“It was only once – once – that an audience went to see Romeo and Juliet, and hoped they might live happily ever after. You can bet that the word soon went around the playhouses: they don’t get out of that tomb alive. But every time it’s been played, every night, every show, we stand with Romeo at the Capulets’ monument. We know: when he breaks into the tomb, he will see Juliet asleep, and believe she is dead. We know he will be dead himself before he knows better. But every time, we are on the edge of our seats, holding out our knowledge like a present we can’t give him.”
— Hilary Mantel, “Can These Bones Live?” 2017 Reith Lecture
king lear is the ultimate daddy issues play and coriolanus is the ultimate mommy issues play but hamlet is a play for when you have all the issues. too many issues to even name
Bootlegs are mostly Wicked, Mean Girls, Legally Blonde, Hairspray, Spongebob, Book of mormon, Come From Away, Frozen, Dear Evan Hansen, Matilda, Shrek The Musical and Many Many More!
When down her weedy trophies and herself Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide, And, mermaid-like awhile they bore her up, Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds, As one incapable of her own distress Or like a creature native and endued Unto that element. But long it could not be Till that her garments, heavy with their drink, Pull’d the poor wretch from her melodious lay To muddy death. (4.7.199-208)
there are a lot of situations and scenarios you can say Well if it happened to me i would have just been normal about it about but hamlet is objectively not one of them. i would have done all of that too.
I read Hamlet back in high school and to this day my absolute favorite thing about it was when Guildenstern was trying to fool Hamlet into doing something or other and Hamlet’s savvy to it but rather than saying “you’re lying and trying to trick me” instead Hamlet outta nowhere whips out this flute and tells Guildenstern to play it.
And Guildenstern is all “I dont know how to play a flute, my lord”
And Hamlet takes a dramatic pause before he absolutely ruins Guildenstern with, “Well thats funny considering you thought you could play me”
this post sounds like im exaggerating but im not it’s straight up canon
always thinking about the production of hamlet i saw at the pop up globe a couple of years ago where everyone was costumed in typical shakespearean dress and the set was fairly minimal BUT! they gave polonius an iphone. it was like a running gag that his ringtone kept going off when hamlet or claudius were trying to speak and they would get more and more impatient with him every time. the cast had perfect comedic timing and it was such a perfect modernisation of typical shakespeare humour
but oh my God. the nervous laughter that rippled through the audience when his phone went off behind the tapestry. the heavy silence that followed, interrupted only by the incessant chime of polonius’ ringtone and a muffled “shit, shit!” while he tried to decline the call. it keeps ringing even after hamlet has already put his sword through him. hamlet picks it up in his bloody hands and ends the call, puts it back in polonius’ grasp before turning back to face gertrude.
hands down the best set up and pay-off of any addition to a shakespeare play i have ever witnessed
