Does Hamlet already know that Polonius played Caesar?
Is he just winding him up to watch him go?
Or perhaps giving him a great set up, playing the straight man, as it were, giving Polonius the opportunity to talk about his glory days as Julius Caesar once again.
Maybe winding him up for an audience. For the King . . .maybe it gives him particular pleasure to have Polonius evoke the name of a ruler who ended up assassinated by his friends? Maybe it’s a little pre-show show – a little preview of the more pointed drama.

POSTER:
Copenhagen University presents the Poli Sci Players’ production of Julius Caesar
(image: a 19 year old Polonius in a bedsheet clasped together with string.)
Saturday and Sunday in the College Cafeteria –
See Caesar meet his end where we meet our friends!

*
There’s something remarkable about the fact that kids have been doing plays in college from before Shakespeare started writing. There’s a long tradition of academic playacting, it would seem. Now, many of those people will do Shakespeare’s plays so it’s remarkable to think about that lineage going so far back and circling.
Before fraternity brothers put on Hamlet, they put on Julius Caesar – but not Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – some earlier writer’s. Perhaps someone closer to the actual period of Caesar.

I meet a lot of people who did theatre in college. A lot of the people that I knew when I was IN college did theatre. It’s one of those things, like experimenting with your sexuality, that people do and think back on fondly before moving on to more lucrative things.

That is the thing. When you send words out into the world, they leave you, you lose them. You give them away with speech, with writing, with publishing. The sharing of words is the loss of ownership, I suppose. There’s a way that writing with no audience is a kind of hoarding. I write and write and write – many many things that no one will ever read. Those words are still mine.

But as soon as others take them in, I share them. I retain some ownership but the eyes that read them or the ears that hear them own them a bit as well.

Once I’ve heard a story on the radio, for example, the story becomes a little bit mine. When I share it with someone else, either through playing it or explaining it, it becomes a little bit mine and a little bit theirs.

And so it goes on and on – the portion of ownership growing and shrinking as the words travel on.

I always picture the capons like foie gras geese when I hear these lines. I see the little chicken birds, their beaks propped open and aimed at the sky. Two fingers take a promise and cram it down the poor little birds’ throats. But it’s all a cute animation version in my mind, so it’s not so horrific. The promise looks like a sparkly star and every time the fingers pour another promise down the bird’s throat, you can see the sparkle travel down the bird’s gullet and finish off by sparkling in the stomach. Its cartoon eyes bulge out and sometimes its pupils roll around.

But of course, you cannot feed capons so. Capons don’t eat promises.

It has been some time since I felt a sense of promise. I hadn’t noticed how used to its absence I’d become. It was like the keys I put in my bra this morning because I didn’t have pockets – at first they were sharp and uncomfortable. The keys poked and prodded at me. But very quickly, I became used to the heavy spiky mass of keys between my breasts and several times looked around frantically for my keys, wondering where I’d left them.

I think the loss of promise was like that – painful at first but I got used to it, like I can get used to most things. But the air today shifted, not promise-crammed so much as air with a pinch of promise on top. The relief was palpable. A bit like removing a bunch of sharp pointed keys from my bra and dumping them out on the table. I eat the air, promise sprinkled.

Chameleons prefer a gold plate under their lunches. They’re fans of nouveau cuisine, especially vegetable foams and emulsions. Chameleons will relish a bit of relish, as well as a delicate crisp of something not usually in crisp form.

Sometimes, if they’re feeling cheeky, they’ll stretch themselves out along the plate, turning gold while they nibble.

That is, indeed, what I need.
A place to live, yes, but also a place to perform, a place in the scene, a place in the art, a place with my peers –
How to go about getting that place is the big mystery.

It goes against my protestant work ethic upbringing but I have come to understand how much idleness feeds my artistic process. Being chronically busy doesn’t give me space to dream, to mull, to ponder. To have a truly fulfilling artistic practice, idleness is required.

Because someone invited them.
Because they’re interested in the story.
Because they like these actors.
Because this company has a good reputation.
Because their friend saw it and suggested they go.
Because they’re obliged.
Because they’d feel like a jerk if they missed it.
Because it looks compelling.
Because they like the design.
Because there are cool effects.
Because it seems new and different.
Because they heard an interview with someone involved and it piqued their curiosity.
Because they wanted to laugh.
Because they wanted to cry.
Because they wanted to feel something.
Because they wanted to be surprised or moved or affected in some way.
Because everyone’s going.
Because the critic gave it a good review.
Because the critic gave it a bad review.
Because it’s something outside of the realm of everyday.
Because it shakes things up.
Because it settles things down.
Because it helps them forget.
Because it helps them remember.

Hamlet’s actually being pretty sensible about this. He’s hedging his bets, getting another witness – double assuring that his eyes are not deceiving him. It’s like, scientific, or law-rific, like detectives or something checking out the suspect.

Also, eyes riveted to a face, if it were literal, would be pretty gross.