The “metatheatricality” of Hamlet – third lecture “These indeed seem/ For they are actions a man might play.”

The “metatheatrical” or self- referential side of Hamlet Perhaps the strangest, most challenging side of the play. Play-wrighting generally involves creating a credible presentation of reality. Self-referential moments in a play go in just the opposite direction, reminding us it’s “just a play.” Only a supremely self-confident dramatist could afford to do this. But why would he do this? Difference from MND.

Necessity of seeing play in the theater for metatheatrical dimension to emerge In fact, in Shakespeare’s own theater. Most of the references are to the material elements of theater, esp. Elizabethan theater. None of it works in film or video Unless terms are anachronistically “translated” to film, video as in fact happens in Michael Almereyda’s version with Ethan Hawke. Clip of “To be or not to be” from Almereyda

Hamlet with R & G in the Globe, II.2, 265ff “I have of late... lost all my mirth... “that this goodly frame the earth seems to me a sterile promontory” “this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire.” All physical features of the Globe. How did audience react?

The “sterile promontory”

“This majestical roof, fretted with golden fire”

“The tragedians of the city” Leads immediately to R & G speaking of the arrival of the players. Which immediately cheers Hamlet up. And we hear London theater gossip: “the late innovation” of children’s companies. “The tragedians of the city” -- the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, who are playing Hamlet? They’re just as good as ever, but...

In the Folio text, p. lii-liii of Pelican edition... we hear more about the “late innovation,” “an eyrie of children, little eysas.” Obviously the children’s companies had become quite popular... And threatened the adult companies. Hamlet seems to voice Shakespeare’s opinion about writers making the kids “exclaim against their own succession.” Real battles between the playwrights and the players? “Much throwing about of brains.” “Do the boys carry it away”? Ay, “Hercules and his load,” the emblem of the Globe, where we’re standing (or sitting)! “The boys” are the Lord Chamberlain’s company!

Where in the world (or globe) are we? In Elsinore? Or London? In Hamlet’s story? Or gossiping about the latest trends in London theater? At this point who’s speaking? Hamlet, Prince of Denmark? Or the actor playing Hamlet?

The actors arrive And are praised by Polonius: “The best actors in the world...” Is he praising the Lord Chamberlain’s Men? Hamlet’s enthusiastic greeting – and the request for a speech, “a taste of your quality.” Hamlet begins, And the actor takes it up. Until Polonius stops it -- because the actor is acting too well. Hamlet’s soliloquy measures himself against the actor: “Is it not monstrous...” “And all for nothing!/ For Hecuba. What’s Hecuba to him or he to her,/ That he should weep for her?” What’s Hamlet to us, or we to him...?

And Hamlet acts badly? He works himself up to some of the worst poetry in the play: ll (the soliloquy we saw Branagh act in the last lecture). Which he himself recognizes as bad acting: “Why what an ass am I!” Which is just the sort of thing he criticizes when he speaks to the player, III, 2. “O it offends me to the soul to hear a robustious periwig- pated fellow tear a passion to tatters...” And Hamlet gives acting lessons to the player, telling him exactly what theater is. “For anything so overdone is from [counter to] the purpose of playing, which is...” The most extensive discussion of theater and acting from the period.

The pervasiveness of the theater metaphor In his first appearance, Hamlet refers to acting, role-playing: I, 2, 76ff. “Seems, Madam? Nay, it is. I know not seems...” “’Tis not alone my inky cloak,” that is, my costume, my acting, my gestures, all the ways of portraying grief, that denote me truly. These seem, these are actions a man might play, might act. Seems to admit that he is in part acting, but insists he has an interior that exceeds this.

“This fellow in the cellerage” At II, 1, 152ff, we hear the “ghost under the stage” cry “Swear.” And Hamlet jokes, “You hear this fellow in the cellerage.” And they move around the stage as the actor playing the ghost moves under the stage. Hamlet: “Well said, old mole! Canst work in the ground so fast?” Does this mock the very dramaturgy of the play itself?

Polonius as Julius Caesar Later, in play-within-play scene, we learn that Polonius acted in the university, “and was accounted a good actor.” Says “I did enact Julius Caesar.” Against which Hamlet makes a silly joke. Guess which play the Lord Chamberlain’s men last performed before Hamlet.

Can we say what the theater metaphor means? Is there a linkage implied between “acting” and “acting”? What does it mean for Hamlet to act his part? What is his part? How to act it well? When does he act it badly? Does he come to understanding of role? How to enact the role of revenger?

“If it be not now,...” Hamlet’s fatalism in V, 2, 197, just before the duel. The return of his sanity, calm – has he learned to act? “There is a special providence in the fall of a sparrow.” “If it be now, ‘tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is all” What does he mean by “it”? “Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is’t to leave betimes? Let be.” The role of revenger linked with acceptance of death.

And finally, Hamlet can ACT?