First of all, know that I'm working on some sweet stuff for my paper, and expect to see that post in the next couple of days, because I need some input. But for this post:
I was with my brother the other night, and somehow it came up that he had never read or seen Hamlet. I don't know why I was so shocked; I'm sure a lot of the intelligent world is in the same boat. With him, though, I had to fill this hole right away. So, I preceded to give my own summary of the play, complete with great voices, and motions. I thought of our learning outcome of sharing Shakespeare. While it's a shame you can't all see me jumping around, I think I'll write out the gist of it here. I think it shows my biases nicely.
So, there's this guy named Hamlet. He's the prince of Denmark. His dad (the king) died 2 months ago. His mom has since married his uncle, and he's always all, "Ew, ya sickos!!" And "how can I live??" and that kind of thing. Basically, he's a 30-year-old that doesn't like his new daddy. Then the ghost of his real father comes to visit. He's very "Ooooooo, remmmmeeemmbbbeerrrr mmeeeee...." He tells Hamlet he was actually killed by his uncle-now-daddy Claudius. He poured poison in his ear.
Interjection from Tyler: His ear? Seriously.
Me continuing: The ear. Anyway, so Hamlet's all, "now I have justification to do something! . . . but what?" The ghost just says, "don't hurt mom; God'll take care of that one." Hamlet decides acting crazy is the best way to go. So then the players come.
Tyler: Hah.
Me: Like the theatre actor ones. Hamlet has them put on a play eerily similar to the current family situation. Claudius uncle-dad looks pretty guilty. Hamlet's like, "I knew it!" even though he already knew it. He's going to kill him this one time, but he's confessing, and so he waits. Naturally.
Tyler: Uh-huh.
Me: Okay, skipping forward. So, Laertes is mad that Hamlet killed his father.
Tyler: What?
Me: Oh, right. So Polonius is spying on Hamlet behind a tapestry, and Hamlet realizes someone's there, yells that he smells a rat, and throws a dagger in him. Then he realizes who it is and he's like... well dang. Anyway, so there's a duel! So Laertes has a poisoned dagger. And Claudius is trying to send Hamlet poisoned wine. But Hamlet's mom-aunt takes it and says she's thirsty and drinks it, so they'll have to forgive her. So she's dead. And in the end, Hamlet gives Laertes a mortal blow, and Hamlet dies slowly of poison. Oh yeah, and Ophelia commits suicide. Hamlet liked her.
And that's basically how it went. So, the question is: does it ruin the story to have it told like this, or is it an effective way to give people an "in" into Shakespeare?
I liked what you stated! It was funny, but at the same time you covered all the major points for him to follow. I think that gives him a small foundation for the storyline. When he does eventually read the play or watch the play then he can focus on the character interaction and the emotion more than trying to understand just what is going on. :)
ReplyDeleteI agree, you gave him the basic story, and that's all that matters. He's probably even more interested because you made it funny instead of super depressing like the actual play is...
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