The Toughest Play

Shakespeare is not only something you learn in school and then forget about it. It´s a piece of literature that exist in your everyday life, even in the harshest places: a level 4 high security prison. It is hard to picture an Act V scene taking place in the prisons theater, filled with huge tough guys looking at the scene and at their fellow inmates. It kind of reminds me to Adam Sandler´s, The Longest Yard were all the inmates are recruited for the football team to play against "THE GUARDS!!"

During this radio show from This American Life Jack Hitt hits up the prison every 2 months to meet and talk to the inmates that make the Shakespearean play possible. The prisoners not only tell them their experience in the making of the scenes but also their personal experience in dealing with the plays message of committing or not committing a murder, which many of them can relate to. Personally I think many of the inmates get a chance to over think their life decisions during the Hamlet play especially the Hamlet actors. However there was one particular prisoner that grabbed my attention and that was Big Hutch a very big guy given his nickname that describes himself as the "killer whale" of the prison. It is even hard to imagine how one of the meanest guys of the prison takes part of the play, something that was thought to be lame. Again I can relate Big Hutch to the Big Khalifa in The Longest Yard a very big guy that did not talk; instead he kicked everyone's butt.

During the radio show a kept thinking on how analytical Big Hutch was and how he told Jack that Hamlet had not internal conflict, instead he was just a coward for not acting against his father's murder, comparing it to how they used to rape her daughter telling Jack that he was not gonna stay leg crossed while they did that to her instead he decided to take action for it.

Last but not least I liked how Big Hutch compared the prisons main yard to Hamlets play, the was the Claudius that wanted power, drugs, etc: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the rats that told everything to the administration and so on.

“The Angel and The Devil

In the Northrop essay the author talks about the "central preoccupation of Romanticism: the conflict of consciousness and action." During this essay I kept thinking on how almost all of the critical essays are related to Hamlets main problem which is his conscience, which defies his ability to act. During this essay Frye talks about how Hamlets conscience doesn't let him kill his ungrateful uncle by orders of his dead father, hence the "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy which is a confrontation between Hamlets right or wrong. Personally in this scene from the play I can actually see or imagine Hamlet just standing there while the devil and the angel each stand on a shoulder having the "To Be o Not to Be" talk. This essay in particular brought my attention due to the fact that it gives a clear understanding of the main internal conflict of the play and Hamlet.

What Is Freud Talking About?

The extract from The Interpretation of Dreams by Sigmund Freud talks about Hamlets impotency. He describes him as "the type of man whose power of direct action is paralyzed by an excessive development oh his intellect". Freud describes Hamlet as the type of guy that over thinks everything, which is the most general characterization in Hamlet, Freud over thinks the topic and takes Hamlets actions as not an over thinker about everything and gives the reader examples in which he kills a series of man in the play without thinking it twice. It is the fact if vengeance towards his father that makes him over thinks everything. Furthermore Freud analyses Shakespeare and his history while he was writing Hamlet, which leads him to think that Shakespeare wrote about things that were trouble ling him during that time (like the death of his son Hamnet). I liked the fact that Freud does not only try to understand Hamlets actions of thought but those of the writer and reaches a conclusion that is not only true but interesting: "so all genuinely creative writing are the product of more than a single motive and more than a single impulse in the poet´s mind, and are open to more than a single interpretation".

To Be or Not To Be, That Is the Video

In the three different Hamlet plays the producers and directors choose to guide and tell the story in a different way, however following the same plot development. In the Ethan Hawke production Hamlet is an ordinary guy that walks through modern day life. It is during the "To Be or Not To Be" scene that the actor finds himself in a blockbuster action aisle which is kind of ironic knowing that Hamlet talks a lot about revenge, action, and death but he never makes them happen, instead he over thinks everything to the point of not over going any of his plans. This production was in my opinion the most interesting I like how the director makes probably one of the most famous Shakespearean lines something very normal as if it was only a simply question at the end of the day. However the David Tenant is completely different from this one, evoking the message of a crazy Hamlet that's seems so over thought per say that his conscious has brought him to a point of no return, a dead end. It is in this production that we can see the dark side of Hamlet as a "nut job". From this production I liked how the director uses dark lights to create a feeling of darkness to the viewer, fortifying the crazy Hamlet reaction. Last but not least the Kenneth Brennagh production seems the most boring or traditional for me, it portrays a Hamlet that just makes a question to him of life and death but does not impose a great importance on it, even though the actor tries to act mysterious and paranoiac.