I like the question, though I have not read the
adaptation.
I have some problems with
Hamlet: it is too long, too busy, too many lines, too many
character foils, too many subplots, too many words. (Lear, too,
has too many obvious doubles.)
I prefer Shakespeare's more
Aristotelian plays, Macbeth and Othello.
Macbeth is half as long and twice as bloody, and
Othello has half as many in the cast. Thus, the three unities
(time, place, action) are better preserved: there's more focus on the tragic action, a
greater sense of purpose. These plays are more like Oedipus Rex:
they get in and get out without delay.
In
Hamlet, I love Act I. It's a play unto itself. The Ghost steals
the show. I like him better than Hamlet: he knows what he wants. Sure, I like the
feigned madness scene with Polonius and the staging of "The Mousetrap," but the middle
is interminably long. After that, the play gets a little hoaky, especially the stuff
about the pirates. And the fight scene? It's like a
sit-com.
The Fortinbras subplot shows that Hamlet is not a
political animal, I get it. He is a doppelganger looming on the fringe like the Ghost,
I get it. His words cap off the play, I get it. But, really, he's gratuitous, a
distraction. I don't need more situational irony. I want Hamlet's dying words to be
the last thing I hear. Save that, I want Hamlet's best friend's words to be the last
thing I hear. Not some stranger's.
Laertes also is
constructed this way. He's the emotional side of vengeance, I get it. But, I know what
the emotional side of vengeance is, and so does Hamlet, and I don't need to see internal
AND external, direct AND indirect. Cut him too.
In other
words, if Hamlet is so smart and multi-faceted, we don't need his same-age doubles. The
Ghost will do. Give me more domestic tragedy: more Ophelia, more Gertrude, more
Claudius. Or, at least give their words more impetus by cutting some of the extraneous
words around theirs. Less is more.
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