If I had to choose a setting for Hamlet
other than thirteenth-century Denmark, I think I would choose modern times and
have the plot unfold in an American professional baseball team rather than a
European kingdom. Claudius would be the owner of the team who killed the
previous owner, his brother and Hamlet's father. Hamlet would simply be the
nephew of the owner of the team, and Polonius would be the coach of the team
while his daughter Ophelia would be a fan. Laertes, Horatio, Marcellus,
Rosencrantz, and Guildenstern would be athletes on the team, and Fortinbras
would be an owner of a rival team. Finally, Gertrude would be the wife of the owner Claudius.
As for the translation of the themes, I think that
the uncertainty of action and death can be expressed well in the alternate setting. First, uncertainty of
action can be expressed by Hamlet who doubts what the ghost of his father says
and calls his request into question. While he contemplates his actions in his
various soliloquies, I picture him sitting in an empty stadium that slightly
echoes the sound of his voice to assert that he is completely alone and can
trust no one. Next, the uncertainty of death can be expressed through the
team’s success or lack thereof; for example, losing a game can be equated to
death in the original Hamlet. I imagine that most of the play would take place in the stadium, dugout, and offices
that control the team’s finances and publicity.
In the fifth scene of the first act, Hamlet’s
departed father visits him in ghost form to make a very pivotal request. To
stage this scene in the alternate setting, I imagine Hamlet speaking to Horatio
and Marcellus out on the field in the dark, and then the ghost appears wearing
a baseball hat with the team emblem. Then, the ghost leads Hamlet into a darkened and damp
dugout where he says, “Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother's hand/Of life, of crown, of queen at once dispatched,/Cut off, even in the blossoms of my sin" (1.5.81-83) while Claudius laughs happily with
Polonius and Gertrude out on the field. I think this alternate scene would
equally embody the despair of betrayal, extremeness of the ghost’s request, and
greatness of the moral weight placed on Hamlet.
The two video interpretations that I chose of Hamlet’s most famous soliloquy contain
similar aspects, but they also differ wildly in other regards. Both
interpretations manage to imply the extreme solitude of Hamlet and his
inability to trust anyone or anything. In the first video, Hamlet walks around
a large, unoccupied room, and his footsteps sound loud and sharp to assert his
loneliness. In the second video, Hamlet occupies a very dark and quiet space
most likely to express the same idea that he is completely alone.
In addition to conveying extreme solitude, both videos also
put emphasis on a specific passage of the soliloquy through the actors’
actions. Both actors draw swords when they say, “Who would fardels bear,/To
grunt and sweat under a weary life,/But that the dread of something after
death,/The undiscovered country from whose bourn/No traveler returns”
(3.1.84-88). The action of drawing a sword highlights the tough decision that
Hamlet faces because it makes clear the simplicity of suicide but also the
argument against it, which is the uncertainty that death presents.
As for the wildly different aspects of the different
interpretations, the two actors, though they both express pain, go about their
expression of the emotion very differently. The actor of the first video gazes
at a mirror and slowly walks toward it as the message of his soliloquy deepens;
he conveys his internal distress by focusing on himself and speaking in a very
somber and contemplative whisper. The audience can see his pain by recognizing
the apparent inner turmoil that the actor so accurately portrays. In the second
video, the actor looks directly at the camera and asserts his pain and
confusion by making very twisted facial expressions and yelling his statements
and questions at the audience.
The two actors also emphasize different things in their
deliveries of the soliloquy.The
first actor emphasizes his introversion and the scholarly approach that he
takes to weighing his options – dealing with the struggles that life presents
or putting an end to everything through suicide. He accomplishes this emphasis
through his staring at himself, walking toward himself, and speaking quietly.
The second actor puts emphasis on the difficulty of the decision “to be or not
to be” (3.1.64) through his emotional yelling and distorted expressions of
pain.
Personally, I appreciate the first actor’s portrayal of the
soliloquy more than the second because I believe that Shakespeare intended the
delivery of the lines to be soft and introspective with much pain that isn’t
yelled at but inferred by the audience. Both videos, however, manage to convey
Hamlet’s solitude, pain, and confusion in one way or another, so they both meet
the criteria of the soliloquy.
