#hamlet

deathsgotawarrantforyou:

Ruth Negga as Hamlet in the St. Ann’s Warehouse production directed by Yaël Farber. Photo by Teddy Wolff (2020) IG @teddywolff

elytrians:

elytrians:

elytrians:

i know it’s also a really tragic moment that seals the final fate of every character in the play but the scene in hamlet where hamlet has a chance to kill claudius while he’s praying in the chapel but doesn’t, not because it would be dishonorable to kill a man while he prays for forgiveness from his sins, but because he wants to send his evil whore uncle directly to hell SO badly, is one of the funniest moments in any of shakespeare’s plays to me

and then it turns out that claudius wasn’t even praying and in fact decided to become even MORE evil from that point onwards. straight up looney toons shit.

meanwhile, claudius:

c9eeeeed:

darkcomedies:

darkcomedies:

the most insane double casting i’ve heard of is ophelia and horatio being played by the same actress. the implications of that drive me crazy

you guys are doing things in the tags of this post

#to this day my favorite performance of hamlet i’ve seen is one where there were two hamlets#one was the dutiful son and the other was his vengeful id#and they split all the lines in the play depending on which hamlet was speaking#all the soliloquies became arguments between the two and it was SO good#the second hamlet doesn’t appear until hamlet’s father appears and tells him Claudius is to blame for his death#he opens to curtains and his first line is ‘Murder?’#and the other characters can’t see that second hamlet at first - just the initial one#until slowly throughout the play the second hamlet is the one they look at and interact with#until finally the first hamlet - the dutiful prince - is the one who’s ignored#anyway it was metal as fuck holy shit#i wish i could watch it again but i have no idea if it was recorded (viarythyme)

desdenona:

thinking about how ophelia’s line “like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh” is ten syllables long, which sets it up to be perfect iambic pentameter (five pairs of unstressed/stressed syllables, i.e. "like sweetbellsjangledoutoftuneandharsh”), but instead the scansion works out to “like sweet bells jangled out of tuneandharsh,” breaking the pentameter and making the line itself a sweet bell jangled out of tune

The whole reason adaptations of Romeo and Juliet don’t work is wrapped up in the first line of the show.” 

“Two houses, both alike in dignity –”

That’s it. That’s the entire point. The Montagues and the Capulets are both rich, noble families. They’re on equal footing with each other. Both are frivolous and careless in that specific manner that only the generationally wealthy can be. The show and its message only work if both parties are equally rich and careless. If you try to translate it into any other context (Juliet is an heiress and Romeo is a punk, etc) you may have a good story, but you lose the entire point that Romeo and Juliet hinges upon. You may have a perfectly good story in its own right, but that story is no longer Romeo and Juliet. 

missellewoods:

literally i just can’t comprehend any interpretation of hamlet that doesn’t put grief at the center like. hamlet’s father died and he is actively grieving throughout the play that is the driver of all of his behavior. “is hamlet actually crazy or is he putting on a performance” is a boring question to me because grief is a type of insanity. grief makes you feel like you are performing even when you are all alone. it makes you feel like you’re seeing things it makes you feel completely alone it makes you cling to the people around you it makes you push them away it makes you angry and sad and hamlet wants to kill claudius for replacing his father and taking his mother from him as much as he wants to kill him for revenge.

Hamlet:

Romeo and Juliet:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Macbeth:

Much Ado About Nothing:

Julius Caesar:

Richard III:

Twelfth Night:

The Tempest:

Ophelia