When I start to feel small and without purpose
When I start to hate theatre and slip into impossible cynicism
When I need to feel artistically at home
When I lose faith, lose heart, lose enthusiasm and drive
When too much time has passed and I miss my friends and mentors
Be thou assured, if words be made of breath, And breath of life, I have no life to breath What thou hast said to me.
In other words: you’re killin’ me, kid. You’re killin’ me.
This scene is so horrible from Gertrude’s perspective. First, she’s the witness to her son killing a high ranking official before her very eyes. Then over the corpse of that man, her son proceeds to berate her and see a ghost and then berates her some more.
I would play this scene so differently now than I did at 22. I would not let myself forget the dead man in his blood on the floor. I would escalate my emotional state – vibrate it so high it would be hard to stay in it. But it would be worth it. Because I think this scene must be torture for her.
Let the birds fly, and like the famous ape, To try conclusions, in the basket creep And break your own neck down.
Is the famous ape an ancestor of Curious George? I mean, this is very Curious George-y behavior. Crawl into a basket to see what’s in there? Try it out?
I mean, it’s a sad conclusion –
But Curious George’s grandfather or great great grandfather or something might have had his baby monkeys and then had a fall.
There does seem to be a literary, if not biological ancestry here.
No, in despite of sense and secrecy, Unpeg the basket on the house’s top.
There are not nearly enough baskets on tops of houses anymore. Not nearly enough. I have never seen one, in fact.
I like the idea of a basket full of birds that rests on the top of every house. It’s very fanciful. It seems like a fairy tale world where everyone has a little basket of birds – and the birds are like little secrets that you keep at the top of your house. You can take them out for those you trust – but otherwise, there your secrets sit, just chirping away – enjoying the sun on the top of the house.
Who would do so?
A trusted employee of a friend forged her signature on a series of checks and stole a hefty sum. The discovery has rocked everyone – me included and I’m not even involved.
The thing that is so baffling is the why – as well as the mystery of the who. Like – who was this person deep down that she could make a decision like that. We all thought we knew her. She was nice, sweet, attentive, kind. If you asked me, “Do you think this person could steal from her employer?” I’d have said, “No!”
Unless it was just, like, some office supplies or some shit. I could see her taking some paper clips or something. Because, big deal. But forge checks? No.
Who would do such a thing?
Apparently not the people you’d expect.
It changes the narrative of the sweet, kind person to something strange and dark and insidious. How did this happen? How did this person transform significantly? Who did she become to have this seem like a good idea?
For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise, Would from a paddock, from a bat, a gib, Such dear concernings hide?
New tactic! Call your mother/queen fair, sober and wise and call your stepfather/uncle/king an idiot.
I’m intrigued especially by the bat. What about Claudius calls to mind a bat? Or a toad, for that matter. A Tom Cat, I understand.
But it’s interesting.
All three of these descriptors of Claudius appear very rarely in Shakespeare. What do these animals signify for him? These days we think of a toad as a symbol for ugliness and a bat is associated with the occult. A tom cat, again, probably the same. A tom cat tom cats around, getting with all the lady cats and generally being an oversexed nuisance. I can see the association here.
And with contemporary associations – the paddock and bat as well. They’re small dark creatures. And even if this is pre-Vampire associations – a bat has such a creepy nocturnal presence, it might not be necessary to add blood drinking to make it a little scary.
These are none of these cute or nice animals. But – again – I’d love to see some other Renaissance references to these animals – in case there are other associations I’m missing.
‘Twere good you let him know.
In the beginning
Of a relationship
It feels important to share everything
Good to reveal
Good to air the trouble
Good to voice insecurities and fears.
It is not yet clear to me
If it is good to continue this policy
As time wears on.
Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed, Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse, And let him, for a pair of reechy kisses, Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers, Make you to ravel al this matter out, That I essentially am not in madness, But mad in craft.
First – this is a CRAZY long sentence. Why?
Second – Hamlet sure has a lot of descriptive details of his mom’s sexual relationship with Claudius. I don’t put any real stock in the Freudian readings of this play. I do not think Hamlet actually wants to sleep with his mother.
However – I can see where that reading comes from. It’s lines like this. It has an erotic specificity. Hamlet is aware of or imagining some very intimate details about his mother’s sex life.
Third – why the bloat King? Is he calling Claudius fat? Actually? Or fat with power? Or is it, perhaps, a way to say he’s full of hot air? Just calling Claudius fat doesn’t seem quite cutting enough.
Gertrude calls Hamlet fat at the end of the play in a way that feels affectionate. To just call Claudius fat would feel a little small and petty. I feel like Bloat has to reference something a little bigger.
Not this, by no means, that I bid you do.
Is Hamlet being purposefully obscure here?
Purposefully contrary? It’s, like, double opposites.
What should you do? Not this.
Which this? The this you said before or the this you’re about to say?
And why would you tell me to do something that you don’t want me to do?
It is very unclear.
I wonder if Hamlet himself is a little unclear about his strategy here. I mean, yes, for his mother’s soul, as he sees it, she should quit sleeping with Claudius right away. But – but – actually – it might be good to NOT raise suspicions right now.
And sarcasm is a weird choice for this little moment.
If I were the Queen and Hamlet was like – “Don’t do what I tell you. Tell Claudius I’m just making up this mad thing.”
And meanwhile he’s really acting like a madman, killing someone, imagining he sees the ghost of his father, switching his tactics every 6 lines – if I were the Queen in that situation, I’d have no IDEA what Hamlet was asking me for. The queen seems to understand perfectly well, though, that he wants her to keep her trap shut as that is what she promises to do. But dang, it’s a baffler.
What shall I do?
It would appear that the Queen has learned some helplessness throughout the course of this scene – maybe this play. She’s not a wilting wallflower. She’s not a shrinking violet. She’s got a lot of fierce regality earlier in the play but now, suddenly, she’s all, “What shall I do?”
And it makes me think of my youth – when I was constantly hoping to give over my authority to other people. I’d learned I had not much to speak of – so in many matters, I would ask to be told what to do. For me, it was usually matters of not much consequence, like where to have lunch.
It seems that now a lot young people, male and female have learned helplessness as well. Even Ivy League kids (maybe especially?) don’t have their own compass, they just want instructions – not just for where to have lunch but on what to study and how and where. They’ve learned to just follow – and never seem to access their own inner compasses. It’s a little bit terrifying.
The Hamlet Project 