Is Hamlet a Action Super-Hero?

A Brooding indecisive Prince Who Can’t Make Up His Mind 

That’s today’s party line. 

At the play’s beginning Hamlet has returned from school to find his father dead, his uncle wearing his crown and in bed with his mother — fait accompli. He is not a happy camper — brooding? — maybe? — more likely pissed! His lack of enthusiasm and stuck-in the-mudness is understandable. What can he do? Regicide was an unpardonable sin in his day. 

Camera - Action:

• He decides not to go back to school. 
• He immediately decided to see the ghost. 
• Against his companions restraint, he follows the ghost. 
• He demands his companions swear upon his sword. 
• Claudius has killed once and will kill again. Hamlet feigns madness. 
• He toys with Plonius.
• He rewrites a dumb show scene to trap Claudius. 
• He enlists Horatio’s help in getting justification for regicide. 
• He breaks with Ophelia. 
• Prior and during the dumb show he teasingly plumbs his mother and Ophelia. 
• Hamlet confronts Rosencrantz and Guildenstern about their friendship. 
• He decides to wait to kill the king. This a action, not an inaction. 
• He confronts his mother. 
• Believing Claudius is ease-dropping, he mistakenly kills Polonius.
• He hides Polonius’ body. 
• On his way to England Hamlet unseals the King’s letter, changes and reseals it, sending Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their death. 
• He escapes, returns home and confronts Laertes about his love for Ophelia. 
• Hamlet quickly accepts the challenge to a sport sword fight, switches swords with Laertes, wounds him, wounds the king and forces the king to drink his own poison, then asks Horatio to his story and dies. 

Not a lot of time for brooding. Hamlet is a Action? _______________ You fill in the blanks. That appears to be the way he was played until the 20th Century when the play was over psychoanalyzed and deconstructed.  

There is difference between brooding and careful, thoughtful thinking. 

I’ve been brooding about all this while setting in my Tub. 

From my Tub to yours

Carpe Diem,

Carl

Alex Allred (left) as Marcellus, Quinn Mattfeld as Hamlet, and Jeremy Thompson as Horatio in the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s 2019

production of Hamlet. (Photo by Karl Hugh. Copyright Utah Shakespeare Festival 2019.)