No one can seem to make up my mind about it. People debate, scholars pontificate, directors interpret but there is no consensus…

Does Hamlet know Polonius and Claudius are listening in?

Specifically, when he’s delivering the “To be or not to be” speech. Or does he figure it out later in the scene. If so, when?

I’ve heard it argued that Hamlet knows that Polonius is a crafty spy (he employs Reynaldo to keep track of Laertes’ actions in France) so Hamlet might suspect that Polonius is watching, or maybe overhears the previous conversation about the plan to plant Ophelia there. But this would mean that the soliloquy is not a soliloquy at all. He’s “acting crazy” for the unseen old men.

The alternative is that Hamlet doesn’t know they’re there and he delivers to the audience some of his thoughts on death. I feel that the speech loses something if it’s Hamlet acting for the hidden auditors. It seems to me that if Hamlet realized it later on in the scene — sometime before “where is your father” — it would be more dramatic.

So what do you think? Does Hamlet know he’s being watched from the start, or does he realize it later? And what evidence do you have in the text? In performance it could probably work either way and still be interesting.

Discuss!

Guess who hasn’t blogged much lately? Me. It’s a busy time of year, I need to get better organized so I have time to post. I don’t usually do this, but I think I’ll update you on my theatre-related endeavors. And in case you were wondering, the title is meant to be the same as the song in Les Miserables. I saw a production of the show last night. Quite good.

The last you heard of my life I was playing Feste in a production of Twelfth Night. That ended rather quickly, but it was a wonderful role. I just finished this past weekend playing Jack in The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. I spend so much time with Shakespeare, I almost get confused when there’s no meter to the text. Feste, in fact, only speaks in prose as well. I need to remember that not everyone is in verse. Studying Shakespeare has so much to do with his verse, we can’t forget to acknowledge the prose!

Starting this week I’ll be dialect coaching a production of Our Town, and concurrently sitting in on a production of As You Like It, not really with any assigned job, but I’ll be hanging out with the Voice/Text coach and I’ll help out if I can, of course.

It’s been pretty non-stop for me this summer and these two shows open in October… so I’ll be busy till then. I’ve been trying to do a little more reading in my few moments of spare time with limited success. There are some books I’d like to discuss here. I’ve got a few product reviews to write up and post here that are long overdue. I’ll do my best to post those along with any other insights or questions I come up with.

My organizational skills are really being tested right now with the things I mentioned and much more. And now I have work to do. That’s all from me for now!

It’s that time again! Let’s see what the month brought in. Feel free to explore some blogs you haven’t seen before. Thanks to everyone who submitted and thanks to any and all readers! Remember to keep those submissions coming. I want to see a big carnival next month!