Is this order followed?

Is the door locked?
If so – how does Fortinbras get in?

Is the door unlocked again?

Or does he break the door down?

It would give him quite an entrance.

In contemporary productions, I’ve seen people swallow their hos. Because of the contemporary meaning of ho, actors will get afraid to put the ho to its proper use.

The Hamlet I saw last night, just for example, sort of added it as a syllable to O Villainy. So it sounded like O Villainy

And the ho is not there just to be an added syllable. It is a call. In this case – it’s a call to get some authorities to step in or come in.

O Villainy O doesn’t make any sense.

He doesn’t take a moment to grieve his mother.

He doesn’t stop to say “Goodnight sweet mother” or any of it. He just goes right to villainy. With good reason, of course. There has, in fact, been some villainy afoot. Hamlet responds to the poisoning of his mother not her death.

Which is probably good. He can do more about the villainy than he can do about her death and he has not yet even taken in his own poisoning. It would be nice if there were a sort of St. Peter’s Gate because given how quickly these deaths follow on one another, mother and son would likely show up there at the same time. Also Laertes. And Claudius. It’d be a very crowded intake.

Has Hamlet not heard what Laertes just said? Is he not processing the news that Laertes has just revealed or did he just not hear it or is he choosing to ignore it?

Laertes has just confessed to treacherousness and Hamlet asks about the queen.

Now – sure – the queen is visually taking attention at the moment, I suspect. She has fallen or fainted or swooned or stumbled and anyone shifting out of the vertical plane will draw someone’s eye.

I think, too, Hamlet probably hasn’t put together that this treachery Laertes is talking about is going to kill him. It takes Laertes really spelling it out in a few lines.

Why does Hamlet want to fight another round?

Is it just that his blood is up and he’s feeling the adrenaline?
Or is he pissed that Laertes has wounded him with a sharp sword?

Or now that this duel is actually dangerous, it becomes exciting?

If Laertes has gotten in trouble for messing around with loose ladies in France and both his father and sister have suggested this might be the case, then this line might be getting a little personal and pointed.

Are Laertes’ missteps in this department known to the entire Danish court or just his family? Does Hamlet know?

Is he saying – “Don’t use me like you use one of your French girls.” – Is he TRYING to get Laertes’ goat or he is just being coy – like – flirting a little bit.

It would seem a little flirting in the middle of a fight might be par for the course. Flirting and fighting create a similar kind of tension, certainly.

The question in performance would become whether Hamlet is goading Laertes on purpose or by accident.

And also – is Laertes actually goaded or does he just use this moment as an excuse to get in there and start poisoning?

The questions become who is making a wanton of who here. Is there any wantonness happening?

This has got to be some of the nerdiest trash talking in the history of violence. I mean, first, it’s all done with the formal “you” and second, it sounds like someone who has never done a lick of fighting.

He might as well push up his tape-repaired glasses after this one.

Good sir, I would like to kindly rquest that you insert the tip of your sword into the integrity of my flesh, thereby creating a wound. And I would like to suggest, as any gentleman might, that your mother is not beautiful, your father dishonorable and  your sister a common stale.

And furthermore, your mother is so fat that when she sit-eth around the house she really sit-eth around the house.

Apparently, dally began as a word that meant the opposite of its current meaning . It was once to have an intimate, serious conversation, and it seems to have moved from there to amusing one’s self, to playing or toying with. I wonder how this happened. If the word’s evolution were a relationship, it will have begun with intense late night conversations where secrets were shared and meaningful words were exchanged – then when these two lost touch and feelings were hurt, those conversations began to be reframed as flirtatious and then finally to meaningless games.

Is his adrenaline firing up this moment? Is Hamlet, having refused the wine and there having been a little pause in the proceedings, worried that he will lose the momentum he’s gained?

Is he simply tired of standing around jawin’? He’s not someone who seems to like standing around in silence. I picture him all limbered up, bouncing around, ready to get into it, man, before this energy fades away.

I don’t buy this story of Hamlet suspecting that the drink is poisoned. I mean – would he sit idly by and watch his mother be poisoned? He has some complicated feelings about her, for sure, but I feel pretty sure that he’d leap to save her life if she were in danger.

He’s not drinking for many very logical reasons as far as I can tell.