Hamlet Act 4: Crazed Ophelia, Lovely Laertes, and more...

I will forewarn you right now that the formatting in this post will not be stellar as I wrote most of it from my iphone, but you take what time you can during tech week, right? Incidentally, if you'd like to see the show i'm in tech for, its one of my favorite plays and I'm so loving working with this cast/director/production team. The play is Arthur Miller's All My Sons and you can get tickets here:

https://www.vendini.com/ticket-software.html?t=tix&e=e4b539d54e8385285c54c6bab1196b35

 

And now back to the early modern stuff...

 

4.1

A short scene moving forward the action with Gertrude asserting that she thinks Hamlet is crazy town via this awesome image:

Mad as the sea and wind, when both contend
Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,

and then she tells Claudius that Hamlet killed Polonius. Claudius decides to ask R&G to confront Hamlet and find the body- seriously a dick move on your part Claudius. man, i am SO EMOTIONAL about Hamlet and R&Gs crumbling friendships. anyway, their attempt to do this is the next scene...

4.2

Hamlet is particularly cruel to his old friends who he has now forsaken, calling them a sponge. 

HAMLET

That I can keep your counsel and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge! what replication should be made by the son of a king?

ROSENCRANTZ

Take you me for a sponge, my lord?

HAMLET

Ay, sir, that soaks up the king's countenance, his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape, in the corner of his jaw; first mouthed, to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

His metaphor is powerful but painful. Then he leaves without telling them where he left polonius so R&G have to go back to the king...

4.3

Hamlet comes with R&G to see Claudius and makes a ton of jokes about death. My favorite being the illustration of death as the great equalizer:

Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

After a few more jokes, Claudius gets Hamlet to leave for England, only to let the audience know- surprise- he intends for Hamlet to NEVER RETURN. Let England take care of that though...

4.4

Hamlet meets Forrinbras and hearing of war for a piece of land that is essentially economocially useless spurs him to his how all occasions do inform against me soliloquy.

What is a man,
If his chief good and market of his time
Be but to sleep and feed?

I think about this line every freaking day. does someone want to make me/point me in the direction of a piece of artwork that has that line? If i were into tatoos that is one of about a dozen shakespearean lines i'd debate inking on myself...

but moving on:

to my shame, I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men,
That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,
Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot
Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,
Which is not tomb enough and continent
To hide the slain? 

The question of war and why so many men die in them comes up over and over again- and it just makes me antsy to get to our long string of histories (double tetralogy times!!! soon.)

4.5

Ophelia's madness scene. 

We start with Gertrude saying she will not speak with her. Yes run away Gertrude. Run away. Some favorite descriptions of Ophelia's madness:

She speaks much of her father, says she hears

There’s tricks i’ th’ world, and hems, and beats her heart, Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily. Horatio is the one who tells the queen she should really talk with Ophelia and warns if the bad things that could happen otherwise. Ophelia comes in with her snatches of songs and amidst the crazy are pieces of perfect wisdom and clarity: Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table! Then there's the St. Valentine's song- perhaps the main argument for scholars who want to talk about Ophelia's virginity or lack thereof, or even her possible pregnancy. (sometimes i look at this song as Ophelia wishing she'd slept with Hamlet but she believed all the stupid nursery rhymes that he'd never marry her if she did... and now look, she has no marriage, no father, and she's going to die a virgin... I'm not saying this is the definitive way to play her. I absolutely love the idea of a desperate/tragic/pregnant ophelia, but I'm saying any of these choices give the person playing Ophelia a lot to work with) I hope all will be well. We must be patient, but I cannot choose but weep to think they would lay him i’ th’ cold ground.  After this, Horatio is sent to follow Ophelia. but she must find a way to escape his watch b/c the stage directions don't mention him the next time she enters... in the meantime, We hear about Laertes: The people wanting Laertes as king is so strange... and shows you what potential political turmoil the state has been in since the beginning of the play, but that movement for overthrow always surprises me. Laertes really has the hardest job in this scene. If he convinces me he's a wonderful caring big brother and cannot bare to see his sister like this, if that is more devastating to him than any calls of king or revenge, then odds are I'm on his side for the rest of the play. This scene makes me cry more than anything else in the play, his reaction to Ophelia's madness: O heat, dry up my brains! Tears seven times salt Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye! By heaven, thy madness shall be paid with weight I think performance choice wise, its worth it to talk about choices regarding Ophelia's flowers. I've seen them  as Hamlet's love letters, imaginary flowers, actual flowers, weed, or, possibly most disturbingly, strands of Ophelia's hair which she is pulling out (hair down was a good early modern cue of crazyness anyway so having her pulling her hair down/out was SO. PAINFUL to watch and really drove it home in quite a creepy way) again, no "right choice" but all have very different effects on the scene. Again, Laertes still takes the scene for me with his lines like: Thought and afflictions, passion, hell itself, She turns to favor and to prettiness. 4.6 A very short scene. Strange visitors come to horatio and surprise him with news that hamlet wants to see him in person... 4.7 Claudius and Laertes discuss how to take revenge on Hamlet. Claudius explains they have to be sly about Hamlet's death due to Gertrude and the people of the country but its clear his focus is Gertrude: She is so conjunctive to my life and soul, That, as the star moves not but in his sphere, I could not but by her Claudius receives hamlet's letters which propels him I to his sneaky plan to kill hamlet, one apparently inspired by a report of skill from a Norman- Lamord. I love this detail!!  Claudius even throws in the shrewd tactic/total dick move of asking if Laertes loved his father. Laertes says he loved his dad so much he'd kill hamlet in a church. And next to killing in god's house (hmmm  something Hamlet considered too right?) what's killing him in a duel?? And lucky for Claudius Laertes let's us know that I bought an unction of a mountebank, Of course he did. Claudius wants to play the poison game too and says he will poison hamlets cup if it looks like he is doing well in the duel. This plan is interrupted by Gertrude coming in to announce that Ophelia is dead. Anyone have a favorite drowning as Gertrude describes vs suicide vs Gertrude helping out with Ophelia's demise? Again- a plethora of choices an acting ideas and debates for audience members to have for infinite talkbacks to come. Once again Laertes gets the line that steals my heart: Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears; but yet It is our trick, Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will; when these are gone The scene ends with Claudius being annoyed at the timing of this news... Just as he's calmed Laertes down this news of Ophelia may set him off again. Perspective Claudius. Perspective.  One more act! It's been so wonderful re-reading this play! OH, and your slings and arrows clip for the evening: