hold on someone and also recognize how powerless anyone would be to stop it.

Did my own parents ruefully watch my love affair with theatre unfold? Were they constantly hoping I’d come to my senses? Are they still?

It’s too late. There can be no intervention. I’ve hit bottom many times over and yet I keep coming back for more. I’m lost to the art forever.

I’m interested in this phrase about Hamlet PUTTING ON his confusion.

Is Claudius on to Hamlet? Does he know he’s faking madness? And if so, does he know why?
If he suspects, does he think Hamlet would tell Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about it?

And what if Hamlet had said, “Yeah guys, you know, you’re right. I have, of late, lost all my mirth. And I’ll tell you the fuck why. That king that hired you to spy on me actually killed my motherfucking father and I know it’s true because my murdered father’s ghost told me so. Now guys, it’s up to you: do you want to tell the king the real reason I’m upset? Do you guys want to accuse him of murder to his face? Because I’ll tell you, if he DID it, he’s not going to want to ever see your faces again and he will probably make sure that no one ever does. If he didn’t do it (a possibility I think is SUPER SLIM) he’ll be insulted and probably have you at least thrown in the dungeon if not actually executed for suggesting it.
Anyway that’s what’s actually going on with me. Share whatever you’d like with His Highness.”

We will try it.

For over a decade, we have been trying to just make good work. But good work has seldom been rewarded. I learned this weekend that much more than good work will be required to extract ourselves from this ghetto of the arts we have found ourselves in. While the notion of becoming a saleswoman for my art is deeply repugnant to me, I see that it may be what is required to garner any kind of attention in the greater world. It will require slick marketing materials. It will require banners and flyers. It will require agents and managers. It will require substantial investment in bells and whistles. It may cost more than the making of the show. It may cost me my soul. But we will try it.

How may we try it further?

Claudius knows Polonius has a plan.
He’s seen the machinations of Polonius’ scheming mind and sees the next steps and sees the role he is to play in it. He does not ask, “What should we do about it?” Or “Maybe we should ask Ophelia to requite a little if she wants to if, indeed, the problem is unrequited love.”
He asks how to test the theory. And, of course, Polonius has an experiment in mind. He has already organized the elements, gotten the lab equipment out, set the thing in motion. He’s got the players all lined up and their places reserved behind the curtain. They’re a team, these two – Polonius fed Claudius the set-up, Claudius delivers the reply, then the show proceeds.

Not that I know.

There was a radio show about accountability. One in which they pointed out how wrong most pundits were when they made predictions. The people who shout on our televisions? They are almost never right. They are on our TVs for their shouting, not the accuracy of their predictions – but there is a movement for a new kind of accountability. Maybe a score card for predictions:
PUNDIT JONES
23 Predictions made on FOX TV
22 inaccurate 1 still pending

It is such a relief to have this authoritative leader actually ask his wife what she thinks. I know it’s been a particularly sensitive time for me, gender politics wise. . . so I happen to be wearing a particularly jaded pair of lenses. It seems like everything I’m seeing leaves women with no brains – just bodies for consumption or mother for fantasy reassurance – so just to see a line that asks a woman what she thinks feels like a rarity. Shakespeare’s not so guilty of this diminishment of women, even if the majority of the plays wouldn’t pass the Bechdel test. He writes us women who DO think and in this particular moment, I love that the king asks her. Even though it is in her role as Hamlet’s mother and not, per se, about the ambassadors of Norway, so no award here. It’s just a nice relief for a moment to have a queen get to voice her opinion.