#AND I LOVE ROS AND GUIL

[saffaggot]

EXCSE ME??? THERE WAS GONNA BE A MUPPETS ADAPTION WHERE GONZO AND FOZZIE PLAYED ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ??? HELLLOOO ????? 

[lovelandfrogman]

been having thoughts

[imabiscuitinthousandworlds]

"death is not-being, true death is the absence of being, of existing, it's not a state of being dead it's not anything" ros wanders off guil disappears. "dying isn't an action you take it's unbecoming" one second they're alive the next they're dead. one second they are (still there) the next they're not. no transitional periods no active dying first they are and then they're not. they aren't anymore. not-being. someone else states their death which is not visible because they're not. they're not anymore. they're dead. there's no applause or encore or drama in death. there isn't anything and neither are they

[agentravensong]

so, fun story: the playwriting professor i had this past year, my senior year of college, and really liked -- the one i quoted in this r & g are dead post -- has written some plays themself (not a surprise, i'm sure).

i asked them a while back for a copy of the script of what is, as far as i know, their only full two-act play, to read, for funsies. they finally sent the most recent draft to me a couple of days ago, and i just sat down and read it. i knew going in that it would be about two women in the modern day trying to discover what happened to the crew of a ship that disappeared in the artic in the 1840s, with one of the women being a young musician and the other being an older and more jaded scientist.

i did not know that in the half of the play set in the past, the two main guys would be a ros and guil duo. a love and rhetoric duo. in way over their heads, constantly getting on their crewmates' nerves and often wounding each other but, at the end of the day, reliant on each other and only each other. playing silly games to pass the time and keep their wits sharp. stuck on a boat, together, even. and, spoilers, but, they don't get a happy ending in this one either. doomed by the narrative, as it were.

which is to say: i knew i was going to like it, but, man. i cried.

(and to be clear, the stuff with the two women in the present was great too. there are even parallels to draw between the two sets of protagonists, because that's good writing for you.)

the even crazier thing is, i looked up this professor online after my first class with them in fall 2022, which is when i not only originally found out about this play, but also learned that marian call had written music for it. marian call being an indie musician i learned about back in 2020, whose ep Swears! specifically hit hard for me back during my Fail Semester (don't ask).

what a fucking coincidence, right?

anyway, i listened to the song on her bandcamp that she wrote for the show after finishing the script, and let me tell you: that song already slapped (i've listened to it plenty since first finding it), but with the full context? fuck me.

the worst part of all this is that there is literally no one else i can talk about this play with. other than my professor, whom i shall be emailing shortly with my brain worms thoughts.

...though i suppose i've said enough in this post that other people could probably do some digging and at least find the song, if they wanted to.

...and i suppose if any mutuals (or fellow r&g heads whom i've previously interacted with) wanted to read it and asked me for it... as long as the file wouldn't be too big for discord... what would be the harm in that?

[mintytrifecta]

I bet reading rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead would probably be a lot more impactful when you actually know what happens in Hamlet

[lonz-ee]

rereading ragad for the third time this year. “guil: there must have been a moment at the beginning where we could have said— no. But somehow we missed it (he looks round and sees he is alone) Rosen—? Guil—? (he gathers himself). Well, we’ll know better next time. Now you see me, now you—“ IM NOT OKAY

I’m obsessed with tragedies that you know are tragedies from the beginning. I am obsessed with Horatio ending the play surrounded by the dead. I’m obsessed with Achilles and Patroclus not being able to grow old because they’ve been taken from the world too young. I’m obsessed with Romeo and Juliet lying dead, side by side. I’m obsessed with Orpheus turning around and Eurydice crumbling to dust over and over. 

I’m obsessed with stories that are so engrained in our society that we know how they are gong to end, and that they are going to end with everyone dead or destroyed. I’m obsessed with the fact that we read them anyway. I’m obsessed with the hope that it could turn out differently and the willingness to feel that despair again. 

[woodsteingirl]

tom stoppard will carve your heart out with a rusty spoon but by the end of the play you would not even be able to explain a single thing that happened in it.

[moonlarked]

The idea that Horatio’s “why, what a king is this!” is directed at Hamlet instead of Claudius isn’t a new take, I’ve seen many posts on it, but most of those posts see Horatio’s words insinuating that Hamlet is somehow losing his worthiness as king by killing Ros and Guil. That Hamlet has gone too far in his pursuit of vengeance.

And that’s all well and good, but I want to see these words uttered by a Horatio who had long grown disillusioned by the monarchy. A Horatio who had been looked down his whole life by Hamlet’s peers. A Horatio who was originally drawn to Hamlet because he sensed that Hamlet wasn’t just another royal, that Hamlet could genuinely see him as a person.

This Horatio isn’t proclaiming that Hamlet is no longer able to be kingly. This Horatio is telling Hamlet that he’s growing into the kind of person that Horatio despises. The kind of person that would sacrifice two courtiers simply because it was his divine right to be king. Because that’s what Hamlet says beforehand, right? That Ros and Guil should’ve just stayed out of it?

And Hamlet, knowing Horatio’s attitude toward the other royals from their time at school together, would know exactly what Horatio means by this. It’s the worst kind of insult, especially from someone you love. It’s telling him that Horatio doesn’t know him anymore.

[gayest-classiclit]

oh my god this bracket is going to be great

Here's the list of pairs I had submitted and how many submissions they recieved, in case anyone was wondering!

[fictional-actors-bracket]

Round 1B.3

Propaganda under the cut

Hermie the Unworthy: "Known for his method acting. Originally preparing for his role as the Joker in a stage play adaption of the 2019 movie, he then cycles through many other DC villains as various thematically appropriate traumas happen to him. (Half his face burned - two face, poisoned by a tree witch - poison ivy, needs to trap people with riddles - riddler). But he can do more than just Batman villains, hermie can become anyone. He can become a manager at a pizza place, Kiera knightly from bend it like Beckham and even a goth girl whose dad is about to die. This is because he’s just such a great actor (and also because one of his biological dads is revealed to be a shapeshifting trickster being. The other one is Satan, yes he’s the product of mpreg dont worry about it). He doesn’t act for the money but for the love of the craft (and crippling identity issues) and he deserves the win bc he never wins anything fucking else."

The Player: "he's just so creepy and knows all and it freaks ros and guil out how slay of him. also i think he fakes his death at some point iirc? and he kind of symbolises inevitability and such and such. again, fucks around with our protags ros and guil for the fun of it. not that he's a GOOD guy necessarily but like. he's funky"

[gilmores-glorious-blog]

okay okay okay so i just watched the pbs great performances hamlet and it was. SO GOOD. oh my god. here are my many, many thoughts:

- the singing starting the show is fucking amazing

- the opening funeral scene and then the transition to the wedding goes so hard

- ophelia’s song having lines from hamlet’s letters to her .. …

- this polonius casting is GOD TIER like yeah. that’s what he looks like. that’s correct.

- i don’t like that they cut the opening ghost scene :/

- omg this horatio <33 i love him sm

- horatio’s black nail polish is everything to me

- ophelia is so hot oh my god

- i love a production that plays up the sibling dynamic between ophelia and laertes

- on that note, ophelia and laertes making fun of polonious is always so fun

- the modern aspects with masks and stuff are so interesting

- the ghost possessing hamlet???? oh my god i’m obsessed why have i never seen that done before

- the actor rolling his eyes back so that you only see the whites of his eyes while he’s possessed is so fucking cool

- i love productions that have hamlet cut his hand on his sword idk why i just do

- also horatio not even hesitating to cut his own hand? i’m insane

- ah fuck,,,, hamlet and horatio grasping each others bloody hands… horatio clasping hamlet’s hand with both his hands,, i’m unwell 😭

- gertrude and claudius being super horny for each other always makes me so uncomfortable

- these ros and guil costumes are great

- big fan of productions that make claudius be super charismatic it’s always such an interesting choice

- god this polonious is so good, he’s so fucking funny

- i love hamlet’s rings <3

- hamlet taking a selfie with the stacie abrams poster is crazy

- hamlet’s personalized handshakes with ros and guil are so cute

- it’s interesting that it’s fully set in america and that all the lines referencing denmark were cut out/changed

- i’m trying to figure out what hamlet was reading but i can’t and it’s driving me crazy 😩

- hamlet smacking polonious on the ass was crazy

- god i love a production that leans into the comedic aspects of this play,, it may be shakespeare’s most famous tragedy but it’s also funny as fuck sometimes

- the incorporation of singing/rapping throughout the show is so good

- also polonious as the one white guy in the room being like. ‘erm actually i don’t like the rapping 🤓☝️’ ,,, stfu man

- i need to know who wrote the lyrics for these songs bc they’re so good and they incorporate the original text so well

- fucking hell man,, his to be or not to be was amazing

- the “where’s your father” moment was so good

- oh my god horatio’s costume change,, the pink suit,,, i love him :’)

- i wish productions didn’t cut down the passions slave speech as much as they tend to do :/

- god ophelia’s dress is GORGEOUS

- polonious being the only one wearing a mask was wild but also so real (as someone who has often been the only person masked in a room)

- god this claudius is really good i appreciate the depth he brings to the role

- hmm interesting place for an intermission idk how i feel about this

- polonious in comfy clothing,, rest in peace peepaw 😭🫡

- polonious’ body lying on the bed during the entire closet scene is so fucked

- sometimes i wish i didn’t know this play so well so i could watch adaptions without noticing every single line they leave out,,,

- jfc,, hamlet wiping the blood off his knife onto the bedsheets,,,

- gertrude not hugging claudius back 👀

- claudius punching hamlet >:(

- idk how i feel about the decision to make ros and guil know about hamlet being sent to his death

- let’s be honest i’m mostly here for solea pfeiffer’s portrayal of ophelia’s madness

- the running makeup and the messy hair. YES.

- i hate that i have a certain melody to ophelia’s songs in my head so when i hear other versions with different melodies i’m like. hmm. incorrect.

- holy fuck she’s so incredible… the ophelia ever oh my god

- YESSSS INCLUSION OF THE HORATIO LETTER SCENE FUCK YEAH (i hate when adaptations don’t include this scene)

- horatio is reading the letter like omg pirates my boyfriend is so cool

- it’s always so funny to me that claudius and laertes make a plan, a backup plan, and a backup backup plan for killing hamlet and it still backfires and kills them both (i mean it does also work to kill hamlet. but still.)

- the portrait of king hamlet watching the entire show goes so hard

- this gravedigger is so amazing i’m obsessed

- ugh 😭 the singers singing the same song at ophelia’s funeral as at the king’s 😩

- oh FUCK ophelia coming out at her funeral.. the watery lighting… i’m going insane

- horatio holding hamlet and comforting him :(

- laertes apparently being able to see the ghost of ophelia makes him as a narrative foil to hamlet all the more juicy

- the eat a crocodile line is always so random lmao

- aw fuck…. laertes singing really got me… :(

- oh my GOD this osric is so fucking funny

- lmao osric beefing with horatio

- horatio in the background of the fencing match cheering on hamlet <3

- claudius standing and rubbing gertrude’s shoulders knowing she’s about to die :( this isn’t fair i’m not allowed to be emo about them

- hamlet offering laertes the sword and then laertes stabbing him with it,,,

- gertrude’s realization of what happened right before she dies was so good

- claudius cutting his own hand on the sword was a powerful choice

- it’s always funny to me when productions completely cut out the fortinbras plotline

- horatio catching hamlet as he falls :(

- horatio singing to hamlet after he dies… i am so incredibly unwell 😭😭

- THE GHOST WAS VOICED BY SAMUEL L. JACKSON?!?? crazy.

overall, amazing production. i loved the musical elements. definitely my favorite ophelia and polonius i’ve seen, possibly my favorite laertes and claudius as well. the hamlet/horatio relationship wasn’t quite as prominent as i would’ve liked it to be, but it was still really great, and i enjoyed analyzing all the little moments they did have.

[raziraphale]

I've learned not to trust my memory, so I wanted to make a note for myself of some things I enjoyed from the Neptune production of RAGAD before it all leaks out my ears. It's mostly for me but thought I'd post it here in case it's interesting to anyone else.

Note for people that aren't me: this is the only production of RAGAD I've seen live. I've seen the movie and the 2017 NTL recording as of writing this, for reference. So, forgive me if I gush about elements/choices that are common to RAGAD productions and not unique to this one lol. Also I was an English major but not a theatre guy outside some Shakespeare, so also bear with me if I'm lacking some specific terms.

Performances:

I feel like this almost goes without saying but Boyd and Monaghan are excellent as Guildenstern and Rosencrantz. Their chemistry is great. There was an excellent rhythm to their dialogue together that was really fast-paced without feeling artificial (imo there is a certain point where performers talk so fast it can only feel fake. They were all believable enthusiam).

I particularly liked Monaghan's Rosencrantz! like there was just something so earnest about him. He had this character tic of chewing on his finger most of the time out of anxiety or inattention and that stuck out for me for some reason. It was endearing. Also the line "I wanted to make you happy" made the whole theatre let out a wounded animal noise.

Also Boyd's Guildenstern really did a good job of projecting an aura of "person trying really hard to appear in control but may also snap any moment". Control freak recognizing control freak o7

The Player (Michael Blake) was amazing. He had such huge stage presence that you really believed the character was a seasoned performer. I fully believe this man could successfully sell me snake oil with the power of his presence alone.

Personal note but I was jazzed to see Drew Douris-O'Hara as Alfred. I'm not a regular Neptune patron so I don't know how often he appears in their productions, but I have seen many a Shakespeare By The Sea show in my time so he's a very familiar face. Always a really fun presence.

I also feel like I have to mention Ophelia (Helen Belay) even though she obviously doesn't get much to do here. The actress really sold every small appearance though like my heart broke a little every time I saw her in anticipation for her off-stage fate. Less important but have you ever seen a woman so beautiful you started crying?

Costumes:

I really liked Ros and Guil's tattered suits. They looked like they were dragged behind a horse. These are the clothes of two guys that have been trapped in a play for like 50 years, truly.

They also had an inverted colour scheme (Ros had a blue suit with a green waistcoat, Guil had a green suit with blue waistcoat) that really emphasized the two-sides-of-the-same-coin/ yin & yang vibe. Also the colours weren't really shared by the rest of the cast much (they tended to be a bit more muted) so it made them stand out as separate from the rest of what was happening.

Also personal note but I was enchanted by Monaghan's slightly stupid-looking grown-out fauxhawk. He basically had a lesbian mullet haircut. That combined with his single dangly earring was a Look.

The Player's coat was gorgeous. It felt grand but also appropriately dated/worn. It wasn't fully a feather jacket, but it had a smattering of large feathers that got more dense as it went down. It kind of reminded me of a vulture, honestly, which I think is fitting, with him being an opportunist that loves some corpses.

Script:

Misc. Stage Stuff:

Unless I'm really mistaken, I think they cut/modified the few lines with some outdated racial terms (I have two specifically in mind, referring to Chinese and Inuit people). So unless I just somehow missed hearing those, that's nice.

Just a note to say that the line about who the English King is will depend on when they get to England got a huge laugh. Thank you to King Charles' cancer for making everything funnier

The lighting !!! It really did a lot to separate the scenes from Hamlet from the rest of it. The stage was dark for most of it, with cool lighting (like a blue darkness). For the Hamlet portions, though, the lights were suddenly bright and warm yellow. That combined with the differences in the performances gave a strong impression that the curtain had just suddenly risen on a more traditional production of Hamlet right in the middle of Ros and Guil just doing whatever.

I really liked how they used the two risers on wheels they had (not sure if that's the right word -- they were those three-tiered platforms I remember from doing choir in school. Kind of like bleachers). They looked like they belonged on an empty stage and also gave the actors something interesting to climb on. They were able to reposition them pretty easily with the wheels, which really worked for the portions on the boat tbh. They just pushed them together so that the lower tiers touched to create a half-pipe-shaped skeletal "boat". They could climb "above deck", or even go below while still being fully visible from whatever angle. The whole thing was spun around a lot during the pirate attack, which was fun.

The risers also separated the stage really well in the first two acts. For most of it, there was one on the left side facing the audience, for characters to sit on, and one on the right facing backwards and partially obscured by the curtain they had covering that side of the stage. The curtain was backlit, so you could see the silhouettes of anything behind it. At some points, you could actually see shadows of events in Hamlet happening in the background while Ros and Guil were doing their thing in the foreground. Unfortunately I didn't get the best look at them, bc I was sitting at far right of my row, so the far right of the stage was partially out of my sight line. Still a really cool effect!

They did turn the risers fully around to face the back during the players' performance of The Murder of Gonzago, with the curtain pulled across. You saw the shadow of the king standing up and storming out.

For the final scene, they did the expected thing, where Ros and Guil are alone in the dark, illuminated by a single narrow spotlight each. The spotlight goes out when each of them die and they disappear from view. The detail that made me insane though is that each time a spotlight went out, they played the sound of a flipped coin hitting the stage and the audience was so quiet it felt like a gunshot both times.

After all the deaths they had Rosencrantz and Guildenstern start from the opening scene again tossing coins for a bit before the final curtain. They did not escape the narrative 😔

Will add more if anything else comes to mind?

[esper-atus]

I barely know anything about In Stars and Time but oh my god....the Ros and Guil references your using to draw about it....they are driving me BONKERS

aw thank you! i love finding ros & guil fans! it fills the hole in my heart left from when i learned that the high school i went to is no longer including the play in its curriculum :')

ros & guil and in stars and time have both permanently altered my brain chemistry and the themes fit together really nicely, so it's been a blast combining them. i'd wholeheartedly recommend giving isat a try if it looks like something you'd enjoy!

[agentravensong]

reread rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead this afternoon in prep for movie night (so i can pick up on what stuff got cut in the adaptation) and. man. man man man.

[withasideofshakespeare]

We all know I shouldn’t be allowed to make Tumblr posts after 1 AM, but here we go again… This has been in my brain for so long so now I am going to ramble about it (shoutout to the Hamlet Discord server for joining in the Thinking)

Surveillance Hamlet!!!

(Or, rather, the theme of surveillance in Hamlet and some fun and exciting ways I’d like to see it portrayed on stage assuming this mythical theater program has unlimited money)

(Warning- this thought is undercooked. This is going to get rambly…)

Surveillance is a major theme in Hamlet. Nearly everyone in the play engages in some kind of spying or scheming or is the victim thereof (or both). I love plays as a medium for the fact that each individual performance has the opportunity to completely change which themes get the most emphasis and surveillance is a theme I’d love to see take center stage with Hamlet specifically!

Hamlet is a pretty meta play. It ends with a message on the act of storytelling within the specific context of the story the audience has just watched just after it calls out the “mutes and audience” to the ultimate tragedy for their inaction during the runtime of the play. It’s also been performed and adapted plenty of times with a modern lens. Grief, depression, existential anxiety, and gay people are, apparently, universal pieces of the human experience, but if anything looms larger than ever over today’s society, it’s surveillance. Hell, I’m typing this on a device that is for sure selling my data to the government and probably also scam artists! So give me a performance where extreme surveillance heightens all the other aspects of the play, where Hamlet’s paranoia is exceedingly justified.

First, choose a good venue. Outdoor theater is almost always my favorite, but in this case, choose a massive indoor theater with a movie theater style sound system. Hang massive screens above the stage like you’d see at a big concert.

Now, these actors are going to be doing some major method acting. Put cameras above the stage at all angles. Put cameras in the wings. Put cameras on the crew. Put cameras in the audience- maybe some employee plants instructed to stream the show to the screens from their view or even to obnoxiously take photos and video throughout the show. No matter where these actors go, so long as they’re in character, there’s a camera on them. Put mics everywhere too, so even low whispers are heard from the backrow.

I want this play to start with an attempt at secrecy. The ghost appears, Hamlet begs his friends not to speak of it, but he can hear his whispers echoing right back to him and he knows it’s useless. The curiously missing line where Marcellus, Horatio, and Barnardo do finally swear upon Hamlet’s sword isn’t implied to be there as usual. It doesn’t exist. The ghost is only “satiated” by the coming of dawn, even this first, simple wish remains unfulfilled.

Hamlet spends the end of act 1 wavering between a genuine breakdown and an acted portrayal of madness. Pretending shields him from showing legitimate emotion on those screens.

To be or not to be is performed offstage, but on camera. Hamlet seems to think for a moment that he’s truly alone or perhaps it’s all part of the facade. Either way, emotion gets the best of him eventually and he realizes he can’t escape the cameras (or mortality). He comes on stage for get thee to a nunnery, frantically trying to get away from his ever-echoing voice, only to find a spotlight on him. The lines come across as cruel as they are pathetic. Ophelia is also being watched. Ophelia didn’t decide alone to speak to him. In some ways, she has far less privacy than he does, but Hamlet isn’t looking for solidarity in the watched. He wants to be alone. He wants to not be seen.

When he stabs Polonius, Ros & Guil track him down on the cameras. There’s no need to run, but he tries.

The only time Hamlet is truly outside of surveillance is on the ship to England (and then with the sailors who return him to Denmark). Maybe Claudius doesn’t want the world to know he has sent the prince to be executed, but it is clear that he too has lost any real control of this surveillance system. You saw him praying. Or was it a publicity stunt? Hamlet returns and simply tells Horatio (and by proxy, you) what happened on the ship, maybe resentfully. The only time he gets privacy, he doesn’t need it.

By the final scene, he no longer wants not to be seen. He isn’t sure you see him at all. No, you mutes and audience look right through him as if you know infinitely more than him, as if he hasn’t proven that he knows he is a sparrow that will fall. But you know the lines and he doesn’t.

He asks Horatio to tell his story. Maybe there’s something personal about being told a story rather than watching one play out. Maybe you can’t look through a storyteller.

Hamlet canonically knows he’s being watched. He uncovers Ros & Guil’s spy mission in the span of minutes, kills Polonius in the act of spying on him, and comes to mistrust the people around him because almost no one seems to be genuine with him (besides horatio). But it’s not just the characters, it’s the audience. In his darkest moments, he looks out for just a second, almost begging for help, only to discover that no one is coming to his aid. When he tries to exit, the spotlight follows him and so do the cameras. It’s inescapable. When he delivers the “mutes and audience” line, it should be as accusatory as it is pleading. You, the audience, have seen his life projected on massive screens, you’ve heard his every word and whisper, you know him, don’t you? Yes, you know him better than his closest friends. He’s spilled his soul to you because he knows you can’t be escaped, that you, rows upon rows of darkness to this actor blinded by spotlights, are always watching. Will you help? he asks, one final time. The answer is an obvious no, not because you’re heartless but because that’s not why you’re here. You’re here to see a play.

[lizardrosen]

How Is It that the Clouds Still Hang on You

Bridgertons performing Hamlet, part one! This wouldn't have been possible without @glintglimmergleam!

Pre-play, Anthony’s Hamlet is the eternal student, the idle rich somewhere between seventeen and thirty who still doesn’t know what he wants to be when he grows up. First sons really only have one job, and that’s to someday be their fathers; and Hamlet, like Anthony, is sure he’s getting it wrong no matter what he does. Anthony at least has the estate and his younger siblings to look after, but Hamlet only has the vague notion of someday being king, and looking through the script for hints of who Hamlet used to be, Anthony thinks for the first time that the prince must have been lonely even before his father died.

His only recourse was to take nothing seriously and sell himself as the clown of any group, and he usually managed to believe what he was selling and even enjoy himself. When Claudius popped in between the election and his hopes, those hopes curdled inside of him and he started putting up firmer, spikier walls, where before there was only wordplay and multi-layered classics references. (Anthony is actually hopeless at this kind of thing; he had to ask Benedict about “When Roscius was an actor in Rome” and “Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!” but what was he going to do, not make Hamlet a classics nerd??)

Gregory memorizes the roles with the most lines first, of course, so he’s already gotten the bantering rhythm down for playing both halves of a comedy duo attempting to be spies. “My lord, you once did love me” is regret for the distance in age with his oldest brother, and the distance in social status for Rosencrantz and Hamlet. Osric, he unlocks when he decides this vain and silly courtier idolizes both Laertes and Hamlet in much the same way that Gregory looks up to his oldest brothers, so he and Benedict talk about it and come to the conclusion that Laertes might trust Osric enough to ask him to help kill Hamlet, but Osric would never go along with it, which means that in this production Laertes didn’t tell him what he was getting Hamlet into.

Now he has to bring the soldiers on the watchtower to life. He whirls as if to face an unexpected noise, and answers himself rapid-fire.

— Who’s there! — Nay, answer me. Stand and unfold thyself! — Long live the king! — Barnardo? — He.

It’s almost a knock-knock joke but the truth is that no one in this play really knows who’s there or if they can be trusted, and it’s an uncertainty hidden in plain sight right from the opening lines. For this dialogue to work, it has to be two people meeting in the dark and he can’t just play both roles like he does for Ros and Guil.

“Hey, Daphne, my favorite sister, how would you like the second speaking role in Hamlet?”

“Hold still, your collar’s askew, I need to fix it. Only the second role?” she asks. “Not the first?”

“Daaaph, cut it out, my shirt is fine! And Barnardo can pretty much be combined with Marcellus and not much will change because they’re both there to back up Horatio’s story, and he’s there to back up theirs. Francisco’s more like Gertrude, he never gets to see the ghost.”

“Not a mouse stirring,” she quotes. “But he’s wrong about that and so is the queen — there’s so much more stirring in her kingdom than she’ll allow herself to see. Yes, I think you’re right about giving me Francisco. You’ll make a good director for next year’s play.”

“Titus Andronicus?” he asks with a bloodthirsty grin.

“Well, we’ll talk about it.”

At first Francesca has trouble deciding how to distinguish Claudius from his dead brother — are they more alike or more different? No face paint for the ghost, she decides, and in fact they should have almost the exact same costume with perhaps a different colored sash, and it’ll depend on how she carries herself.

Claudius is personable and popular except when he’s alone and the thought of his own sin wraps around his neck, while King Hamlet has forgotten everything but the purgation of his sins, and the vengeance he must see visited on his killer before he may rest. The ghost is not all there, still half in the fires of hell, but he also has a supernatural gravity that snaps all the attention in a room to him. It’s a kind of authority Claudius wishes he could project, but as good at public speaking as he is, he always seems a little bit desperate and out of his depth, so he turns up the charm even more.

Francesca finds what they have in common, too, more than either would care to admit. “Of life, of crown, of queen, at once dispatched” says one; “my crown, mine own ambition, and my queen,” says the other. Both kings save Gertrude for last, which could either mean that she’s an afterthought or that she was the most important thing to lose or gain.

Francesca is a Bridgerton which means she’s a romantic, so she decides it’s the latter. They both just really love their wife, enough to kill a man, enough to tell Hamlet not to contrive against his mother aught, enough to come back from the dead for a few more moments in her bedchamber, enough to send Hamlet away to be executed in England instead of imprisoned in Denmark simply because Gertrude asked.

By the time Claudius gives his speech about marrying Gertrude, Hamlet has a permanent clench to his jaw whenever he’s in public or in the same room as Claudius — that shouldn’t be too hard, says Eloise, since that’s his default expression, and Benedict, who’s probably seen Anthony laugh more than anyone else, has to agree with her. But when he’s left alone, though forbidden to go to Wittenberg, he can at least relax enough to stop trying to hold back the things he shouldn’t say in front of the nobles. “How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable, seem to me all the uses of the world!” is just full of bitter laughter, giving in to the cosmic joke that Nothing Matters. But his aspect changes completely when he sees Horatio, and he picks Hyacinth up to spin her around, even though she’s almost gotten too heavy for that.

Hamlet cannot believe that Horatio would lie to him about a ghost, or tell him anything until he’s sure of what he’s seen, but he still warns himself not to hope too hard, in case nothing comes of it, it’s something he wishes he had not seen. And despite the dull but persistent heartbeat of “nothing matters, nothing matters,” always singing at the back of his head, his father’s spirit does appear, and when Hamlet follows, he learns that there is a meaning — an awful, perfidious one, but still.

So what if he has to kill a man (so what if Anthony had to decide, eleven years ago whether they should try to save his mother or his sister), at least it’s a purpose, and when he wipes clean the tables of his memory he can fall backwards into his prior persona of taking nothing seriously, but now with the bitter armor of actually not caring what happens next.