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Before the Play Begins
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Before the Play Begins
Hamlet
by William Shakespeare
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Prince Hamlet, our hero, is the son of Old Hamlet and Gertrude, the King and Queen of
Denmark. Upon the sudden death of his father, Hamlet returns home from school at
Wittenberg, to the castle of the royal family, Elsinore. Upon arrival, Hamlet finds that his
uncle, brother to Old Hamlet, Claudius, has married Hamlet’s mother, and taken the
crown, becoming the new king of Denmark.
Prior to the play, Hamlet’s father, Old Hamlet, killed the Norwegian king, Fortinbras, in a
combat in which Denmark captured many lands from Norway. Now motivated by the
death of his father, the young Prince of Norway, also named Fortinbras, whose uncle is
also now king, marches with the intent to avenge his own father’s death and recapture
the lands his father lost to Old Hamlet. During the play, King Claudius sends diplomats
to Norway to communicate with the current Norwegian king about young Fortinbras. In
Act Four, Hamlet crosses paths with Prince Fortinbras, who is on his way to invade
neighboring Poland in an effort to gain more land.
Polonius, top advisor to the king of Denmark, has two children, Laertes and Ophelia.
Laertes has returned home to Denmark from school in France for the coronation of King
Claudius. In the first act of the play, Laertes makes a formal request to return to France
that is granted by the king. Ophelia is romantically involved with Prince Hamlet, and in
Act One is warned by both her brother and father to end the relationship, fearing that the
grieving prince does not have honorable intentions. During Act Two, Polonius
announces that he believes that Hamlet’s mad behavior has been caused by a
romantic dispute with Ophelia.
Horatio, Hamlet’s good friend and school companion, has also returned to Elsinore.
Horatio is approached by castle guards to witness a ghostly sight they have seen twice
during the night watch. In the first act, Horatio is able to confirm for the guardsmen that
the specter indeed resembles the former king, Old Hamlet. Horatio believes the
appearance of the ghost is an omen of battles to come with Young Fortibras and all
things ‘Rotten’ in the state of Denmark.
by William Shakespeare
Click here to purchase tickets
Prince Hamlet, our hero, is the son of Old Hamlet and Gertrude, the King and Queen of
Denmark. Upon the sudden death of his father, Hamlet returns home from school at
Wittenberg, to the castle of the royal family, Elsinore. Upon arrival, Hamlet finds that his
uncle, brother to Old Hamlet, Claudius, has married Hamlet’s mother, and taken the
crown, becoming the new king of Denmark.
Prior to the play, Hamlet’s father, Old Hamlet, killed the Norwegian king, Fortinbras, in a
combat in which Denmark captured many lands from Norway. Now motivated by the
death of his father, the young Prince of Norway, also named Fortinbras, whose uncle is
also now king, marches with the intent to avenge his own father’s death and recapture
the lands his father lost to Old Hamlet. During the play, King Claudius sends diplomats
to Norway to communicate with the current Norwegian king about young Fortinbras. In
Act Four, Hamlet crosses paths with Prince Fortinbras, who is on his way to invade
neighboring Poland in an effort to gain more land.
Polonius, top advisor to the king of Denmark, has two children, Laertes and Ophelia.
Laertes has returned home to Denmark from school in France for the coronation of King
Claudius. In the first act of the play, Laertes makes a formal request to return to France
that is granted by the king. Ophelia is romantically involved with Prince Hamlet, and in
Act One is warned by both her brother and father to end the relationship, fearing that the
grieving prince does not have honorable intentions. During Act Two, Polonius
announces that he believes that Hamlet’s mad behavior has been caused by a
romantic dispute with Ophelia.
Horatio, Hamlet’s good friend and school companion, has also returned to Elsinore.
Horatio is approached by castle guards to witness a ghostly sight they have seen twice
during the night watch. In the first act, Horatio is able to confirm for the guardsmen that
the specter indeed resembles the former king, Old Hamlet. Horatio believes the
appearance of the ghost is an omen of battles to come with Young Fortibras and all
things ‘Rotten’ in the state of Denmark.
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________________________________________________________________________________________
Before the Play Begins - Literary Comments
by James J. Yoch, PhD., University of Oklahoma
by James J. Yoch, PhD., University of Oklahoma
Hamlet, Notes for Reduxion Theatre Company
by Dr. James Yoch, University of Oklahoma
Background: 12th-century Icelandic saga about Amleth, who revenges the
assassination of his father by killing the murderer, his father’s brother, Feng. The
story includes models for Ophelia, Gertrude, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and
Polonius under the ominous theme “goodness is not safe even from those of a man’
s own house.”
Length: 3766 lines (66.3 blank verse, 5.7 rhyme, 28.0 prose). 27 parts. Shakespeare’
s longest play (by about 150 lines) and by far longest lead—Hamlet has 1422 lines,
about 400 more than the next longest part. One of many contradictions in a play
famous for “Brevity is the soul of wit.’
Photos left Kronborg Castle which appears in Shakespeare as Elsinore Castle.
Vladimir Nabokov’s observation, “Fancy is fertile only when it is futile,” gives a key for
exploring this play of theatrical pretendings that include characters who
professionally perform roles on stage, “ By indirection find direction out,” and are
actually mad or “but mad north-north-by northwest.” Into the ruthless symmetries of
design—three young males in relation to their legacy from older men, two women
abused, a dramatic play and a play at swords both with deadly results, invocations of
Alexander and Julius Caesar—drop in comic passages and coloratura descriptions
that disrupt patterns and open the story to radical new dimensions. Hamlet comes
to resemble the jester Yorick, and Elsinore takes on the character of Troy on the
edge of ruin.
Competitive imaginations structure this play in which opponents attempt to outfigure
each other like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader,
Batman and the Joker, Autobots and Decepticons of The Transformers, and Will
Schuester and Sue Sylvester on Glee.
In Elizabethan performances, the running time of the play was probably about 2 and
½ hours at 65 lines per minute which barely ended before the rigorous London
curfew; in his 1996 movie, Kenneth Branagh directed a production using all the lines,
and it lasted at the pace of modern English four hours and three minutes. Most
performances, even in Shakespeare’s time, cut some or many lines.
Tampering with the play becomes a common practice, and by 1623 three versions of
the text with some notable differences were in print. Later variations include the early
nineteenth-century Hamlet Travestie: With Burlesque Annotations, the similarly 2006
spirited romp, Hamlet, the Artist Formerly Known as Prince of Denmark, and last
summer’s performance in Avignon where amidst political despair for modern times,
the hero’s most memorable dying line is, “At least I left a good-looking corpse.”
Photos above Kronborg Castle / Elsinore Castle. Drawing above right 1627-1628
showing the Kronborg Castle at Elsinore where the Sound Toll was levied on
shipping.
More serious, the part of Ophelia (in Shakespeare’s versions of the story a mere 114
lines, not even 1/12th of Hamlet’s role) becomes increasingly important through the
centuries. By 1868 in Amboise Thomas’s opera Hamlet, Ophelia is the only lead
performer in Act 4. The rest is chorus. Her role expands, too, in the 2007 Chinese
movie version Prince of the Himalayas that uses only 500 lines from Shakespeare’s
text and ends with Hamlet and Ophelia’s child taking over Denmark.
From the beginning, the play celebrates flexibility—in multiple dimensions of puns, in
disguises, in tricks, seemings of many sorts, especially in the hero who dares to
enter the battlefield of his soul in soliloquies boldly facing enemies and dangers
within himself. Fittingly for his funeral, “Four captains/ Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to
the stage” and he merits “The soldiers’ music and the rite of war.”
Finally, modern Hamlets carry on his role in unexpected places. Vladislav Surkov, a
member of Vladimir Putin’s court in Russia, has “a soft, smooth face, something
demonic.” He has written a best-selling novel, Almost Zero, which he both admits to
and denies writing. “Its most interesting parts come when the author moves away
from social satire to the inner world of his protagonist. Egor is described as a ‘vulgar
Hamlet’ who can see through the superficiality of his age, but is unable to have real
feeling for anyone or anything . . . talking to others in false voices to fish out whatever
he needed.” (London Review of Books, 20 October 2011).
©James J. Yoch
by Dr. James Yoch, University of Oklahoma
Background: 12th-century Icelandic saga about Amleth, who revenges the
assassination of his father by killing the murderer, his father’s brother, Feng. The
story includes models for Ophelia, Gertrude, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and
Polonius under the ominous theme “goodness is not safe even from those of a man’
s own house.”
Length: 3766 lines (66.3 blank verse, 5.7 rhyme, 28.0 prose). 27 parts. Shakespeare’
s longest play (by about 150 lines) and by far longest lead—Hamlet has 1422 lines,
about 400 more than the next longest part. One of many contradictions in a play
famous for “Brevity is the soul of wit.’
Photos left Kronborg Castle which appears in Shakespeare as Elsinore Castle.
Vladimir Nabokov’s observation, “Fancy is fertile only when it is futile,” gives a key for
exploring this play of theatrical pretendings that include characters who
professionally perform roles on stage, “ By indirection find direction out,” and are
actually mad or “but mad north-north-by northwest.” Into the ruthless symmetries of
design—three young males in relation to their legacy from older men, two women
abused, a dramatic play and a play at swords both with deadly results, invocations of
Alexander and Julius Caesar—drop in comic passages and coloratura descriptions
that disrupt patterns and open the story to radical new dimensions. Hamlet comes
to resemble the jester Yorick, and Elsinore takes on the character of Troy on the
edge of ruin.
Competitive imaginations structure this play in which opponents attempt to outfigure
each other like Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader,
Batman and the Joker, Autobots and Decepticons of The Transformers, and Will
Schuester and Sue Sylvester on Glee.
In Elizabethan performances, the running time of the play was probably about 2 and
½ hours at 65 lines per minute which barely ended before the rigorous London
curfew; in his 1996 movie, Kenneth Branagh directed a production using all the lines,
and it lasted at the pace of modern English four hours and three minutes. Most
performances, even in Shakespeare’s time, cut some or many lines.
Tampering with the play becomes a common practice, and by 1623 three versions of
the text with some notable differences were in print. Later variations include the early
nineteenth-century Hamlet Travestie: With Burlesque Annotations, the similarly 2006
spirited romp, Hamlet, the Artist Formerly Known as Prince of Denmark, and last
summer’s performance in Avignon where amidst political despair for modern times,
the hero’s most memorable dying line is, “At least I left a good-looking corpse.”
Photos above Kronborg Castle / Elsinore Castle. Drawing above right 1627-1628
showing the Kronborg Castle at Elsinore where the Sound Toll was levied on
shipping.
More serious, the part of Ophelia (in Shakespeare’s versions of the story a mere 114
lines, not even 1/12th of Hamlet’s role) becomes increasingly important through the
centuries. By 1868 in Amboise Thomas’s opera Hamlet, Ophelia is the only lead
performer in Act 4. The rest is chorus. Her role expands, too, in the 2007 Chinese
movie version Prince of the Himalayas that uses only 500 lines from Shakespeare’s
text and ends with Hamlet and Ophelia’s child taking over Denmark.
From the beginning, the play celebrates flexibility—in multiple dimensions of puns, in
disguises, in tricks, seemings of many sorts, especially in the hero who dares to
enter the battlefield of his soul in soliloquies boldly facing enemies and dangers
within himself. Fittingly for his funeral, “Four captains/ Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to
the stage” and he merits “The soldiers’ music and the rite of war.”
Finally, modern Hamlets carry on his role in unexpected places. Vladislav Surkov, a
member of Vladimir Putin’s court in Russia, has “a soft, smooth face, something
demonic.” He has written a best-selling novel, Almost Zero, which he both admits to
and denies writing. “Its most interesting parts come when the author moves away
from social satire to the inner world of his protagonist. Egor is described as a ‘vulgar
Hamlet’ who can see through the superficiality of his age, but is unable to have real
feeling for anyone or anything . . . talking to others in false voices to fish out whatever
he needed.” (London Review of Books, 20 October 2011).
©James J. Yoch
Kronborg Castle which appears in Shakespeare as
Elsinore Castle.
Elsinore Castle.
Kronborg Castle which appears in Shakespeare as
Elsinore Castle.
Elsinore Castle.
Kronborg Castle / Elsinore Castle
Kronborg Castle / Elsinore Castle
Drawing above right 1627-1628 showing the
Kronborg Castle at Elsinore where the Sound Toll
was levied on shipping.
Kronborg Castle at Elsinore where the Sound Toll
was levied on shipping.
Most shipping in the Baltic Sea went through these
straits shown in a map from the 1500s.
straits shown in a map from the 1500s.