Hamlet is one of the most memorable roles ever to establish the Shakespearean plays as challenging from the get-go. Not everyone is willing to take the risk in inhabiting this role, whether straight play, musical or opera (yes, the opera version was by French composer Ambroise Thomas).

What is the play Hamlet all about? Its full title is actually “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark”. The tragedy pertained to is the vengeance that Hamlet plotted on his own uncle, Claudius, whom he suspected of killing his father, King Hamlet, in order to seize the throne and marry his widow, Gertrude.

Where did he get this idea? The 2009 version aired on BBC shows Hamlet seeing the ghost of his father. Here, King Hamlet tells his son how he actually died. He was poisoned by his brother after seducing and corrupting his wife. It was this act of treachery that would not put his spirit at peace, summoning his son to avenge his death. It’s quite different from some versions where the ghost would appear to Horatio, Hamlet’s confidante, and other guards and would demand vengeance as well only for Hamlet himself to go to that same spot and see the ghost.

Could it be that the ghost’s appearance was so timely – at the time that Hamlet is halfway through madness? At the banquet that Claudius and Gertrude hosted, Hamlet was the only one wearing black. And Hamlet could only state the obvious. King Hamlet just died and Claudius rushed in to marry the widowed queen. It was as if she’s so afraid to return to her bed alone.

It also shattered Hamlet’s view on women so much that he started pushing Ophelia away from him, afraid that she will betray him too right after his death. If madness can be diagnosed as something contagious then it applies on Ophelia although her madness would go much later.

The main difference in the BBC version? An attempt at modernity. As you may have realized, the CCTV installed in the palace served as a plot device to present the ghost as a “ghost” that cannot be captured on camera and to record Hamlet’s descent into madness.

It gave Hamlet the idea that he’s some lab rat subjected to scrutiny by everyone including Ophelia’s father. Sometimes it comes across as an attempt to speed up the narration here and focus on the madness instead. It’s the version that served as contrast to Kenneth Branagh’s version.

The Shakespearean purists enjoyed Branagh’s version – the 1996 version that he directed with him donning the titular role of Hamlet. Realizing how multi-layered this play could ever get, he tried to balance the presentation of Hamlet’s madness and the court intrigue. It makes you question too if Hamlet is really mad or everyone in the palace just refuses to address the awkwardness of the situation between Claudius and Gertrude.

Have you ever felt like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern? No need to pretend to understand Hamlet when in fact you don’t. Some men find comfort in listening to their own understanding of the world. And you realize the difficulty in portraying a man this crazy. The craziest people in the world are the folks that are least aware of the levels of insanity that they have plunged into.

If Hamlet is not crazy, what does he think he is? If Branagh’s version is to be viewed, Hamlet views himself as a philosopher – one with depressing view of the world. So depressing that it seems as if he’s just speaking just to watch the people around him react. For a mind so messed up, he’d like to mess up everyone’s minds as well. Otherwise, there won’t be rapid cuts to the facial expressions displaying the reactions to whatever Hamlet says.

It’s the least that he can do because he can’t bring himself to kill his uncle. He is not even sure if the ghost that talked to him is really his father’s ghost. What is left for him to do? Spit invective quotes and suspect everyone, including Ophelia, of whatever he could manage to accuse them of.

Excuses, excuses. It’s the kind of performance that made the line “To be or not to be” credible if Hamlet’s indecisiveness is to be identified. Hamlet is a character that is too messed up in the head to even take action into his plans. And it’s also the kind of multi-layered prose that placed immense pressure on actors to deliver them right. In other words, challenge accepted since I will be playing Hamlet in February at DITO Marikina.

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