Well, this play is pretty much the ultimate example of what a tragedy is. It’s physical violence is quite subdued compared with most other serious Shakespeare tragedies or, especially, the historical plays. It’s psychological violence, on the hand, is off the charts! Here fake madness is a self-disguise for real madness, occulted murder stays obscure, and love ones are the ultimate sacrificial lambs on the alter of misguided notions of how to seek justice. And, of course, the whole thing gets kicked off by an actual ghost. Not many real ghosts in Shakespeare.
This version of the great play of Denmark is quite recent. It has become a household favorite. Mostly, I guess, because we are both Trekkies and Dr. Who fans around here and this production gives the best of both. Also it is just wonderfully quirky. The most recent Dr., David Tenet, turns in a truly inspired and zany performance of Denmark’s petulant prince. And the old dead king and the current murderous king are played by Captain Pickard, Patrick Stewart. I really like that the brothers are presented here as identical twins with Hamlet’s father probably being born only minutes before his little brother. Meaning mere minutes separate them in terms of royal lineage and right of succession. [I’m not going to go into how royalty was actually sorted out in historical terms in Denmark—this play wasn’t written for a Danish audience—it was written for an English one—so English rules of succession matter here.] Having the brothers be twins gives a nice little extra motive for the younger brother to off the [barely] older brother. One can almost imagine the envy that would be engendered by being that close to the throne and have only 2 or 3 minutes keep you from it. It also gives a nice explanation as to how the Queen, Hamlet’s mother, would or could be so quick to marry the younger brother, with her husband, the King, seemingly dying of natural causes. Of course, he didn’t. Though no one even suspects this until the King’s ghost shows up. The fact that the ghost is seen a first by people other than Hamlet, means that his actual existence is not in doubt. When Hamlet finally does see him, it also in the company of others. So it is not a mere figment of Hamlet’s rather fragile mind. This is where is psychological violence begins—and it doesn’t let up until everyone is dead. Only Horatio escapes—every one else is damned. Not damned through supernatural means, as in Macbeth, but damned by Hamlet's lily-livered fragility that gurgles into full blown violent madness. He has many chances to get of the crazy road—there are even serious road signs to guide him away from this path—he ignores ALL of them.
I would say that the most violent physical action taken in the whole play is when Hamlet murders Polonius in a rage in his mother’s bed chamber. There is other physical violence, but, for the most part it is rather subdued. The murder of the King is done while he is asleep, pouring poison in his ear. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are beheaded in England, but we only have a vague description of it. Even the ending is a kind of choreographed violence in the form a duel in fencing—one rapier dipped in poised wine.
The assault is the psychological inability to deal with death properly. None of these people seem to know how to grieve and find closure. Each death makes already crazy characters worse, and drags at least one sane soul into madness that cannot be stopped by anything. So, the outcome is assuredly tragic—what else can come of it?
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