Hamlet Act 2: ode to direct address, sassy gay friends, and much more gushing...

Fair warning: This act has only two scenes, but 2.2 is a monster. 

2.1

Going along with the similarities between the Countess and Polonius I mentioned last blog post... I love that both of those characters have a servant named Reynaldo (some texts spell it Rinaldo) OF course, unlike the Countess, Polonius does not have an in at the French court to let him in on how Laertes is doing, so needs to inquire about many more particulars. However, I can't imagine the Countess ever trying to stain her sons name to see if others will contradict it. 

 and there put on him
What forgeries you please; marry, none so rank
As may dishonour him; take heed of that;
But, sir, such wanton, wild and usual slips
As are companions noted and most known

To youth and liberty.

WHY does this CONTINUALLY happen as a plot point in Shakespeare? Obviously it does not really come to anything in this play but in what world is the most likely way to get at the truth starting with negative things about someone to see if they are good? This drives me nuts. However, Polonius at least seems constant with his concern for sexual purity as that is off the table for scandals Reynaldo can talk about.

SIDE NOTE:

I'd like to take this bit of text and talk about the genius of audience contact and a particularly wonderful moment of this at play when the ASC did it in their Resident troupe Fall 2011:

LORD POLONIUS

Having ever seen in the prenominate crimes
The youth you breathe of guilty, be assured
He closes with you in this consequence;
'Good sir,' or so, or 'friend,' or 'gentleman,'
According to the phrase or the addition
Of man and country.

REYNALDO

Very good, my lord.

LORD POLONIUS

And then, sir, does he this--he does--what was I
about to say? By the mass, I was about to say
something: where did I leave?

REYNALDO

At 'closes in the consequence,' at 'friend or so,'
and 'gentleman.'

LORD POLONIUS

At 'closes in the consequence,' ay, marry;

When Ben Curns played Polonius, He did not deliver his questions about where he left off/what he was about to say to Reynaldo, but to a person sitting on stage. Every time I watched this it never ceased to be amazing. Either the audience member would get very flustered or amused that they were being talked to in the first place, or they would be caught having not paid any attention to what Polonius was saying and Reynaldo would rescue them, or my personal favorite, one time the guy answered with Polonius' line and Polonius got to repeat it as a thank you. All of these were just brilliant in the moment pieces of joy.(And a much needed piece of joy before Ophelia's entrance!)

OK, end of side note and moving on to Ophelia... who enters with much ado about how frightened she has been by Hamlet. In one of her biggest pieces of dialogue she describes the scare that Hamlet gave her with his actions that seem a little crazy, a little violent, and a lot depressed/concerning. What is Polonius' response?  I will go seek the king.  but after his national duty, he seems to return to being a father and apologizes more than once to Ophelia, even admits that he was wrong when he said Hamlet just wanted her for sex and that now that he's desperate and fierce it must be true love. Does this concern anyone else? Anyway, the scene concludes with Polonius deciding to go back to the King and come up with a plan regarding Hamlet and Ophelia. The textbook solution to any problem, right? What could possibly go wrong?

2.2

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern- I'm so interested to think of this play pre-Tom Stoppards R&G are dead, because I think, even though I hadn't read it all the way through, I was influenced by stoppard before coming to the Shakespeare. And even if that's not the case with a lot of actors, it is certainly another heavy piece of cultural luggage that comes with this play. For those of you who don't know, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Hamlet's friends that the King has called to help him get to the bottom of Hamlets melancholy and assumed crazyness. This seems like a pretty solid plan. I know when I'm on the edge of some crazy stress Dan knows to call some of my friends from the various schools I've attended. But its interesting that the King summons the goofy friends instead of using the one clearly trustworthy and accountable and ALREADY THERE Horatio, right? It seems the King has a vested interest in controlling his informers. Side note- Has anyone written a play of Hamlet with his therapist yet? because that could be amazing. But back to R&G... Gertrude tells them: And sure I am two men there are not living/ To whom he more adheres. again- why does no one seem to acknowledge that Hamlet and Horatio are besties?! Is their friendship more secret than I realize? Or are they willfully ignorant? Anyway, R&G get sent on their merry way and in comes Polonius to report what we already know from the last scene. Except he doesnt start with the personal. He starts with the political and the arrivals of ambassadors before moving to Hamlet and Ophelia. The more I read this play the more I wonder if the heart of Polonius is his line: I hold my duty, as I hold my soul, Its all very kingdom before kin and whatnot. and it makes it a tad easier for me to forgive him for using his own daughter as political bait so to speak. This plan is not conveyed until the ambassadors come in (why there are two when only one speaks I have no idea) and we find out that for the moment Fortinbras seems to have an enemy that had nothing to do with Denmark- clearly Poland is the easier target. Poor Poland. The ambassador is dismissed because the King seems to be more concerned with hamlet and tells them he will answer their news later.

Polonius takes his time explaining what he thinks is the problem with Hamlet, indeed he takes so long that Gertrude replies: more matter with less art. A perfect teaching moment that sometimes the characters in Shakespeare are PURPOSELY written to have complicated syntax/should not easily be understood and that the characters in the play share a student's frustration with this. OF course, the art she refers to is a playland of rhetoric. (Its funny, I thought I'd dread studying rhetoric and now I want to take and teach entire courses about it!)

Polonius stops trying to describe Hamlet and just starts reading a letter he wrote to Ophelia. the &c mark makes me crazy with wondering what else that letter may have said that we dont have in the playbook (Thank you Tiffany Stern for your work on letters and changing the way I think about them...)

According to Matt Kozusko Hamlet is a shitty poet. Here's the poem he writes to Ophelia, let me know if you agree 

'Doubt thou the stars are fire;
Doubt that the sun doth move;
Doubt truth to be a liar;
But never doubt I love.
'O dear Ophelia, I am ill at these numbers;
I have not art to reckon my groans: but that
I love thee best, O most best, believe it. Adieu.
'Thine evermore most dear lady, whilst
this machine is to him, HAMLET.'

(I tend to agree with this poem being a bit painful- I mean "O most best"?! yikes. and every time I see the first four lines quoted on pinterest I just want to tell everyone YOU KNOW THAT LOVE DOESN'T END WELL RIGHT?!- but going back to the question of Hamlet being a shitty poet, is it fair to judge a man on one piece of writing? I mean, I don't judge shakespeare based on Shrew...)

Polonius is very concerned with letting the King and Queen know that he had no intention of encouraging his daughter to be a princess and that he is a faithful servant. But it turns out that keeping Ophelia away from Hamlet caused this to happen:

Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,
Thence to a watch, thence into a weakness,
Thence to a lightness, and, by this declension,
Into the madness wherein now he raves,
And all we mourn for.

Yes, this is exactly the kind of man I'd want with my daughter. This has red flags and unhealthy relationship ALL OVER IT. If only they'd had A SASSY GAY FRIEND to help everyone involved (I'm not just talking about Ophelia. Gertrude needed a sassy gay friend like WHOAH.- see end of this post for some sassy gay friend delightfulness.)

Polonius is convinced Hamlet's whole trouble is that he is love sick and says to kill him if he's wrong. (oh... Polonius... you know not what you say...) So then Polonius hatches his plan to use Ophelia as bate for Hamlet and they can all spy on the interaction. I'm not exaggerating with the bate thing, he literally says:  I'll loose my daughter to him- like she's a caged animal. They break off their planning because Hamlet is coming and Polonius, thinking he knows the answer to all Hamlet's problem and eager to prove it, sends the King and Queen away to talk with him. (This interaction and when it comes based on the varying order from folio to quarto is particularly poignant. in the quarto the Polonius/Hamlet exchange comes AFTER the get thee to a nunnery scene. that's just... a huge difference, no? man, textual choices are wonderful things. maybe that's why so many people like conflated texts?) Anyway, Hamlet enters reading and he and Polonius talk about a lot of disturbing conception imagery before this famous exchange:

Or, if you saw the ASC production, John Harrel's cheeky adaptation: Word, sword, swords (ah, same letters, same order, totally different meaning. #brilliant #verbalslippage #imissgradschool) Again there is so much I want to talk about. more pregnancy/conception stuff. matter in madness. repetition and the actor choices there. This play just gets more wonderful each time I re-read. 

This exchange is ended with the entrance of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern who come joking about how they are happy because they are not the top of society (kind of insensitive considering Hamlet's troubles come from this whole kingship dilemma, right? but what's insensitivity when there's a sex joke coming about being in fortune's middle.) Hamlet calls fortune a strumpet, not surprising considering he seems to hate women and all things personified as women at the moment. But aside from the woman hate, that line reminds me of LOST when Ben Linus says that destiny is a fickle bitch. Fact.

Hamlet talks of Denmark being a prison and when his friends disagree he shoots them down with the philosophy:  there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so (there's something that echoes back to Macbeth in that and how things cannot be good cannot be ill... and how he chooses what to make them) this philosophy simultaneously terrifies and reassures me. I can't break it down for you more than that but I could read it over and over again and not be sure which feeling on the thought wins. Maybe someday I will look back at this blog and have a more firm opinion. Any thoughts from you, o readers? I DO however know how I feel about Hamlet's next sentiment:

O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams.

AMEN, sir. A to the freaking MEN. (also, the sleep troubles come up again. At least I know while I fight insomnia that I'm in good company.)

This next part of the scene breaks my heart. It seems that Hamlet is about to speak some truth to his friends when he realizes that perhaps they are not there simply out of friendship. And then he seems to know they are not. And they lie to his face and betray him. There are few things worse than "friends" stabbing you in the back and watching a Hamlet who is not crazy but completely aware of what is happening just makes me crumble in the midst of this seemingly lighthearted scene. (I think I need to memroize all of Hamlet's big speeches because I love them .: . I have of late--but wherefore I know not--lost all my mirth, (etc. etc.) ... And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust? I am so glad I'm reading this play during Lent. What better prayer can you get?!)

The conversation then moves to the players coming to town. There's some lovely competitive mocking of the boys companies (oh those little eyases). Polonius then comes to announce these same players and goes off on a fantastic mocking of genre

The best actors in the world, either for tragedy,
comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical,
historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-
comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or
poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor
Plautus too light.

(Dan and I quote this all the time. we love it. and we add in about a dozen more. and then people stare at us strangely and we are glad we married each other because surely there are few people int he world who get such a kick out of this activity...)

There's a disturbing allusion to Jepthah (a man in the old testament who sacrificed his daughter to win a battle. politics over family Polonius... but Polonius just thinks hamlet is cray cray so he doesn't get it...) Then Hamlet turns his attention to the players and asks him to recite the fall of troy, a speech that plays a major role in Dido Queen of Carthage and is indeed as stunning as we get a taste of in this play in all its full length glory (or it is when you have exceptional actors performing it!)

Polonius, of all characters, interrupts to say that this speech is too long (and it is an epic monologue but "too long" is certainly a matter of opinion. it reminds me of Mozart being told his music has too many notes in the play Amadeus.) Polonius seems to start enjoying the speech after this but gets weirded out that the player is actually feeling things and has tears in his eyes.

Hamlet asks Polonius to tend to the players and this wonderful exchange occors:

LORD POLONIUS

My lord, I will use them according to their desert.

HAMLET

God's bodkin, man, much better: use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?

(Another perfect moment for the lenten season. Why on earth would they close the theatres during this time?! It seems we need to remember our humanity most during such a time of self reflection. But I think a lot of people still just think of theatre as a silly extravagance so I guess I'm the odd one out.) After Polonius leaves Hamlet asks the players if they can do the Murder of Gonzago. My colleague, Tony, has written an excellent blog post on this moment which you can find here. 

That being done, the scene/act ends with another soliloquy. Now I am alone (you know, aside from all those audience members. brilliant.) others may now this as the rogue and peasant slave monologue. This might be my favorite soliloquy, although I love them all clearly, but this one I love for the pure vain reason of the focus on actors/the theatre/ our emotional relationship to each other and the suffering of humanity in general.

What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her?

as an actor sitting in the audience, I always have the urge to answer back "She's everything! mother brother sister tybalt romeo ophelia ourselves! we weep for ourselves and for everyone we love who has lost!" I'm fairly sure there are poets and philosophers who have put such feelings in much better terms than that, and I'm sorry I didnt look them up for you. There's of course also the "meta" situation of Hamlet being played by an actor etc etc. 

Then we have another beautiful moment for direct address: Am I a coward? This moment is theatrical gold. and after the string of questions we get a single syllable short line of: Ha! (not the only magnificent short line in this speech)

Then there's this little troublesome gem:

Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words,
And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,

On the one hand: yes! exactly. all the big things that can't seem to fit neatly into words. on the other: one of my favorite cartoons shows one character saying "I love you more than words can describe" and the other character saying "but... isn't that's what words are for?" as someone who believes that words are powerful and important. does trying to use words and claim our voice make us all whores? maybe?

Then Hamlet moves into his "mousetrap" play within a play plan- I have to say that I used to think his claim about guilty parties confessing at plays was crazy. in what world does this happen?! But the more i go watch theatre and see direct address the more i realize how often this seems to happen. (at the very least via body language reactions, but I went to see Dan in a production of August Osage County, and when they were describing how the character with a pill addiction got so many pills someone 2 rows ahead of me said OUT LOUD "that's exactly how you do it" and i dont even think they realized they'd said it.)

And that's Act II. Until next time... here's that video I promised. Spoiler alert... but odds are you've already read the play or heard the cultural allusions anyway...