Hamlet--7 (by the mass, i was about to say something)

In Scene One of Act Two, we get the second indication that Ophelia is cool. Before that, though, we see Polonius as both clown and villain. He's sending this guy to go spy on Laertes in France. The idea is that the guy will find someone who knows Laertes and then will say "oh yeah, he's really wild, big into gambling and fencing and whoring and drinking." Then his interlocutor will say "I'll say. Why, yesterday I saw him drunk, betting on a fencing match while having sex with a whore (and playing tennis)." This is clownish because Polonius is so long-winded and he loses his train of thought, gets totally befuddled. This is so good.

Then Ophelia charges in. Hamlet has just been acting crazy in front of her and she's really upset. As Polonius told her to, she's been ignoring him, so then he comes into her room half-naked and stares at her, looks crazy, then does a kind of Exorcist head spinning thing and walks out without looking. This is important. For the first time, Hamlet is really acting nuts, but Shakespeare doesn't show it to us. Instead, he entrusts Ophelia to report it. She does it really well, in what must be a challenging scene for any actress to pull off.

The first time that we see the craziness, we see through someone else's eyes. And then Polonius immediately misinterprets it. He decides that Hamlet is mad for Ophelia's love. So, again, before we see him behaving in this way, we get a report of it and an interpretation of it that we know to be wrong. I think that's interesting.

Here's a bullet point summary of scene two. Tomorrow I'll focus more closely on part of it. Claudius has brought to Denmark two of Hamlet's school friends, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and assigned them to try to cheer Hamlet up and to spy on him. They agree. The guys who were sent to Norway about Fortinbras come back and report that all's cool now, and Fortinbras, chided, is going to attack the Polacks (Shakespeare's word, not mine) instead. Polonius tells Claudius and Gertrude that Hamlet is crazy because of Ophelia and they hatch a plan to throw the two together and observe them. Hamlet shows up, Polonius tries to talk to him, Hamlet ridicules him in a kind of crazy way, but with method. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern show up, getting Polonius out of an embarrassing encounter. Hamlet's glad to see them. He knows they're spies and tells them so. Hamlet's favorite band of actors from Wittenberg show up at the castle to perform. Hamlet has them do a quick scene and commissions a play that is very like how he knows Claudius killed Old Hamlet. Exeunt except Hamlet, who berates himself for staying pretty cool, compared to a player who weeps for Hecuba.