At the moment, I am very seriously questioning whether I will stay in my current relationship. Each time I type up another one of these lines, I realize how far behind my timeline the publication of these lines are. By the time I type up this line, (usually 6 months ahead) I may have made that decision. And by the time I publish (usually a year and a half behind) I will have settled into it. From this angle, though, I have no idea what will have happened.

This play is very confusing to me. And when I say “this play” I mean The Mousetrap/The Murder of Gonzago/Whatever This Thing Is That the Danish Court Is Watching.
So – the main characters are Gonzago and Baptista, a married couple with Italian names in Vienna. (Already – huh?) They are a Duke and (presumably) a Duchess. Yet – the roles in the previous bit of this play are clearly a King and a Queen. Are the Duke and Duchess the same as the King and Queen?
It feels as if the language at the beginning is more ancient, more mythic, more in the Trojan wheelhouse of these players. Gonzago and Baptista suggest a more middle class story, a story about politics and money. It makes me think of Measure for Measure. That’s where Gonzago and Baptista belong, a play that also takes place in Vienna with some Italian names – and not with that arch language.
But then – Lucianus will enter. He is the nephew to the King. And his language is as arch and mythic as the openers. No mention of the Duke again. In this play are the Duke and King interchangeable? As a piece of plot, this courtly performance is very confusing. Or maybe it’s just Hamlet that’s confusing it. Taken without his explanations, it actually makes more sense.
Ophelia tells him he is as good as a chorus – but if so – he’s an obfuscating one – a chorus that seeks to confuse and muddle the plot.

Vienna is the perfect place for a murder mystery.
In the deathly quiet of a Vienna’s square, there is suddenly a scream. A body has been discovered right on the steps of a cathedral.
It’s winter. The air is clod and crisp. No leaves are on the trees. Everyone is bundled up in coats and hats, their breath steaming.

They gather round the body, the blood has begun to congeal. It is likely darker that it was when the man was murdered here.
He is stretched across the steps diagonally, covering as many steps as would be possible to cover with his body. His blood covers more.
The crowd whispers. Wonders if they know him. Does anyone know him? They wonder how it happened. Did anyone see anything?
Before long a policeman pushes his way through the crowd to come and stand over the body.
From the cathedral, a priest in his black robe hurries out to join them.
The two stand together on either side of the man on the stairs.
“Who has done this?” asks the priest.
“I will need to ask everyone some questions,” says the officer.

Did Tropically once mean Topically? Is it a printing error? What in the world does TROPICALLY have to do with anything? The Tropics? No. The next sentence makes it clear that this play takes place in Vienna – a place as far as from The Tropics as it might be possible to get – both in climate and in temperament.
TROPICALLY?
What? Is Hamlet crazy after all?
This is much crazier than a lot of the other stuff he does and says. At least it seems so to me now – but, then, I’m not looking at the notes of my edition.

Genius gives us that it is more like TRAPICALLY. That it is a figure of speech, a trope and a trap. Ok. Makes sense. Except – if it’s TRAPICALLY – then why not have it be trapically?

This bit seems like a crazy bit.
Like, Hamlet asking himself a question and then answering it?
It’s a bit – odd. Unless this is a printing error.
What if it was meant to be:

HAMLET: The Mousetrap
KING: Marry, how?
HAMLET: Tropically.

Etc

That makes sense to me. But, of course a good Hamlet could make sense of the other as well. Though, certainly, those two lines are often cut. Because what are they doing there? Tropically? Huh? Vienna is not in the tropics. And why are all the people in Vienna named like Italians?
Does he mean Venice when he says Vienna? I’ve done that.

I don’t understand this bit at all.

Marry, how is it called The Mousetrap?

Because Hamlet called it so.

(And it is designed to catch the little mouse that is Claudius’ conscience.)

Extend the metaphor and Claudius is clearly the mouse, the play designed to trap him, to catch him with the cheese as it were.
I like the image of Claudius as a mouse. It diminishes him in a funny way. It’s not the Bear Trap or the Lion trap. It makes Claudius a poisoning nuisance rather than a large threat.

I myself am afraid of mice – though I know that fear is unfounded. But even if you’re not afraid of a mouse, you still don’t want one in your house. Claudius as a mouse, hides in corners – scurries from one bad deed to the net – looking for things to chew up and consume. Claudius – The Mouse King.

Nope. None.
Everything’s peachy keen.
No war. No murder. No rape. No corruption.
Everything’s fair and justice reigns.
The bad guys lose and the good guys win every single time.

Isn’t poison hilarious?
Sneaky poisoners, walking around on their tippy toes with vials of the vile stuff – just ready to slip it in to someone when they’re not paying attention. In the ear, in the food, in the drink, in the pearl that goes in the drink, on the sword.

It’s interesting how much poison is in this play and all of it comes back to Claudius. He is a poisoner. That is his method of choice (except when he can use bureaucracy and have England do his killing for him.) I’m sure there is some sort of taxonomy of murderers and their methods, something that gives each murderer a particular psychological profile.

If I were playing Claudius, I’d find such a taxonomy and spend some time understanding why Claudius prefers to poison.

She doesn’t, though, does she?
I mean, if the dumb show is a preview of what’s to come in this play, she most definitively does not keep her word. All it takes is a few gifts from the poisoner and her word is toast.

We don’t get far enough into the spoken portion of this play to see this enacted again but it seems pretty clear that the story is the same – so we can be pretty sure that the Queen does not keep her word on this point.

It would seem that Hamlet can only be saying this as a dig on his mother. As in, SHE’LL keep her word as opposed to YOU who married my stupid uncle, who just in case you weren’t in on it, murdered your first husband, you idiot.

Apparently in the first quarto, it’s made explicit that Gertrude doesn’t know and is therefore only complicit in seeking revenge along with her son. This makes Hamlet seem all the more cruel to her. But in the second quarto and folio editions, it is all a great deal more ambiguous. Does she know or doesn’t she? Is Hamlet’s cruelty to his mother justified? Those editions create more questions, which does make this much more artful in a way. It’s interesting to have to decide.

Lately, whenever anyone asks me this question, my answer tends to be, “Not much.”
I’m starting to fear that I will never like anything again. While all around me, people enthuse about what they’re watching, I look around wondering what I’m missing. Or wondering how I could fix whatever it is I’m watching.
What would please me?
What could be done to that play, that production, that performance to move me?
I usually have ideas. But I can’t do much about them in my current situation. I can only fix the plays that are before me.
But even, of course, my own work needs fixing. It needs enormous amounts of fixing. And probably other people watch it and wonder how they’d fix it.