The Hamlet Project

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.

An A. That’s a good note to start with.
A B is a little trickier. Give him an A, with all the attention and care, making sure that A is pure and clear – all things tuned to A.

Stithy? Is this like a smithy? It almost feels like a printing error. But of course, glossaries reveal that a stithy is an archaic form of smithy.
Vulcan is a smith – a blacksmith. . . and he fires his metals in fire. It’s an interesting image to have imaginations be foul. Well, a) to have imagination be plural – like imaginings, but it has a fun doubled quality.

I’d love to have more than one imagination. I’m pretty fond of the one I have – but because I have it, love exercising it, giving it rein to run wild, I think, well, more of a thing I love would be great. Like, more love, doesn’t suck. . .so more imagination would be great too.
With two imaginations I could give one a break while I attend to the other. And maybe each would have its own style. Like, I could imagine sci fi in one and film noir in another.
The imagination I do have, though, is precious and I’d hate to think of it fouled. I imagine Hamlet would prefer his to be true and clean as well.

This reminds me of a strategy we use in arts in education when preparing students for seeing a show. We give them things to look for and particularly trigger things to observe. When you see a man in a turkey suit, notice what the lights are doing, for example. It doesn’t diminish your pleasure in the turkey suit (and there is great pleasure in a turkey suit in my opinion) but also engages your action brain and your critical muscles. This then allows for a conversation afterward. What did the lights do in that moment? Why do you think that was? Next thing you know we’re talking about artistic choices and lighting and all kinds of complex interesting things.

The fact that Hamlet has told Horatio about what the ghost told him is kind of a big deal. It’s a small aside here, a tossed off, “That thing I told you about,” but it indicates a big change in their relationship. We saw Hamlet swearing Horatio to secrecy after the ghost scene, refusing to tell him what he just said, insisting he keep silent without knowing what passed between him and the ghost and here we find out that Hamlet has shared that information. This, more than the big speech he just made, lets us know how much Hamlet trusts Horatio.

I wonder how Claudius feels about plays in general. When they told him the players were here, did he get a little bit excited, thinking about the monotony of royal life getting broken up with a little drama?

Or did he roll his eyes and think, “Oh dear, I’ll have to go, won’t I? And I’ll have to smile and congratulate them even if it’s terrible. But one must to charitable, mustn’t one. I suppose it might be marginally better than that juggler they brought in a few weeks ago.”

I would guess it’s the former, actually. Hamlet, having watched plays with him before, we presume, since he’s watched them with Polonius, would choose this method of investigation with something Claudius is likely to pay attention to. He would likely choose it because he knows his uncle is particularly likely to get caught up in the wonder and action.

If his uncle were more moved by ballet or ballads, perhaps he’d try those instead.

If Horatio is anything like the man I wear in my heart’s core, he probably isn’t too comfortable with praise. Or expressions of affection. Most Horatios I’ve seen just stand there and take this waterfall of appreciation. I’d like to see one fight to stop it, one who doesn’t stand there, smiling mildly, like he’s listening to a sermon.

Suddenly, I imagined a physical struggle even – a grapple while Horatio tries to silence Hamlet and finally when he’s close, due to win – Hamlet switches out, on this line – as if he was going to stop on his own.

I wouldn’t have thought it, myself. I would have said I wanted passion and romance and drama. I might have said the opposite of this a few years ago. I might have said, “Give me that man that is passion’s vessel. . .”

But in recent years, I’ve changed my tune. Someone who is not a slave to passion will consider someone else before he considers himself. He is not subject to the tempests and torrents of desire or sail filling winds of fury. I wear him in my heart’s core, it turns out, right in my heart of hearts.

This feels a bit like metaphor foreshadowing. Right after this performance within the performance, Hamlet will use this same metaphor to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. And its not like there are dozens upon dozens of pipe metaphors throughout Shakespeare. Hamlet, in a sense, seems to have given himself this idea for his pipe conversation with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern from this conversation with Horatio.

He (or Shakespeare, rather) is demonstrating this extraordinary thing that does happen in conversation – that ideas and thought can develop throughout the day. When I talk about the circus in the morning with one friend, several hours later while talking with another, I am very likely to use a circus metaphor I’m exploring. It would seem to be the viral quality of thought.