#it's okay you can say ros and guil

[rosencrantzsguildenstern]

Hamlet......the eternal blorbo......character meme pls (also i7 trigger if you'd like)

OKAY. i was at school all day but here we go

(did gaku already here)

hamlet:

gah. hamlet. one of the most famous blorbos of all time. the thing about him is that he's not only tragic and well written, he's also, like, funny? relatable? the college-educated prince i think would have been someone much harder to connect to in shakespeare's time— definitely not impossible, and he's written as someone you can connect to, but still— but in this day and age the world is FULL of depressed college students, and hamlet's genuinely charming. i recoil at adaptations that frame him as a clear asshole (apart from immortal ros&guil performances that are clearly just having some fun with him) because while you can say 'oh, he killed those people, he mistreated ophelia, he caused the problems' and all that, you can and should sympathize with him, and a performance where you get to enjoy every moment of his being onstage is a good one; he makes a kind of sharp-tongued joke that an audience should be able to laugh at. i'm sad about him, too, but the tragedies that REALLY make me sad tend not to be hamlet-brand; what draws me to him is just like. his energy. and his tragic fall is done very well (of course it is, it's one of the most well-liked plays of all time)

tenn:

compared to hamlet tenn isn't as much of an all timer but on god. i'm obsessed with him. stream hidden region mv right now.

i always get hyped whenever a character is a collection of archetypes i've never seen before and on god. tenn. nice guy who acts like an asshole who acts nice. his layers. but that's such an oversimplification too... i want to dissect him. he's so stubbornly self sacrificial my boy LET PEOPLE HELP YOU. not me tho i wont help u i'll hit u with a baseball bat for being ableist to riku . but he's really good

ryuu:

RYUUUUUUU i tend to like the characters who are like... weird and complicated and really unique concepts and ryuu is not that like he DOES have complexity + every idolish7 character also has a cool twist that takes them beyond an archetype (i think every) . but i do love him he's just like. lovable. like how could u look at ryuu and NOT like him. i also really like when he gets mad like when he scares yaopapa or REALLY GOOD SCENE the times he like. very seriously and calmly, at a very mentally low state, gets antagonized by ryou and just. verbally eviscerates him. they make really good foils because he's everything ryou's not: he's down to earth, he deeply cares for people and isn't afraid to show it, and he understands himself. he's got moments of anxiety and self doubt, but he's managed to build himself up from that as trigger's grown closer. ik other fans like him when he's dumb/oblivious, i tend not to laugh as much at those moments (though some are iconic) bc i really like him as someone who like. knows what he's about. he's also kind of the touma of trigger; when i first met trigger, they were antagonistic and tenn and gaku were always bickering, so i saw them as villains, and ryuu was the member that endeared me to himself first (pretty much as soon as he stepped onscreen lol)

[moonlarked]

You want hamlet asks? Okay. Talk about Ros and Guil with me.

See the thing about this is that I unfortunately have not read RAGAD (I know, a travesty) so it’s a little harder for me to see their actual characters and personalities when in hamlet they’re treated as an interchangeable unit.

So if I’m gonna talk about them, I have to talk about them as they exist in that story - less as actual characters, and more as narrative devices that help expand upon hamlet’s paranoia and harm to those around him. They’re introduced as hamlet’s classmates - it’s not clear if they were actual good friends with him or casual acquaintances who stuck around with him long enough for him to remember them. I’m thinking it’s the former - their loyalty to him is clearly not too great, as they end up spying on him. There’s actually an interesting post that I read a while back about how a younger hamlet, and therefore younger ros and guil, would work out well because therefore ros and guil would be much more trusting of the adults around them and be more willing to spy on hamlet because they have a greater sense of authority from adults.

I’ve gotten sidetracked. Point is, from a narrative point of view, they’re obstacles. Choices. A line in the sand that the protagonist can choose to cross.

At first, hamlet toys with them, entertains their visit with jibes and snark, but his anger and betrayal slowly overcomes him, which we see during the pipe scene. It’s hilarious, yes, and a good show of hamlet’s wit, but it’s also more proof that hamlet truly believes that everyone around him (save for horatio of course) is tricking and backstabbing him. And they’re not doing much to prove him otherwise.

The climax of this relationship - and the point where hamlet crosses the line in the sand, as you might say - is when he finds the letters to England. We don’t know if ros and guil knew the contents of the letters. The broad assumption, which I agree with, is that they didn’t and were simply the unlucky messengers.

Hamlet kills them anyway. And that’s truly what they mean to this story, as depressing as it is. They are devices meant to show the protagonist’s downfall.

[catalinaflores]

tell it slant

Barbara's not quite sure how to help the latest stray she's taken in. [Birds of Prey (TV)]

• characters: Barbara Gordon, Cassandra Cain, Helena Kyle, & Dinah Lance • additional tags: Cassandra Cain & Barbara Gordon, Barbara Gordon & Helena Kyle, Metahuman Cassandra Cain • word count: 1556 • read this on ao3

DELPHI ALERT. URGENT.

“Uh,” one of her students says. “I think your beeper might be going off, Dr. Gordon.”

“Thanks, Lila,” Babs says, like she hadn’t noticed the damn thing screaming at her for the second time in a row.

It’s the middle of the school day. But Alfred, Helena, Dinah—they all know that ringing twice means business.

“I’m sorry, guys,” she tells her class. “James, would you run down the hall and see if Mr. Minotti can take over while I go check on my sister?”

The student closest to the door runs off, and Babs quickly glances over her lesson plans for the rest of the day—the juniors can’t present their projects to a sub, but she’s got a tape of Ros and Guil that oughta be enough to tide them over for one class period.

“The replacement called me a bitch,” Helena whines when Babs rushes out of the Clocktower’s elevator, ready to jump straight into emergency mode.

“Were you being a bitch?”

“No—I mean, yeah, sure, but—she called me a bitch, Barbara!”

Babs looks around for the girl—the one Helena’s taken to calling the replacement, though if she means hers or Dinah’s is anyone’s guess—as she reflects on the fact that maybe antagonizing Helena further isn’t the right way to handle the situation at hand. She doesn’t see her hanging around, which means she’s probably wisely giving Helena a wide berth.

“Helena,” Babs starts. “You’re going to have to explain to me why—”

Helena takes a deep breath, loud enough that it cuts Babs off. “She. Called me. A bitch.”

“Wait—” Babs realizes. “She called you a bitch?”

“Jesus fucking christ, yeah, she called me a bitch!”

“Is she still—scratch that. Where’s Dinah?”

“Hell if I know, I sent her the alert first and you beat her here. Maybe she’s still in class?”

“You sent Dinah the alert first?”

“Oh, come on, Babs,” Helena switches gears. “You know I love your obsessive compulsive nerd chic, but…”

“Yeah, yeah, brains don’t beat tactile telepathy. Please tell me you didn’t scare the girl off.”

“I’m not a monster,” Helena protests. “She’s eating tater tots in the kitchen.”

The girl is indeed happily seated on the kitchen counter, eating frozen tater tots straight out of the bag, when Babs and Helena make their way into the kitchen.

“Hi,” Babs says, and she looks up from her tots. “Uh—could you repeat for me what you said to Helena earlier?”

She makes a face, but sets her tater tots down, wanders across the room to press her cold fingers to Babs’ arm, and Babs feels the words within her own thoughts—the girl’s peculiar ability a near exact opposite of Dinah’s.

But the meta power doesn’t use the girl’s own words—just brings them up in Babs’ mind the way Babs herself would use them, something that’s starting to really worry Babs.

“I meant—out loud,” Babs corrects. “Like this.”

The girl frowns, hesitating before cautiously shaping and verbalizing “bitch.”

“Do you know what it means when you say that?” Babs asks, and the girl stares blankly at her for a moment, before lunging and sweeping Helena’s feet.

Babs is already reaching for her escrima sticks when Helena jackknifes back up from the floor, looking disgruntled, but not quite ready to rumble.

“That’s the move she used,” she explains. “We were sparring and she caught me off guard—thought to myself ‘what a little bitch’ so I got her back, and—yeah.”

“Okay. So you thought the word,” Babs says, then moves her gaze from Helena to the girl. “And you learned it.”

The girl doesn’t have to touch Babs to get across the concept of ‘duh.’

Talking—or, well, “talking”—gets easier once Dinah gets back from ditching school and can add her own tactile telepathy into the mix.

“As far as I can tell,” Dinah says. “It’s like—her power works with abstract meaning. So she can take in or send out meanings, and then whoever she’s touching interprets it however they would put that meaning out.”

“Love you, Di, but we figured that out when Helena got images from her and I got words,” Babs interjects.

“You callin’ me dumb?” Helena asks, which Babs ignores in favour of listening to Dinah’s elaboration.

“Well… yeah, but I’m thinking now that… maybe she picks up on how the meanings get conveyed?”

So Babs had been right in her initial analysis, that the girl couldn’t speak English, or Russian, or Arabic, or Mandarin, or any of the other languages they’d pulled dictionaries from to try out. She’d just been wrong in assuming that meant she’d never learn.

“Sounds like she doesn’t need your doctor, Hel—she needs a tutor.”

“How convenient,” Helena interjects with a smirk. “An excuse to avoid turning her over to Officer Reese.”

“Like you weren’t looking for one, too,” Dinah bites. “If we aren’t turning you over to social services,” Babs says, turning her full focus onto the girl, and hoping she understands. “We’re going to need to start calling you a name.”

“How ‘bout ‘Bitch’?” Helena offers. “Or maybe, cheater, brat, psyc—”

The girl swipes her feet once again, and Babs and Dinah both stifle their laughter. 

The banter’s equal parts distracting and overwhelming, so Babs lets the issue slide when it’s clear the girl doesn’t view her personhood as contingent on anything so simple as a word.

She’s cautious around them, but confident in a way that scares Babs more than it comforts her—because where the hell did this girl come from, that she can’t be older than fourteen but knows with such certainty she can make it out safely if it comes down to three trained adults against her.

Where did she come from, metaphorically, that is. It’d be a rough situation if they hadn’t noticed her tailing Helena home from patrol.

Loathe as she is to leave the girls alone together, even with the addition of Alfred’s supervision, Babs settles back over by her monitors and gets to updating her lesson plans. The Shakespeare quiz is going to have to shift back, and—

Not for the first or last time, Babs thinks about giving Dick a call. Highly skilled runaway children with no known guardians—he’s got experience here she’s sorely wanting for. 

But he’s happy in Blüdhaven. With the wife and kid, and another expected soon according to the card he sent out at New Year’s. He’d come back, of course, if she called. There are bonds that supercede retirement, supercede happiness. 

Like every other time the thought’s crossed her mind, Babs resolves that she can’t do that—not to him. 

Besides—this is New Gotham. New Gotham belongs to Oracle. 

I don’t have a name, Babs finds herself thinking amidst this, and is startled to feel the girl’s hand against hers. 

“Nice job sneaking up on me,” she says, rather than admit to finding it terrifying.

“Thanks,” the girl tries out with her own voice, clearly a word picked up from Dinah rather than Helena. 

She gives Babs’ arm another tap—I don’t like speaking, she says, but Babs isn’t so sure that’s the end of the story. 

“There are words that don’t need sound,” Babs suggests, then breaks contact to show her a quick “sign.”

She looks interested, and Babs makes a mental note to figure out if she’s due for a no-questions-asked favour from the ASL teacher. 

“You said—” Babs starts, then realizes she has no idea how the girl conceives of her own communication, and restarts. “When you touched my arm, last night, I heard you say that you wanted to stay here, with us. Whoever trained you, whoever you’re hiding from, they kept you from learning to communicate because they knew it would give you power. You don’t have to speak—but if you really do want to stay, we need you to learn some form of language. Ideally English.”

The girl mulls this over a bit, chewing her lips, before finally touching Babs again. 

What name would you pick?

“I did pick my name,” Babs says. “Barbara, Babs, those are names that people who loved me chose for me. But I’ve also named myself, given myself the name Oracle.”

Give me a name, the girl demands, but beyond her pushiness, Babs can see what she’s asking for. 

Babs glances over her papers, takes a second to collect some thoughts. 

“There’s a story I teach about a girl who had a very tragic life,” Babs suggests. “But she was also immensely powerful—she was an Oracle, too. I like to do a project, every year, where I ask my students to reimagine her story, however they’d like. If you’d like—her name is Cassandra.”

“Cassandra,” the girl repeats out loud, inadvertently sending Babs a scrambled message as she does so, images flickering in her own interpretation of Babs’ synopsis. 

I will be Cassandra. 

Her eyes are steely as she passes on this declaration, filled with triumph over a past Dinah will have nightmares trying to imagine, and Babs almost wishes Bruce, wishes Jason, were here to meet this spirited little girl. 

“Okay, Cassandra,” Babs says. “You want more tater tots?”

“Yes,” Cassandra says, confident and driven just the way she feels in Babs’ head. 

[mukuharakazui]

okay I need you, the Shakespearean expert on my mutuals list, to settle an argument (Admittedly, I am on anon because I don’t want you to make fun of me for having this conversation at all JFJDKDJD) Is Claudius a chad. I said yes, because I don’t like him. Big Chad energy. My friend tried to say Hamlet is a chad and I said him and Horatio are twinks. Your thoughts?

alright here are my onions.

1) is claudius a chad?

absolutely not. though he likely has the physical appearance of a chad, he is NOT a true chad. on one hand, he had to kill his brother to get a wife, but on the other, she did marry him. he also hired 2 guys to spy on his nephew/son, which was very un-chadly of him. he's not really on the chad or incel scale, imo, he's just a bastard.

2) is hamlet a chad?

NO. he could have killed claudius whenever (except while praying or possibly sleeping iirc i don't know much about christian stuff) but instead stumbled his way through killing a shitload of people INCLUDING HIMSELF unnecessarily. a true chad would have just stabbed claudius. plus, he was a piece of shit to ophelia and played a major hand in causing her suicide (objectifying her in an opposite manner as polonius and laertes were) so not even in a sexy way.

3) is hamlet a twink?

i mean you can play him however but i'd say Yes mostly because every single time i see a drawing of a lanky, ghostly pale guy in all black clothes on my tumblr dot com dash, i automatically assume it's hamlet fanart.

4) is horario a twink?

to most people? yes. to me? absolutely not. horatio is very intelligent and kind and is just doing his best. in my eyes (similarly to benvolio) he MUST be at least 6ft/200lbs because i like to see horatio as a sort of "false foil" to hamlet, meaning i the two are different, but certainly not narrative opposites, as we later see hamlet and laertes are. (plus i also like contrasting body types in my head along with faces while reading plays because it helps me differentiate characters. like, after reading both hamlet and r&gad i see ros and guil as having similar builds and facial structures, but drastically different clothing and ways of carrying themselves.) this was a tangent but anyways i think twink horatio is dumb because i mostly find myself differentiating characters via appearance and i don't want to have to constantly imagine their faces. i want to see a bastard twink and a kind brick shithouse making sure the other doesn't. well. You Know.

[hanatriestowrite]

Conspiracy Mayhem (Hamradio AU)

This took a tad bit longer to make because I’ve been so busy, but here is a little thing got @srarrynightwanderer‘s Hamlet radio AU.

“And we’re back listeners with Hamlet taking up our usual scheduled program to squeeze in another one of his existential hours.”

“Hey!”

With a glare, Hamlet lightly shoved Horatio. Horatio let out a good-natured chuckle at his friend’s daily antics. They had been working together at the local college radio station for a solid year at this point and friends for even longer. Never in a million years would Horatio ever thought that he would be roped into doing something like this. He was never one for the limelight so when Hamlet asked if he wanted to co-host with him, Horatio was certainly caught off guard. He was hesitant at first, but Hamlet looked so excited. It would’ve been cruel for him to say no. 

A pair of headphones comfortably nestled onto his ears, a soft smile played on his lips as he watched Hamlet fire off into one of his many long-winded rants. The sleep-deprived student flailing his arms around violently as if it would help convey his message. 

“As I was saying, I am not saying that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are the same people but have you ever seen Ros and Guil both in the same room together before. Honestly listeners, back me up here.”

Horatio rolled his eyes, taking a sip of coffee. This was getting ridiculous at this point. 

“You can’t see him right now, but Horatio is rolling his eyes at me right now,” Hamlet grumbled, slumping into his chair. “Is there anything that you would like to add, oh wise one.” Horatio brought the microphone closer to him and said, “I would like to say, Hamlet, you are definitely taking a nap after this and-” With quick succession, Horatio snatched the cup of coffee from Hamlet’s hand. Luckily not spilling the drink all over the table. And he slid it down the desk to where Hamlet could not reach like he has done time and time again. Hamlet lunged for the essence of his very existence, knocking over everything in his path. Horatio couldn’t help but wince. He did not envy any of the listeners at the moment. 

Hamlet’s head suddenly jerked back, and the headphones around his ears slipped off of his head. With a clatter, they dropped down onto the desk. A string of cursed escaped his lips, but Horatio was too busy laughing to even reach for the censor button. He would just have to apologize to the listeners some other time. 

"Screw you," Hamlet hissed.

Horatio attempted to stifle his laughter. "You know I'm only doing this for your own good," He said in between breaths.

Hamlet pushed himself up and snatched his headphones from the ground with an adorable scowl on his face. 

"That's a load of BS and you know it."

Horatio raised a quizzical brow. "Oh is it?" He asked, deliberately baiting Hamlet, knowingly. 

"Of course it is."

"So you're telling me that trying to convince the listeners and I that Ros and Guil are the same person for a good twenty minutes is something that a rational person would do?"

"I-"

"Especially since we literally had lunch with both of them yesterday."

Hamlet opened his mouth to protest but immediately closed it. He had gotten him there. "That is one occasion," he protested weakly.

"Do you really want to do this right now?" An amused smile quirked on his lips. 

"There is nothing you can use against me," Hamlet said, the tips of his ears reddening. 

Horatio leaned over and flipped a switch. It was his funeral. "Alright listeners, call in prove my point. What other ridiculous conspiracy theories has Hamlet come up this week because of sleep deprivation."

Suddenly red lights began to light up on their phone line. A grin stretched across Horatio's face. "Would you look at that, the phone lines are all lit up."

Hamlet's face contorted into one of betrayal.

"Do you want to do the honors, my lord?"

"Horatio you are making it really hard not to punch that pretty little face of yours."

“You called me pretty, I’m flattered, My lord.”

Hamlet's face had now become a shocking crimson. He quickly pressed one of the buttons and through gritted teeth, he said, "Line five, you are live."

"And I have a story for you."

Horatio yanked the phone line away from Hamlet before he could press the end call button. He wasn’t going to get out of this one. Hamlet buried his face into his hands, dreading what was to come. 

“Laertes if it wasn’t for the law of the land, I would’ve slaughtered you.”

Laughter crackled into their headphone. “You’re skinny ass wouldn’t even be able to lay a finger on me.”

“Laertes, what story do you have for us today?” Horatio smoothly cut in. It wasn’t every day that Horatio would willingly let Laertes go off to tease and/or antagonize Hamlet, but this was too good of an opportunity to pass. 

“Yes, of course, thank you, Horatio.” To apologize in advance Horatio slid the cup of coffee back in Hamlet’s reach. “So I was just minding my own business.” “Sure you were.” Hamlet took a long sip of his coffee. 

“Oh shut up, My Chemical Garbage,” Laertes hissed. “Like I was saying, I was just minding my goddamn business when I just happen to run into one Oliva Dutchess, and she told me that you had spent a good fifteen minutes trying to convince her that Mercutio was a child of the Fae. She told me that apparently, you were saying that his mom was Queen Mab the fairies midwife or some shit like that. Who the fuck is Queen Mab, Hamlet?”

“Queen Mab?” Horatio asked incredulously. He recalled hearing something about a Queen Mab before then it hit him. “From Mercutio’s acid trip?!”

“What the fuck Hamlet?”

“Benvolio told me-”

“Benvolio? You trusted Benvolio MONTAGUE?!”

“Better him than Romeo!”

Laertes paused. “I mean you got me there.”

“Asshole.”

“Bitch.”

“Okay thank you for calling Laertes! See you in history!”

“Yeah, see you.”

The line went dead and Horatio turned to Hamlet with a brow raised. Another line or?

“Okay, okay I get it,” Hamlet grumbled, “Jesus Christ. Now for our regularly scheduled program.” 

“Finally.”

[lizardrosen]

Andrew Scott Hamlet (2017)

I'm finally watching the Andrew Scott Hamlet and it's so good!

This post is mostly a liveblog I did on twitter, but edited for reading clarity, and with a few notes I took that I didn’t talk about in my posts.

the watchtower scene is in a security guard room filled with screens, and the ghost makes the camera short out

Andrew Scott is just. a perfect hamlet - AUGH, his bitter laugh at “unmanly grief”. He stays inside while everyone else is dancing on the balcony outside, and sits on his suitcase in the dark. He’s a good sad boy.

and he's FRIENDS with both laertes and ophelia - he and laertes share a genuinely friendly hug before laertes leaves, and then it’s so clear how much ophelia and hamet care for each other, and she holds him as he cries, and cheers him up.

Polonius is a Good Dad, and while most of his advice is stuff he's said hundreds of times before, "this above all..." isn't rehearsed, he really just wants to say what he means to a child he loves dearly

oh cool, i'm loving how they rearranged and merged the scenes here!

Hamlet's "too too solid flesh" merges into him kissing ophelia and hiding behind the couch while laertes and polonius tell her not to trust him, and then he speaks with horatio, and they just miss r&g - he hasn't gone to see the ghost yet, so he hasn't put on an antic disposition, which means claudius was already planning to keep him in line before he gave any cause for it, and I just love how shifting a few scenes changes everything so dramatically.

Hamlet and the ghost: - horatio is so frantic for his friend's safety! but then Hamlet runs to find the ghost anyway. hamlet reaches out hesitantly to touch his father's face and they CLING to each other, then "pity me not." the ghost speaks of his death super fast, as if afraid to dwell on it, then slows as he charges hamlet "taint not thy mind, nor let thy soul proceed against thy mother." But then two minutes after being told not to blame his mother Hamlet goes "o pernicious woman" he's not very good at following directions. and then, poor baby, he picks up the gun and uses it to follow claudius as he walks down a hallway on the security footage.

a very well structured scene!

polonius gave laertes a watch as a parting gift, and then after hamlet makes horatio and marcellus swear, he gets engrossed by his own watch in a way that feels dangerous, and then goes "the time is out of joint" this is a GOOD parallel and i hope it comes up again because DAMN!

Up to Me, by Bob Dylan is just. the perfect song for the transition to act two, i can't handle how well it works with the action on stage - hamlet walking off sadly, then claudius and gertrude being flirty and cute, then hamlet kissing ophelia in the bath and perusing her face

Oh man, Polonius forgetting what he has to say when speaking to Reynaldo is a moment of such stillness and silence that it’s one of the most tense and compelling things I’ve every seen. I was half convinced he was going to have a stroke right there, or that his heart would be what actually killed him in the closet scene later.

When Ophelia tells him about Hamlet charging into her room, he’s super wrong, of course, but he cares for his dauther truly. She deflates when he says “the very ecstasy of love” though, because it’s clear she won’t get any real help there.

ooh, they put To Be or Not to Be before polonius talks to him, not before the nunnery scene. interesting! It’s a fairly common visual trope for Hamlet to be barefoot at around this point in the play, but it’s always fun to see.

Polonius has a mic on him so Claudius and Gertrude can hear their conversation, and all of his asides are whispered into it, a fact Hamlet clearly KNOWS, because “Except my life” is said while mockingly lifting the collar of his teeshirt and whispering into it.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are perfect here, omg!!! Guil is a black woman, and Ros a tallish man, and you can tell all three were good friends. when Guil finally has to say "my lord, we were sent for" you can see on both their faces that this play just became a TRAGEDY. "o what a piece of work is man" isn't a show this hamlet is putting on, he's baring his soul, and ros and guil are literally CRYING for and with him, because they can clearly see how he’s changed. but because they know they have split loyalties they can't come closer to him to comfort him. poor babies! rosencrantz is very proud that he was able to save them by bringing up the Players, and behind hamlet's back, guildenstern mouths "tragedians" and gives him an approving nod when he gets it right. i love them so much, and they're up there with gary oldman and tim roth!

The Player is the same actor as King Hamlet, I’ve never seen that specific double casting, but it’s so perfect! Poor Hamlet trying his best to remember his speech — he’s trying his best and the actual players are very patient with him.

the middle of "O what a rogue and peasant slave" is the first moment when you can visibly see Hamlet lose it, instead of sinking into depression or twisting his own and other's words like he had been up to now, but then he pulls back suddenly and goes "why what an ass am I"

"He asked no questions, and was of our demands most free in his reply." ROSENCRANTZ, you LIAR! 27-3 and you think he might have had the edge?? But as he says this he puts his hand on Guil's shoulder to make sure she'll also keep to that story.

hey ouch, this was one of the most painful nunnery scenes i've ever seen! she's all dressed up for him, but so scared, but she rolls her eyes at the book Polonius has her read. they get a few moments to be cute together before they break up for good and they're just crying, and they KNOW they're being watched. then he laughs at the favors and just drops them on the ground before he walks away, and after she gathers them up and starts to go, he comes in through a different door to kiss her violently and throw water on her face, and everything just HURTS. (the water has a daisy in it!)

Polonius briefly checks that she’s okay but then goes back to talking to Claudius about sending  Hamlet to England. Meanwhile, in the background, she’s become fascinated by the daisy. She flinches away from everyone’s touch and stares at nothing, and I really like the clear progression in her, that her later breakdown isn’t just a reaction to one single shocking event, it’s all the slings and arrows that have been aimed at her throughout the play and her whole life.

ALERT, ALERT, HE'S PLAYING WITH HIS WATCH WHILE HE TELLS HORATIO HOW MUCH HE LOVES HIM!!!

(he also says Horatio is "not a pipe for fortune's finger to sound what stops you please," which is a line that's often left out, so i'd forgotten that metaphor was already on his mind)

the rest of the court enters through the auditorium, and sit in the front row to watch the show! and i only just now realized that when hamlet says "and my father died within these two hours" he's speaking ~madness~ but ALSO talking about the length of the play he's in.

The dumbshow is to the tune of One Too Many Mornings by Bob Dylan again, and shows papa hamlet's gonzago’s entire courtship with his wife, and them raising hamlet together and seeing him off to college, which then leads directly into the dialogue part of the play! it's SO GOOD.

The Lucianus monologue is very good, and then Claudius just walks out grimly, and it's presumably the intermission bc the screen goes staticky.

there's been a conceit of a camera following characters around and the image shows up on two sets of screens above the stage, so we get to see the play within the play AND hamlet et al's reaction to it at the same time.

Hamlet talks very fast and impatiently to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as they try to tell him to visit his mother, and they’re trying SO HARD to connect with him. Interesting that the “My lord, you once did love me” line is given to Guildenstern, but it makes sense for how these characters have been played so far. I’m not at all worried that they did that to make the play straighter, because they do not shy away from the homoerotic subtext. And he pauses and really seems to think about his answer before saying “I do still, by these pickers and stealers.” And the recorder scene is just sad on both sides, everything is SAD

oh DAMN, claudius watches hamlet come into the room with a gun and then does his "O my offense is rank, it smells to heaven" speech, and seems to forget his audience as he tries to pray, and right after hamlet decides not to kill him yet, he stands and smirks and tells him "words without thoughts never to heaven go" and stands with his arms open, DARING hamlet to actually kill him. the last thing we see is his fingers trying to get a grip on the handle, and then a blackout.

if you don't know this play you might think he does it now.

when ros & guil find him he's wiping his bloody hands on polonius's shirt, and during the sponge bit he wrings it out so it drips on the floor. andrew scott is so gooood at this role but also legitimately scary.

and he's been playing with his watch more and more as everything gets more dire, i love this detail a whole bunch.

after hamlet calls claudius his mother, he hugs him and claudius reluctantly returns the embrace. for a brief moment hamlet seems to be seeking comfort here, and then he sniffles and breaks away. "To England" he says as he goes, mocking the accent.

so. ophelia. she's wheeled in strapped into a wheelchair, presumably at a psych facility. mostly she's turned inwards and singing softly, except when she hits her head and screams as if to say "you hurt me and ignored me, but you can't ignore the hurt you make me do to myself." and like. i get it, and i'm mostly glad that it's not the same version of mad ophelia you tend to see, where she's all over the stage and ripping her clothes, but still. it feels icky and ableist and like. fear tactics? shock factor? something like that.

laertes comes in looking truly unhinged -- actually gets gertrude kneeling on the ground with a gun at her temple, before claudius calms him down, and he's jumpy in a way that mirrors hamlet right after killing polonius. poor horatio is the first to come in and gets a gun pointed at him for his it. no one deserves any of what’s happening to them!

but laertes stills entirely when he sees ophelia. ouch.

flowers!

rosemary - the nurse who wheeled her chair

pansies - claudius

fennel and columbine - claudius's security guard

rue - gertrude

she drops the daisy on the ground and turns to laertes to apologize about the violets.

when claudius goes "where the offense is, let the great axe fall" gertrude looks at him sharply because THAT wasn't part of the plan, and he brushes her off with "I pray you"

the Bad Quarto scene with her and horatio is in here, and makes a LOT of sense given that interaction.

gertrude is in the doorway, unseen, as claudius tells laertes the only reason hamlet's not dead is because gertrude loves him so much. and then she's CLEARLY watching for his response when the messenger tells him about the letters from hamlet. i like this gertrude a lot.

(and I’m pretty sure I saw Hamlet being a sneaky boy and passing behind the window right by Claudius, as Claudius is handed his letters)

ooh, hamlet's wearing white and khaki when he comes back from the pirates, and he seems much calmer than he did the last time we saw him.

and laertes is so lost and sad when he says "what ceremony else?"

they're such good foils for each other, i can't stand it!

hamlet seems amazed as he asks "what is he, whose grief bears such an emphasis" and he's not angry when he climbs into the grave, more like he's expecting to be welcomed with open arms, and then he's just surprised when laertes tries to strangle him. when he says “yet have I in me something dangerous” he’s trying so hard to convince himself of this, oh kiddo.

welp, hamlet is no longer calm, as he screams about how much he loved ophelia, and writhes around on the ground. then he stands up like nothing happened and says "what is the reason you use me such?" and sounds so hurt.

some hamlets did not date laertes, but this one SUPER did

Hamlet feels bad about Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but moves on quickly because he feels worse about Laertes, and it’s so painfully clear that he knows what genre he’s in. Osric is just a security guard (and later the judge for the fencing match) with no noticeable character but that works really well for this production, and Laertes has enough going on without having a boyfriend.

“Hamlet does it not… his madness” isn’t him giving up empty excuses, but real sorrow and despair, and maybe he really does believe he briefly became another person. I’m ! So ! Sad ! and oh SHIT, when laertes says "this one's too heavy" here, it's NOT to make sure he gets the poisoned blade but because he was moved by hamlet's apology and is BEGGING claudius to let him off the hook of needing to kill his friend, but claudius shakes his head and so they play.

HEY WOW RUDE!!! the music during the fencing match is Not Dark Yet (also by Bob Dylan) and everything HURTS

laertes FLINCHES and runs forward too late to stop claudius from putting in the poisoned pearl, and then he does his best to fight badly, and i'm going to CRY. hamlet's about to drink when gertrude runs forward with her napkin, then claudius grabs the cup from her and she maintains eye contact and they clasp hands as she drinks. she turns her choke into a laugh, while in the background laertes offers claudius preemptive sympathy. but everything is drawing to a close so he has to commit to hitting Hamlet, no matter his reservations.

the music stops as soon as hamlet is struck, and the brightness of the fencing match returns to the darkness of Act Two, but one by one they rise as ghosts, hand their watches over to King Hamlet, and go into the party upstage. And Laertes and Hamlet exchange forgiveness! it's a soft hopeful darkness though, something horatio wishes to be welcomed into, but hamlet tells him to "absent thee from felicity awhile" and he agrees.

hamlet gets scared for "the rest is silence" then it all snaps back to real time while he convulses in horatio's arms.

The play closes as it opens: with a bunch of news stories about the death of danish royalty.

And the closing credits are One More Cup of Coffee by Bob Dylan, it's so good!

[troglobite]

anyway since i’m just reading/performing hamlet out loud to myself i may as well say that like.

while the big, emotive, grand portrayals of hamlet are all well and good.

hamlet’s depressed as fuck. 

like i know the text has exclamation points but like bruh, shit’s changed in 400 years, okay?

hamlet is so fucking depressed. can we PLEASE just make him more monotone, more disaffected, more understatedly sarcastic, more deeply, deeply bone-tired?

ALL of his early, first-half soliloquies are so fucking dejected and self-hating, and idk about you but oftentimes that looks like just saying stuff in a resigned and disgusted attitude and mindset, in which no one could possibly reach you to convince you otherwise

it’s just like

a foregone conclusion

it’s not new. even for hamlet it’s not entirely new. this is clearly shit that’s been there before. like clearly he felt inadequate in his father’s presence. i doubt the king ever deliberately made him feel that way, but surely he felt he couldn’t possibly measure up. 

additionally if we add onto it the ill-advised romance with ophelia (sweet, lovely girl) and his chaotic but somehow deeply calming feelings for and tentative relationship with horatio, i genuinely think he sees himself as young, weak, and inferior. foolish.

i also think claudius hates hamlet for that shit, too, bc he has a whole inferiority complex that led to him killing his brother.

but i’m getting off track

the fucking point here is that hamlet isn’t bored

he’s fucking dead inside

and that makes those moments of emotional explosion even more terrifying and heartbreaking

when he loses it while talking with his mom, toeing the line between honestly losing his fucking mind, seeing his dead dad’s ghost (that his mom refuses to admit she sees too, which is my preferred interpretation), and then also trying to feign madness! bc he resents her!

but he still LOVES her! she’s his mom! he’s furious with her, he’s angry at her. that’s a more active emotion than dejection and being dead inside. 

so he EXPLODES. he kills polonius. and then he starts losing it bc truly all the dominoes start falling.

feigning madness in the following scenes is pure dissociation. 

the chaos of the fucking pirate ship stuff and the changeling of the letters from the king to instead kill ros and guil

then when he gets back--that’s when he starts more frequently losing it.

he’s fine in the graveyard scene with the gravediggers and horatio for the most part. he gets a little weepy, a little reflective, for sure. horatio stands by him.

but then ophelia’s funeral--he does lose it. bc these are the consequences of his fucked up actions, what he sees as entirely his fault. 

and, i think perhaps, clinging to feigning madness and performing--that’s why he jabs at laertes. 

his apology to horatio that he should apologize to laertes--he “forgot himself” bc he probably belatedly realize that he shouldnt’ be playing it up to him. he’d killed the guy’s dad and indirectly his sister.

he also gets testy when defending his actions on the ship to england to horatio. horatio is really disappointed in him, some of the most emotion we see out of him in the entire play. and hamlet gets defensive, and then is immediately chastised.

and then 5.2, with horatio. when horatio finally says what they’ve been avoiding saying. i genuinely think these are some of his first real, sincere, no holds barred tears. obviously they kiss. (they’ve kiss multiple times in the play at this point)

i think my own staging would have to have something in the beginning to explain what his relationship with ophelia is like, bc it DOES matter. 

anyway and then finally in all of the chaos, he’s fully let loose, he’s not lying or hiding or holding back anymore.

and horatio. right there with him. loves him. loses him. //sigh.

anyway i’m just saying a dejected and dead inside hamlet for the entire first half of the play, he becomes fully dissociated, and then it’s horatio who pulls him back to himself, makes it seem like he’s finally the most alive he’s been for the entire play--

only to die. and to know it was inevitable.

fucking gut-wrenching. 

[reginasrandomthoughts]

Okay, so I just finished reading Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead and... it’s not like i don’t get it. I think I do. (Beneath the cut; semi-incoherent bc I am very tired) 

As far as my tired mind can decipher it, it is about how these two characters do not matter. They are just interchangeable pieces in Hamlet, they could be replaced by anyone. Even the other characters mix them up all the time. They have so little screen time and so little significance that they only exist in the dead space between scenes. We know nothing about them: they are supposed to be Hamlet’s best friends yet Hamlet does not trust them and they don’t have any insight into his mind to offer. And furthermore, they agree to spy on him so easily. Their one defining feature, the reason why they enter into the play and it simply doesn’t hold up to be true. 

Beyond that they are nothing. So they are kinda the perfect characters to pick for this sorta metaphor. On p92 (of my edition) Guil says that death is the absence of presence and if we accept that as the truth than Guil and Ros were always dead bc they either were not on stage so NOT present or they were so insignificant that their presence had no meaning. They were so insignificant, that even their death was off stage. They are sort of like ghosts, they cannot really interact with people on their own accord, only when the plot calls for it, except for the Tragedians, the only characters that are sorta in the same boat.(HA! that’s a joke referencing the ending)

And this insignificance, this non-life is what makes them perfect to wonder about their own limited existence. Everyone else has better things to worry about, but not them. So they wonder: they notice how their life seems to begin at the beginning of the play, how they have no memories of times before, how things don’t happen as they should (the coin flip, an 85 (?) long row of “heads” is highly improbable) and that they know nothing but what they are told, and they are told very little. They notice their insignificance as they always have to wait around for the bigger players to come to them so they can step into the scenes and they also show awareness of the fact that they are in a play, though not much. 

The Player says that actors are the opposite of people and in his complaint of being left alone he all but claims that being an actor is meaningless if there is no audience, so here to it connects to the original point: Guil and Ros are dead because they are actors with no audience. 

There is a lot of talk about death. The fact that the title itself and of course our knowledge of Hamlet tells us what will happen to the protagonists allows us to have constant references to their eventual fate, but our awareness that what we are looking at is make believe also allows for a discussion on the nature of their demise. The Player talks about the many ways actors can die and how that can seem more real than a real death because that’s what the audience expects. He says that in a tragedy the good has to end unluckily and the bad unhappily, that is nature of tragedy (p59). Ros’ and Guil’s death is as meaningless as their lives and we can suspect that it happens only to fulfill that criteria, the audience expectation.

“It is written” “We follow directions there is no choice involved” (p59, Player). Free will and predestination is also involved in the discussion. We know that this is a play, just like Hamlet is a play, so we all know that it is literally written. All of it. Even when they wonder whether they have choice or not they only do so because someone else decided that they have to think about it. Nothing, no action and no word is their own choice if we think about it from an outsider, meta perspective and it is reflected in the play as well: whenever they try to do something that might differ from what they might have done in Hamlet they stop themselves. They literally cannot go up to talk to anyone when they are not supposed to talk and they are confined to wait for other people to come to them for interactions. 

This inability to make choices is a reflection of our anxiety about the possibility that there is a higher power out there (they often use a line from Pater Noster “Give us this day our daily .... but they always add something different behind, as if they are praying to their God, the writer) who has written our fate and everything we are is meaningless bc every single choice we think we made we made bc we were always meant to make them.  

The same thing can be said about death, but in two ways. First, their insignificance, the “might as we dead” aspect is a fear we also have: does my life have meaning? would my death make a difference? But it is also our inability to come to terms with it. The Player talks about the many ways the actors pretend to die, the Tragedians mimic death, we can see mimed scenes of Hamlet where there is death, but they seem unreal. Even when Guil stabs the Player and we think he dies it turns out that it was all an act. Death is not truly real, not to them, the actors and not to us, who accept the form of death that we expect. 

This is why Guil’s last speaking part is so important: “ Our names shouted in a certain dawn... a message... a summons... there must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said no. But somehow we missed it. Rosen-? Guil-? Well, we’ll know better next time. Now you see me, now you - “

 This idea that they had a choice to begin with, the choice to not die, that if they did one thing different everything would be fine, that they would have the chance to do that, to try if it works reflects his, and our own, inability to come to term with the inevitability and finality of death. 

And the play adheres to our expectation to the very end, separating the actor’s death of from our own by having with Horatio saying that he will tell the whole story, implying that the play will just start all over again from the very beginning.