just wondering

[tempestsarekind]

While I was watching bits and pieces of all those Hamlets, my mind snagged on a bit of Ophelia's description of Hamlet when he bursts in on her as she's sewing in her closet:

And with a look so piteous in purport
As if he had been loosed out of hell
To speak of horrors,--he comes before me

Comments

[lareinenoire]

So I just wondered--has anyone ever done a production of Hamlet in which Hamlet borrows some gesture of the ghost's, here, and uses it with Ophelia, in much the same way that David Tennant's Hamlet borrows the Player King's Pyrrhus-gesture of raising a knife over his head in both hands, during both "O what a rogue and peasant slave am I" and "Now might I do it, pat"?

ZOMG THAT WOULD BE BRILLIANT.

I don't think it's been done, at least not that I've noticed. I'm sure there are places in the nunnery scene where he could, or possibly during 'The Mousetrap' if you don't take the flashback route (which, if I remember rightly, none of the films do?).

And I do love how Tennant consciously mimicked the Player King. That just seemed like a totally Hamlet-fanboy thing to do.

[tempestsarekind]

That's true--I hadn't thought of the nunnery scene or "The Mousetrap!" That makes a lot of sense.

I'm trying to remember which film uses a flashback of Hamlet and Ophelia instead of having her do the speech: at least one of them does, but I watched them all too closely to one another and I can imagine it happening in each one! So that's no help. :)

I'm really looking forward to watching the Tennant Hamlet with my mom over winter break. And yes, he is *such* a Player King fanboy!