EN
203 Guy Tiphane
Prof. A. Davaran May 1, 2002
The Players’ Play
in Hamlet
“Seems, madam? nay, it is, I know not ‘seems’” (I:2, 76)
Responding to Gertrude's comment about his mourning, Hamlet sets the tone for the play by indicating his behavior is genuine: but is he playing? As Hamlet develops before our eyes, it is difficult to understand whether a character is playing to create an illusion on other characters and the audience or is just being truthful and sincere. In other words, there may be more than just one play within the play, and Hamlet may not be the only stage director. His direction, however, indicates a new trend in drama: he is young, crafty, smart, and at ease with the pun. In this paper, I will contrast Hamlet’s new style with Polonius, a character who serves as reference to the old style of theatre.
Hamlet will set up a play with the help of the traveling players, and the play will have the desired effect on provoking a reaction in Claudius, his intended audience. Hamlet shows great ability to add lines to an existing play, and converses comfortably with the players. He will come back to Ophelia's grave to reclaim his right as the main actor in the play:
“Let Hercules himself do what he may,
the cat will mew, and dog will have his
day.” (V:1, 278)
Interpreted by the editor S. Wofford[1] as “nobody can prevent another from making the scene he feels he has a right to.” Hamlet has just made a scene by intervening in the funeral, claiming the right to love Ophelia more than Laertes. As he dramatically declared “I lov’d you not” (III:1, 117) to Ophelia when she was alive, we may wonder when was he playing, and when was he not? When he later tells Horatio “That to Laertes I forgot myself” (V:2, 76), this could mean that the Hamlet-actor could not bear the idea that Laertes could be giving a good performance in his place, on his stage. The postmortem declaration of love could just be a play.
In striking contrast with Hamlet the young, Polonius the old spends much of his time setting up scenes with non-actors and commenting on the outcome. Already in his first appearance in the play, the King delegates his own decision in giving Laertes his leave to Polonius: “What says Polonius?” (I:2, 58). Although it may be expected of the Lord Chamberlain to counsel the King in every matter, Polonius takes a more active role in setting up scenes for Hamlet to play so that he will reveal the causes of his “madness.”
Polonius’s tendency to give directions first appears when he bids farewell to Laertes (I:3, 55-81). Even pressed for time (“Yet here, Laertes?”), he exposes an extensive behavior code for Laertes to exercise restraint while away from home. Once Laertes has left, Polonius directs his attention to Ophelia by interrogating her and discovering that she may be running out of his sphere of direction by listening to Hamlet’s advances. Polonius directs Ophelia to ignore Hamlet, who walks with a “larger teder” (125) than Polonius will ever give his daughter. But the essence of Polonius’s objection may reveal a clash of generations, where the old resents the new and tradition must be saved by censoring the young. It is not clear why Polonius wants to prevent a possible alliance between his daughter and Hamlet. Laertes advises Ophelia against Hamlet “for on his choice depends the safety and health of this whole state” (I:3, 20-21). Polonius states similar reasons to the King and Queen by reporting his recommendation to Ophelia that “Lord Hamlet is a prince out of thy star,” a recommendation we have not witnessed in the previous scenes: is Polonius playing, or has he directed Laertes to talk to Ophelia with these words? Then how are we to believe that the letter he reads in Act 2, Scene 2 is really from Hamlet to Ophelia and not his own invention to influence Claudius and Gertrude? He is the only one reporting and concluding of Hamlet’s madness, a convenient position for someone who wants to influence his audience. Polonius as actor-director surfaces more obviously once he is given the opportunity to judge and attempt to direct actual players. In the scene at the end of the long Act 2, Scene 2, where Hamlet wants to control and direct the players, Polonius comments on Hamlet’s speech:
“'Fore God, my lord, well spoken, with
good accent and good direction” (II:2, 451)
He then comments that “this is too long” (483) and that “‘mobled queen’ is good” (488), which can be put in contrast with Gertrude’s line in Act 2, Scene 2, “More matter with less art,” a comment on Polonius’s own tendency to speak too many words with little meaning. Hamlet will again confront Polonius on his abilities as actor (“That I did, my lord, and was accounted a good actor”) (III:2, 94), once again contrasting the old and the new.
The two scenes Polonius stages to prove his point about Hamlet’s madness in love actually fail. In both cases he directs a woman (an interesting point in itself) to interact with Hamlet while he hides and watches. In the Elizabethan theatre where adolescent boys played women, the women-characters may be more symbolic than the actor-women. Could this be a comment on the Elizabethan order? Polonius tries to direct women but fails: he likes the idea of the “mobled” queen in a play. In his first staging with Ophelia, the scene fails to produce the effect announced by Polonius. In Act 2, Scene 2, he promises:
“Mark the encounter: if he loves her not,
And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,
Let me be no assistant for a state,
But keep a farm and carten” (II:2, 163-167)
However, Polonius does not offer his resignation after his scene provokes Hamlet to declare “I Lov’d you not” (III:1, 117) and the King to react by saying: “Love? his affection do not that way tend” (III:2, 161).
Convinced that “the origin and commencement of his grief sprung from neglected love” (III:2, 176-177), Polonius sets up his second stage this time with Gertrude, a staging that will prove fatal to him. Insisting on his listening to his play because a mother, “since nature makes them partial” (III:3, 32), would not report accurately, Polonius expects Gertrude to tell Hamlet that “his pranks have been too broad to bear with” (III:4, 2). Polonius feels challenged in more ways than one with Hamlet and he cannot accept his lack of structure. He still does not expect a heated debate, and betraying his presence, he is killed by the warm-tempered Hamlet. Like a Japanese warrior who has lost his Samurai, Ophelia kills herself from the loss of her director.
Polonius’s other detailed instructions, directed at Reynaldo in Act 2, Scene 1, on how to spy on Laertes also seem to produce no results. Reynaldo, reticent in executing the strange orders, never comes back to the stage. The scene with Reynaldo may very well have been designed to give us a clear image of Polonius not only as one who spies on the younger generation, but also as one who wants to teach how to act. He sends Reynaldo with detailed instructions on how to talk to people in France, to spread rumors about Laertes in order to gain their confidence and obtain information from them. But he also wants to create an effect:
“But breathe his faults so quaintly
That they may seem the taints of liberty,
The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,
A savageness in unreclaimed blood,
Of general assault” (II:1, 31-34)
We will never know what Reynaldo did: did he act according to Polonius’s directions, or did he not even bother to go to France? Did Reynaldo think Polonius mad?
Showing that the new actors are mad in claiming their freedom in new language with “less art” and “more matter,” and “mobling” the Queen-actor and directing his own daughter to not respond and play dumb, Polonius could be representing the old theatre, old playwrights, and the old critics of the daring new plays. But perhaps more significantly, characters like Polonius add a layer of complexity to the tragedy in that we, the audience, are jurors in a complex trial. We as jurors can only construct a rational order from what we have seen and heard, and trust the various accounts from witnesses. When Polonius sets up an encounter between Ophelia and Hamlet, he is “framing” Hamlet with the hope that we will perceive him as mad.
In Hamlet, compared with previous tragedies (and histories), the audience is likely to be more engaged because doubt is introduced. Unlike a history play, the characters have invented names and the action is set in a different country. But as in a history play, the characters conform to a hierarchy. The difference lies in the meaning of their interactions rather than what the characters represent. The critics cannot watch the play and decide immediately if it offends the establishment or not, because the meaning is hidden in the play. In a subtle way, Shakespeare succeeded in critiquing the critics and puzzling several generations of them.