Play Within a Play and an Actor Within an Actor
Hamlet: A Play Within a Play And An Actor Within An Actor By Eli Piatt When one speaks of the play-within-a-play of William Shakespeare’s, images of Nick Bottom prancing about without a clue, Snout pretending to be a wall, spring readily to the mind, but certainly not of a man slipping poison into his brothers ear, of a Queen taking to her murdered King’s killer. These are images one would see in Shakespeare’s work of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, for that too has a play-within-a-play, although its mirth and enjoyment pale in comparison with that of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The stage, however, is not the only place, is not the only case of acting within acting in Shakespeare’s fictitious Denmark, Hamlet bounds about the imaginary world. ... ” And so begins Hamlet’s life-play in which he is to star, playing the part of an emotional loony-bird in front of his family. ... So if this lunacy of Hamlet’s is contrived it is simply because, as an actor one must get the target audience to believe one is something that one is not. ... ” ---Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1, line 131 In an unseen moment of the play, after Ophelia rejects the love of Hamlet, Hamlet, looking like hell vomited on him, stalks into Ophelia’s room and grabs her roughly by the arm, from there he studies her features in silence and then, sighing like a weeping willow in the wind, departs. ... Act 3, Scene 2, Hamlet has asked the body of actors to perform a certain play for him, The Murder of Gonzago. ... Hamlet hopes that with the performance of this play will stir up feelings of guilt in his uncle and give Hamlet the proof he needs to sever the life cord of his dear uncle/King.