Perform Hamlet Act I scene 2

      PREPARE ACTING NOTES AND THEN PERFORM THIS SCENE

      Come up with acting notes in preparation to perform this scene.

·         Be ready to explain your choices afterwards (or before).

·         Perform the scene on video or in front of the class.

·         Explain your acting choices.

 

 KING CLAUDIUS       outline your performance choices for each line and why. Refer to films.

Take thy fair hour, Laertes; time be thine,
And thy best graces spend it at thy will!
But now, my cousin Hamlet, and my son,--

HAMLET

[Aside] A little more than kin, and less than kind.

KING CLAUDIUS

àHow is it that the clouds still hang on you?  [Aggressive? Kind? ]

HAMLET

Not so, my lord; I am too much i' the sun.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

àGood Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLET

Ay, madam, it is common.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

If it be,
Why seems it so particular with thee?

HAMLET

àSeems, madam! nay it is; I know not 'seems.'   [Offended? Bitter? Funny?]
'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,
Nor customary suits of solemn black,
Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,
No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,
Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage,
Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,
That can denote me truly: these indeed seem,
For they are actions that a man might play:
But I have that within which passeth show;
These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING CLAUDIUS

à'Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,    [deceptive but cheerful? Aggressive?]
To give these mourning duties to your father:
But, you must know, your father lost a father;
That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound
In filial obligation for some term
To do obsequious sorrow: but to persever
In obstinate condolement is a course
Of impious stubbornness; 'tis unmanly grief;   [aggressive? Nicely? ]
It shows a will most incorrect to heaven,
A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,
An understanding simple and unschool'd:
For what we know must be and is as common
As any the most vulgar thing to sense,
Why should we in our peevish opposition
Take it to heart? Fie! 'tis a fault to heaven,
A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,
To reason most absurd: whose common theme
Is death of fathers, and who still hath cried,
From the first corse till he that died to-day,
'This must be so.' We pray you, throw to earth
This unprevailing woe, and think of us
As of a father: for let the world take note,
You are the most immediate to our throne;
And with no less nobility of love
Than that which dearest father bears his son,
Do I impart toward you. For your intent
In going back to school in Wittenberg,
It is most retrograde to our desire:
And we beseech you, bend you to remain
Here, in the cheer and comfort of our eye,
Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

QUEEN GERTRUDE

àLet not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg.         [How? Commanding? Pleading? Tender?]

HAMLET

àI shall in all my best obey you, madam.      [How to act this? Submissive? Resentful? Beaten?]

KING CLAUDIUS

àWhy, 'tis a loving and a fair reply:   [Sarcastic? Satisfied? Conciliatory? Barbed?]
Be as ourself in Denmark. Madam, come;
This gentle and unforced accord of Hamlet  [facetious? Sincere? ]
Sits smiling to my heart: in grace whereof,
No jocund health that Denmark drinks to-day,
But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,
And the king's rouse the heavens all bruit again,
Re-speaking earthly thunder. Come away.

·         Come up with acting notes in preparation to perform this scene.

·         Be ready to explain your choices afterwards (or before).

·         Perform the scene on video or in front of the class.

·         Explain your acting choices.