Notes

The review I am writing is about the play Shakespeare's Hamlet
the play is about a young prince named Hamlet whose father, the king is murdered. The play is set in Elsinore, Denmark in and around the royal palace, in the 14th and 15th centuries. This story is a wonderful revenge tragedy. I like these kinds of plays as they are thrilling as well as mysterious as you want to find out how does thew protagonist take revenge on the villain. Use of the space was great, the actors were well placed and the main characters in every scene were downstage and closer to the audience and the supporting characters were upstage. Tension was closely linked with timing, whenever any character wanted to show tension, the time of the gestures and movements increase. The thrilling parts or fighting scenes usually had more pace than the other scenes. For example, there is a scene where Hamlet is in tension whether the ghost was real or not, should he listen to him or not? Hamlet's actor shows this tension by pacing around the stage depicting he is thinking of a plan to find about the murder. The plot grows as the guards see a ghost of the king and inform Hamlet. Hamlet sets of to find what the ghost wants. The ghost tells him about his murder and Hamlet falls in deep thought. At last, Hamlet then devotes himself to avenging his father’s death, but, because he is thoughtful by nature, he delays, entering into a deeply saddening state and madness. He then finds a way to locate his father's murderer and avenge his death. The representation of the characters was well done by the actor. I think the best role was played by the actor who played Claudius. The way he represented Claudius' character was extremely realistic. Many of the characters were shown in great depth. Some of the moments I liked were the fighting scenes, the one where Hamlet fights Laertes specifically. Other things i liked were the cunning way in which Hamlet found out his father's murderer. In the end, I was a little disappointed as I liked Hamlet and didn't want him to die. I wanted him to become the new ruler and with his cunningness and courage. In the play, there were only a few interactions with the audience like the soliloquy Hamlet speaks in Act 1 scene 2, other than that the play was really interesting and kept me as an audience, active.