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TEACHER PACK - HAMLET OR NOT 1 Contents 1. William Shakespeare 2. Hamlet - Tragedy of Tragedies 3. Characters 4. Key moments 5. The tradition of revenge tragedy 6. The act of acting - Playing Hamlet 7. Ideas for practical work 8. Exploring the ghost story 9. Exploring the everyday objects 10. Exploring the relationship with his best friend Horatio 11. Biography and further reading 12. Theatre glossary

TEACHER PACK - HAMLET OR NOT · TEACHER PACK - HAMLET OR NOT 6 2. Hamlet - Tragedy of Tragedies An introduction Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the most famous plays in the world

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Page 1: TEACHER PACK - HAMLET OR NOT · TEACHER PACK - HAMLET OR NOT 6 2. Hamlet - Tragedy of Tragedies An introduction Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the most famous plays in the world

TEACHER PACK - HAMLET OR NOT

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Contents

1. William Shakespeare

2. Hamlet - Tragedy of Tragedies

3. Characters

4. Key moments

5. The tradition of revenge tragedy

6. The act of acting - Playing Hamlet

7. Ideas for practical work

8. Exploring the ghost story

9. Exploring the everyday objects

10. Exploring the relationship with his best friend Horatio

11. Biography and further reading

12. Theatre glossary

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1. William Shakespeare

Shakespeare would probably be amazed

that you are studying one of his plays in

school over 400 years after his death. He

did not write his plays to be read, he

wrote them to be performed. When he

wrote, he expected a company of skilful

actors to interpret and perform his play

for an audience to listen to and watch.

A brief biography

Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-

Avon in 1564 and died there in 1616 aged

52. There is no exact record of the date of

his birth, only a record of his baptism,

which was on April 26th 1564. His birthday is anecdotally celebrated on

April 23rd, the day of the traditional English festival of St George.

He was the son of John Shakespeare, who was an alderman (similar to a

local councilor) and Mary Arden who was the daughter of a local farmer,

and he was the third of eight children. He went to the local grammar school

where he learnt Latin and classics, and in November 1582 at the age of 18

married Anne Hathaway. She was 26 and apparently the marriage

happened in haste – perhaps because their daughter Susanna was born just

six months after. Two years later in 1585, they had twins, Hamnet and

Judith.

Between 1585 and 1592, there are no records of what Shakespeare was

doing and some scholars have called these “the lost years”. Perhaps he

went to London and worked as a stable hand for theatre owners to try and

get into theatre; perhaps he worked as a school teacher; perhaps he fled

Stratford and disappeared into the city of London because he had been

poaching deer from the local landowner.

However in 1592, the first traces of his work in the London stage start to

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appear and, from then until around 1614, scholars think he lived mainly in

London, writing and acting with his company of players. After that, he

probably retired to Stratford, where he could by then afford one of the most

expensive houses in the town. He died there in 1616. His son Hamnet had

died aged 11, and neither of his two daughters children married. So the

Shakespeare line of descendents died when his grandchildren died.

In his will, he famously left his wife Anne his second best bed, though

nobody knows if this was an insult or an act of love. Sometimes people

would have saved their “best” bed for their guests, meaning that the second

best bed would have been the Shakespeare’s marriage bed and therefore a

gift with great sentimental value. Like so many things in Shakespeare’s

life, we do not really know, and can only speculate and make up our own

version of what we think is true...

Prose and verse

Most of the time, he wrote blank verse - verse where the ends of the lines

do not rhyme. So what makes it a verse? It has a rhythm. Normally there

are ten syllables in every line. Shakespeare wrote the lines to be spoken

with the stress on every second syllable.

Theatre was popular in Shakespeare's time

Shakespeare was the most successful playwright of his era, but there

was plenty of demand for new plays from other playwrights such as

Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Kyd.

The first successful theatres in London were built in the 1570s. Plays

attracted large crowds, including the wealthiest in society.

The theatre wasn't just for rich people - Shakespeare's audiences

included servants and labourers. The poorer people in the audience

stood in front of the stage - if it rained, the got wet.

There was no electricity, so most plays were put on during the day.

There wasn't much staging and sets were basic so they could be

adapted easily to show several different plays.

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Shakespeare's plays Shakespeare wrote 38 plays, between 1589 and 1613. Again, there has been

a lot of scholarly research around whether he was really the author of these

plays, whether he worked in collaboration with others, and whether there

were other plays he wrote that have not been recorded.

Shakespeare staged his plays at the Globe Theatre

Shakespeare's theatre company performed at the Globe Theatre in London.

This is what it might have looked like

The members of the audience who could afford a seat, sat in tiers of stalls

that created a full round amphitheatre, completed with the tiring house.

Groundlings were the poorer people, who stood in the pit close to the stage

for the performance. The tiring house was a backstage area where the

actors dressed and rested, and then entered the stage through the two doors

at the front. There were possibilities of using different levels in the Globe –

the stage, where most of the action would have happened, but also the

upper floor in the tiring house, which would have been useful for scenes

like the famous balcony scene in Romeo and Juliet, and also the under

stage space. Using a trap door, things could appear or disappear from the

stage, for example, the gravediggers may have used the trap door as

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Ophelia’s grave, into which Laertes and Hamlet leap and fight. Knowing

that an actor could literally get under the stage gives a bit of a theatrical in-

joke to the scene.

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2. Hamlet - Tragedy of Tragedies

An introduction

Shakespeare’s Hamlet is one of the most famous plays in the world. It has

been translated and performed all over the world, on stage and on screen.

Quotations from the play have become embedded in the language we use

today: “neither a borrower nor a lender be”, “suit the action to the word, the

word to the action”, “to be or not to be”, “the lady doth protest too much

methinks” - all came from Hamlet. It has been a major influence on culture

and on literature, from numerous critical studies, to new plays and stories

based on the characters. And, for an actor, young Hamlet is a part that

everyone seems to aspire to play.

The play was written sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is difficult to

say precisely when, because publishing worked in a very different way

then. It was not as easy as simply typing, printing and copying; all the texts

would have been written by hand.

Shakespeare may have been inspired to write Hamlet after the death of

his only son in 1596. His son’s name was Hamnet and he was 11 years

old at the time of his death.

Hamlet is Shakespeare’s longest play with 4,042 lines and up to five

hours of running time (but not in our version of the play).

Hamlet is the second most filmed story in the world, coming second

only to Cinderella.

Hamlet was the most popular work during Shakespeare’s own time

and has remained his most produced play to this day.

Disney’s The Lion King is an adaptation of Hamlet.

It is belived that Shakespare appeared in the play as the

Ghost at the Globe

The Queen marries her dead husband‘s brother,

Claudius, soon after he dies. Hamlet, the Queen‘s son,

is very upset about it.

Hamlet meets the ghost of his father who tells him that

it was his Uncle Claudius who killed him. The ghost

asks Hamlet to take revenge.

Hamlet gets some actors who visit the castle to play

the murder of his father. The actor playing Hamlet‘s

father is asleep and he is killed by poison being poured

into his ear. The new King Claudius stops the play as

the actor King dies.

Hamlet goes to speak to his mother. Polonius, the

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Also, Hamlet is the most produced play in the world. It has been

estimated that Hamlet is being performed somewhere every single

minute of every single day.

It is believed that Shakespeare played the Ghost in Hamlet when it

was first performed at the Globe.

Shakespeare advertises his own work in the play. When Polonius

interrupts the players and proclaims that he enacted Julius Caesar

and was “accounted a good actor” in Act 3 scene 2, he is reminding

the audience that he will soon be starring in Shakespeare’s

production of Julius Caesar.

At the end of every play performed at the Globe, four dancers, two

dressed as women, would perform an upbeat, bawdy song and dance

routine called a jig – even if the play was a tragedy like Hamlet.

The castle in which the play is set really exists. It is called Kronborg

Castle and was built in the Danish port of Helsingør in 1420s by the

Danish king, Eric of Pomerania.

Synopsis

This is a synopsis of Hamlet in its complete written form. To perform the

whole of Hamlet uncut would take about 4 and a half hours. Some

practitioners, like Peter Brook with Qui Est Là, Robert Wilson with

Hamlet: a Monologue, and Robert Lepage with Elsinore have cut, spliced

and added to the play so it was almost unrecognisable. In this version,

Hamlet or not (75 minutes), some cuts have been made.

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3. CHARACTERS

The Older Generation The Ghost of King Hamlet

Hamlet’s father, the former King of Denmark, who was murdered whilst

sleeping in his orchard and returns from the grave to demand revenge

Queen Gertrude

Hamlet’s mother, former wife of King Hamlet, who has retained her role as

Queen of Denmark by marrying her former brother-in-law Claudius

Polonius

Father of Laertes and Ophelia, and an advisor to the King

The Younger Generation Prince Hamlet

Son of Hamlet and Gertrude, and heir to the throne; a former student at

Wittenburg University, now remaining at Elsinore

Horatio

Hamlet’s best friend, also a student at Wittenburg

Laertes

Brother of Ophelia and son of Polonious; studying in Paris

Ophelia

Sister of Laertes and daughter of Polonius; possible lover or confident of

Hamlet

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Childhood friends of Hamlet

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Other Characters - The Players

A troupe of actors who arrive at Court to present their plays

Reynaldo

A servant from Polonius’ retinue – in Shakespeare’s time, noblemen like

Polonius would have had an entourage of men who were paid to be in

service to them

Osric

A servant in the King’s retinue

Gravedigger

An old man, outside the jurisdiction of the Court, who has been a sexton

for 23 years, and whose job would be to maintain and look after the

buildings and grounds of the church

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4. Key moments

A ghost has been seen on the roof of the castle at night. Two

guards and Hamlet‘s friend are looking out for it at midnight.

The Queen marries her dead husband‘s brother,

Claudius, soon after he dies. Hamlet, the Queen‘s son,

is very upset about it.

Hamlet meets the ghost of his father who tells him that

it was his Uncle Claudius who killed him. The ghost

asks Hamlet to take revenge.

Hamlet gets some actors who visit the castle to play

the murder of his father. The actor playing Hamlet‘s

father is asleep and he is killed by poison being poured

into his ear. The new King Claudius stops the play as

the actor King dies.

Hamlet goes to speak to his mother. Polonius, the

King‘s advisor, is hiding to hear what he says.

Polonius makes a noise. Hamlet thinks he is King

Claudius and kills him in his hiding place through a

curtain.

The Queen marries her dead husband‘s brother, Claudius, soon after

he dies. Hamlet, the Queen‘s son, is very upset about it.

The Queen marries her dead husband‘s brother,

Claudius, soon after he dies. Hamlet, the Queen‘s son,

is very upset about it.

Hamlet meets the ghost of his father who tells him that

it was his Uncle Claudius who killed him. The ghost

asks Hamlet to take revenge.

Hamlet gets some actors who visit the castle to play

the murder of his father. The actor playing Hamlet‘s

father is asleep and he is killed by poison being poured

into his ear. The new King Claudius stops the play as

the actor King dies.

Hamlet goes to speak to his mother. Polonius, the

King‘s advisor, is hiding to hear what he says.

Polonius makes a noise. Hamlet thinks he is King

Claudius and kills him in his hiding place through a

curtain.

Hamlet meets the ghost of his father who tells him that it was his

uncle Claudius who killed him. The ghost asks Hamlet to take

revenge.

The Queen marries her dead husband‘s brother,

Claudius, soon after he dies. Hamlet, the Queen‘s son,

is very upset about it.

Hamlet meets the ghost of his father who tells him that

it was his Uncle Claudius who killed him. The ghost

asks Hamlet to take revenge.

Hamlet gets some actors who visit the castle to play

the murder of his father. The actor playing Hamlet‘s

father is asleep and he is killed by poison being poured

into his ear. The new King Claudius stops the play as

the actor King dies.

Hamlet goes to speak to his mother. Polonius, the

King‘s advisor, is hiding to hear what he says.

Polonius makes a noise. Hamlet thinks he is King

Claudius and kills him in his hiding place through a

curtain.

Hamlet gets some actors who visit the castle to play the murder of his

father. The actor playing Hamlet‘s father is asleep and he is killed by

poison being poured into his ear. The new King Claudius stops the

play as the actor King dies.

The Queen marries her dead husband‘s brother,

Claudius, soon after he dies. Hamlet, the Queen‘s son,

is very upset about it.

Hamlet meets the ghost of his father who tells him that

it was his Uncle Claudius who killed him. The ghost

asks Hamlet to take revenge.

Hamlet gets some actors who visit the castle to play

the murder of his father. The actor playing Hamlet‘s

father is asleep and he is killed by poison being

poured into his ear. The new King Claudius stops the

play as the actor King dies.

Hamlet goes to speak to his mother. Polonius, the

King‘s advisor, is hiding to hear what he says.

Hamlet goes to speak to his mother. Polonius, the King‘s advisor, is

hiding to hear what he says. Polonius makes a noise. Hamlet thinks

he is King Claudius and kills him in his hiding place through a

curtain.

The Queen marries her dead husband‘s brother,

Claudius, soon after he dies. Hamlet, the Queen‘s son,

is very upset about it.

Hamlet meets the ghost of his father who tells him that

it was his Uncle Claudius who killed him. The ghost

asks Hamlet to take revenge.

Hamlet gets some actors who visit the castle to play

the murder of his father. The actor playing Hamlet‘s

father is asleep and he is killed by poison being

poured into his ear. The new King Claudius stops the

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5. The tradition of revenge tragedy

Hamlet can loosely be said to belong to a theatrical genre known as

revenge tragedy. It was immensely popular in Elizabethan theatre from

around the 1580’s to the 1640’s and tended to always include similar

elements: a wronged avenger, ghosts, murders, madness, disguise, a play-

within-a-play, plotting, suspense, intrigue, and grisly crescendo of on-stage

violence.

Scholars believe that these tragedies were initially influenced by the

Roman playwright and philosopher Seneca whose works from the 1st

Century AD started to be translated and performed in 16th Century

England. The most popular were based on Greek mythical stories and

characters, for example, Thyestes (who ate his own children), Medea (who

killed her own children) and Agamemnon (who was murdered by his

wife’s lover). They were large scale, spectacular performances in which

passions and stakes ran sky high. Similarly, it is sometimes thought that

Italian novella being translated at the time also influenced revenge tragedy

with their tales of Machiavellian villains, of sexual deceit and bloody

vendettas. Other scholars also chart the influence of the medieval tradition

of contemptus mundi on the genre of revenge tragedy. This means

“contempt of the world” and was a tradition preoccupied with the

ephemerality of our mortal lives, the split between the flesh and the spirit,

and the inevitability of death. The image of the memento mori – a man

holding a skull as he contemplates death – was the emblem of this.

Why was it so popular? The Elizabethan period was a time of great change in English history –

society was shifting from the Medieval period, with its codes of private

revenge, into the new Tudor era, with the construction of a sense of

statehood and new centralised codes of law and order. There was an

accompanying shift in the idea of justice. The private code of vengeance,

when individuals and families had used violence to settle their own

grievances, was being replaced by an emerging, organised system of law.

Perhaps revenge tragedy was so popular at this time because the public

needed a place to think about, maybe even to mourn, the passing of the old

ways of social organisation and understanding into the new ways.

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Hamlet - Shakespeare’s response Whether this was the case or not, it was out of this increasingly popular

genre that Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. The storyline was probably not

original – after The Spanish Tragedy, Kyd is believed to have written a

play called Ur-Hamlet, based on a legend called Amleth. No copies of this

play survive, but the King’s men probably bought the text from Kyd and

performed it before Shakespeare then reworked it into this new version:

The Tragica Story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.

But Hamlet, unlike earlier revenging protagonists, really wrestles with the

problem of revenge. He is a complex, psychologically real man forced into

an extra-ordinary and super-natural situation. Hamlet feels the weight of

his father’s indictment and knows what custom demands of him, but his

individual sense of morality and ethics and his own intellectual rigour,

make him question those demands. So, in some ways, Hamlet the avenger

is an emblem of a clash between an old and a new world order.

Madness & Melancholy Hamlet’s madness is a much debated element of the play, especially the

question of whether his madness is “real” or feigned. But as Polonius tells

us “to define true madness, / What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?”

We can never fully get inside the mind of another, and never fully

understand the unbearable pressures of a man in Hamlet’s position;

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behaviour that may look “mad” from an outside perspective may appear

entirely logical and sensible inside the mind of a “madman”. Also, there is

an accepted social code that labels what it is to be rational, sane and within

the boundaries of “normal”; if a person chooses to flout those conventions,

does it necessarily made him or her mad? Hamlet is certainly an expert in

flouting social mores and conventions, and at Elsinore - especially after the

ghost has appeared and revealed the truth under the veneer - perhaps he has

good, sane reasons to.

In Elizabethan thought, an individual’s emotions, behaviours and health

were understood to be affected by a number of internal and external causes,

notably the balance of bodily fluids inside her or him. The four liquids

were black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and water. When the four were well

balanced, the individual was healthy, effective and optimally functioning;

when they were out of balance, the result was illness, including mental

illness. Black bile was the substance thought to be responsible for

melancholia, so an excess of black bile might have been understood as the

physical cause of depression and mental ill health.

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The following chart shows the four humours with the

corresponding qualities, characteristics, elements, and organs

where the fluid was produced:

Hamlet shows qualities of a man with too much black bile, despondent,

sleepless and irritable; a melancholic, or a man suffering melancholy.

Those with a severe imbalance who went “mad”, might have been unlucky

enough to end up in Bedlam. Bedlam was a notorious institution for the

mentally ill that was a fixture in London from the 13th Century onwards –

a hospital where abuse, appalling conditions, and forced incarceration were

the norm. The playwright Nathaniel Lee ,who lived in the mid-late 1600’s,

was in Bedlam for five years, and famously reported that “They called me

mad, and I called them mad, and damn them, they outvoted me”.

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6. The act of acting - Playing Hamlet

Hamlet, as many of Shakespeare’s plays, is full of references to actors and

acting. In many ways, this reflects how the theatre of the day functioned.

While theatre today often reinforces a division between the audience and

the performers – with the audience often sitting in silence in the dark while

the actors “act” and pretend not to see them - in a theatre like The Globe

there was much less of a division. Plays were performed in the daytime,

without lighting or elaborate technology, and without the rules of an

audience having to arrive or leave on time. Actors and audience could

clearly see and respond to each other. Shakespeare’s plays acknowledge the

presence of this audience; they are self-conscious and delight in playing

around with their own theatrical conventions.

Playing Hamlet is a rite of passage for the younger actor and has been

described as “the supreme test for a performer in the earlier half of his

career”.

The experience must be a daunting one, not only because of the weight of

historical tradition on the actor’s shoulders, but also because the part

demands a brutal honesty.

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7. Ideas for practical work

Claudius’s Court - Act 1 Scene 2

A Space Exploration: This is an exploration which shows how much you can say simply by

where you choose to place yourself in space.

Define a large playing space. Have one person enter the space and take up a

position somewhere. Then a second person goes into the space and takes up

a position. The first person moves and then second person responds, and so

on, like a silent conversation. Think about the middle, the edges, the

corners, a low to the ground position, a far-away position, a high-up

position. Without there having been any intentions set, see what stories and

relationships start to emerge.

Build an image of the court based on your discoveries.

Act 3, Scene 1

To be, or not to be

Work in groups to think about the speech. Read the speech out loud

with each person reading a line. Read it again and change readers

when there is a punctuation mark, comma, dash, full stop. Which are

the words or phrases that jump out for you? Create a version of the

speech just based on those words. Discuss the imagery that Hamlet is

using. What is the effect of these images of war and combat? What

does it tell you about Hamlet’s state of mind?

Translate each sentence into modern day language. Try delivering

the speech “to yourself” and then to an audience member. What are

the differences? Read the monologue really focusing on the blank

verse. Blank verse, or iambic pentameter, has five feet or iambs of an

unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable

-de DUM, de DUM, de DUM, de DUM, de DUM

Look for where Shakespeare keeps this rhythm clean and where he

shifts the rhythm. What effect does it have to shift the rhythm?

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Act 3, Scene 1 - Ophelia & Hamlet

Investigate the relationship of Hamlet and Ophelia. Think about what has happened between Hamlet and Ophelia before

this scene. What do we know from the text has happened between

them? Look at Act 1 scene 2, when Laertes and Polonius were giving

advice to her about Hamlet, and remember Act 2 scene 1 when she

reported Hamlet’s “mad” visit to her room.

Make a list of the facts around their relationship and the questions:

for example, FACT: she has at some point received “remembrances”

from Hamlet which she has “longed long to re-deliver”, but

QUESTION: what are they, and when and under what circumstances

did he give them to her?

Improvise a scene before the start of the play, between Hamlet and

Ophelia, perhaps when she received these remembrances.

Improvise the scene when Hamlet visits Ophelia in her chamber and

behaves “madly”.

Read the duologue in pairs. Find out the meaning of any words you

don’t know, and establish what they are each saying to the other with

each sentence.

In this duologue, Ophelia has been ordered by her father to break up

with Hamlet, and she knows her father is watching the exchange.

Does she let on? Does Hamlet know he is being watched? At what

point does he realise? What difference does it make to how he

behaves? Try different versions of the scene, where Hamlet knows

he is being watched, where he does not know he is being watched,

where Ophelia is trying to tell him that he is being watched. See

what differences they make.

What do you think about their relationship, and about how Hamlet

treats Ophelia?

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Act 3, Scene 4

The Closest Scene The closest scene between Hamlet and Gertrude is when Hamlet confronts

his mother about her remarriage to Claudius and reveals that her former

husband did not die accidentally as she believed, but was murdered. It is

also Gertrude’s chance, spurred on by Polonius, to get to the bottom of

Hamlet’s behaviour and so save him from the measured punishment of

Claudius.

The scene opens with the lines:

HAMLET

Now, mother, what’s the matter?

QUEEN

Hamlet, you have insulted your father.

HAMLET

Mother, you have insulted my father.

QUEEN

Come, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLET

Go, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

What is the effect of the rhythm of these lines? Hamlet takes what his

mother says and turns it back on her. What does it tell you about how he is

feeling, and about the relationship between Hamlet and his mother?

Just a scene before, Hamlet had the opportunity to kill Claudius and get his

revenge. Now, he kills Polonius behind the arras. Why didn’t he kill

Claudius then and why does he kill Polonius now? Think about the

emotional motives of Hamlet. What does this say about his state of mind?

Read the scene. Think about the contrasts that Hamlet sets up between his

father and his uncle. How were these two men different? What is Hamlet’s

argument to his mother? Think about Gertrude’s response – how are

Hamlet’s words affecting her?

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8. Exploring the ghost story

For a Renaissance audience the appearance of the ghost would have been a

strong signal of a malevolent force. For many people the ghost would

represent a devil figure. For a modern audience our relationship with ghosts

is more ambivalent but the ghost is an unusual occurrence. Creating a ghost

on stage that can be taken seriously but is obviously different from the

living characters is a challenge. Without lights this is even more difficult.

Tarell and the actors have chosen one sound which represents the ghost.

Hamlet‘s father also moves very slowly in contrast to the rest of the

characters. In this activity your students will explore how to stage the ghost

using sound and movement, together with the text used when the ghost first

appears. You might want to allow the groups to use some minimal costume

or a representative costume such as a mask or a cloak in this activity, and

you might want to have some percussion instruments available. The

activity breaks into several sections. You can do as much or as little as you

choose with your group.

Soundscaping the Battlements Ask the group to form a circle

Ask them to close their eyes and imagine this scene: It‘s night time.

You are standing on the top of a castle in Denmark. The castle is by

the sea. It‘s a cold night and the wind is blowing. Your job is to

guard the castle.

With their eyes still shut ask them to quietly make one of the sounds

that they heard in their imagination.

Ask the students what they think they can hear.

You might want to move students around in the circle so that groups

making similar sounds are sitting close together.

Once every student is confident with the sound they have chosen you

can conduct the soundscape, building up the layers of sound and

changing the dynamics.

Once the soundscape has run for a few minutes ask them to think

about how they feel in this environment.

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Seeing the Ghost

Now tell them that the guards have seen a ghost the night before and

are on the lookout for his return.

Ask them what they think of when they think of a ghost. What do

ghosts look like? How do they move? What do they smell like? What

do they sound like? Do they appear suddenly or gradually?

Ask every student to stand in a space and to move like a ghost

without making a sound.

Remind students that this ghost signifies that something is wrong so

it is important that it is more scary than funny.

If the students are finding this hard, ask them all to move as slowly

as they can without being still and then build up the speed until they

are walking briskly.

Then ask them to pick the speed they think is most sinister.

Once they have chosen their ghost‘s speed they can think about the

sort of gestures it might make.

Ask the students to work out the way that their ghost might point and

beckon.

Finally ask them to think of one sound that will make it obvious to

someone else that they are a ghost. Try and avoid the stereotypical

ghost noises. You might want to try breathy sounds or groans. Again

remind the group that this ghost has bad news to deliver and their

sound has to represent that.

Once they have ghosts that they are happy with ask the group to

return to their soundscaping circle. Choose five people to stand

outside the circle. The group will create their soundscape again – this

time with their eyes open. The five students outside will enter as a

ghost, do their two gestures and make their sound.

You might want to repeat with different students. Discuss what they

consider to be good qualities of the ghosts that they‘ve seen.

Introducing the Guards

Pick three further students to play Horatio, Marcellus and Barnardo, who

will need to speak the lines on page 6 before the ghost enters. They are

guards. It will work best if the three students are standing across the circle

from one another as it will help them project their voices over the

soundscape.

Ask the group to make suggestions for how these students will talk. Ask

them to think about the atmosphere on the battlements. Remind them that

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the two guards saw the ghost the night before and that they have brought

Horatio to see it now. How would they talk? Would they want to be

overheard? Give the students a chance to practice their lines with these

suggestions.

The rest of the group who aren‘t the ghost or the guards start the

soundscape. They have to be able to hear the speakers, so if they can‘t they

have to make the soundscape quieter. When they are ready the student

playing Barnardo starts speaking.

After the character playing Horatio says “Tush, tush twill not appear” the

ghost can enter the circle and make its noise. Then everyone should freeze.

What‘s Your Reaction?

What would be the reaction of the guards?

You might want to try out some possible reactions.

Explain that the ghost looks like Prince Hamlet‘s dead father. Does

that make any difference? Ask the group to come up with a set of

reactions based on this information.

Is the ghost the scariest bit in this scene? What do they think is

important about the ghost coming twice? What do they think the

ghost wants?

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9 . Exploring the use of everyday objects as props

In this activity your students will explore creating different things out of

ordinary objects, and then look at creating objects from the play using fans.

You will need:

1. A selection of household/classroom items (things with one moving or

flexible part are best). Some suggestions are:

A bunch of keys

A hand whisk

A skipping rope

A dish mop

A plastic cafetiere

2. Paper fans – up to 30. These could be made by the students or bought

from toy shops.

Collect the household objects into a container or PE bag.

Sit the students in a circle and explain that they are going to pick an

object and make it into something else by doing an action with it and

saying ― “This is a...”.

You might want to model the activity – examples include making the

keys into an insect, the dish-mop into a person, etc.

Explain that the important thing is to believe that that is what the

object is.

Pass the objects round the circle and ask each student to try.

Explain the key to success is using the object convincingly as the

thing they say it is.

If the students are finding this activity easy you might want two of

the objects to meet each other.

Once every student has tried, explain that they are going to have an

opportunity to create moments from Hamlet using fans to create any

props.

They will be creating still images of the moment they are given.

Split the group into smaller groups of five and assign one of the

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moments from the play to them.

Explain that each student will be a character in that scene and will

need to use their bodies, facial expressions and their fans to create

the image of their scene.

Give the group approximately 10 minutes to come up with their

moment using the fans in the most creative way possible.

During their creative time you might want to coach them to push

their use of fans further.

Remind them that the fans open and close and can be used together.

Ask the group to show their moments in the order they occur in the

play.

What is the advantage of using only one prop to represent lots of

things?

Does it cause any problems?

What else might they use instead of fans?

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10. Exploring Hamlet‘s relationship with his best friend Horatio

Horatio is Hamlet‘s best friend and confidant. As Hamlet trusts his mother

and Claudius less and less he confides in Horatio more and more. Despite

the fact Hamlet and Horatio are dealing with life and death, the fierce

loyalty and trust between them parallels the strength of feeling that is

demonstrated in the playground. This activity will enable students to

explore friendship using Hamlet and Horatio‘s relationship as an example.

Explain to the students that they are going to explore the relationship

between two best friends.

Ask the group in pairs to make a frozen image of best friends. Pick

out pairs that seem to be showing qualities of friendship – trust, love,

etc.

Ask the students to make a second image showing the most

important quality a best friend should have.

Split the group in half. Ask one half to hold their images and others

to look and discuss and then swap over.

Repeat for the other side.

Ask the group to think about why having a best friend with those

qualities is important.

Ask them to think of one situation when they have really relied on

their best friend.

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Explain that for the rest of the session they are going to think about a pair of best friends. One of them is having a really tough time and the other one is trying to help him out.

As a whole group they are going to look at the letter Hamlet sends to

Horatio - a letter about the plot to kill him in England.

Look at the scenario statement at the top. Ask the students to think

about what they‘d need to enact what happens in this letter.

- Where are they?

- What characters are in it?

- Are there any props?

They are going to use the text of the letter to help them answer the

questions.

Read the speech through – you might want to display it on a

whiteboard and add notes as you are going along. Explain that one of

the first things actors do when they are looking at a scene is to find

actions for their characters.

Underline any actions they can see in the letter.

Pick three volunteers to be Hamlet, Rosencratz and Guildenstern.

Read the first three lines - what are each of them doing? Ask the

volunteers to act this out.

What does Hamlet find? Read the next three lines. Ask the volunteer

playing Hamlet to complete the actions in these lines.

What does the letter say? Read the final three lines. How would

Hamlet react?

Ask the students why Hamlet chooses to write to Horatio; what does

this show Hamlet feels about him? What do they think Horatio‘s

response will be?

Explain that the students are going to explore what qualities of

friendship Hamlet and Horatio show to each other during the course

of the play. These can also be negative qualities if they feel that one

or the other is not acting in the right way towards their friend.

In groups of four they will be given a scenario from the play and

what their character actually says. They can follow a similar process

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to the letter, looking for an action for every line. Two people will be

Hamlet and Horatio. The other two will vocalise the qualities they

are showing during the scene by standing behind one of the

characters and repeating the quality as they speak.

Play the scenarios with the qualities back to the group.

What are the most important qualities in Hamlet and Horatio‘s

friendship?

Why is it sometimes easier to talk to a best friend than a parent?

What do you think Hamlet would have done without Horatio?

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11. BIOGRAPHY AND FURTHER READING

Information on Shakespeare, Hamlet and Revenge Tragedy

http://www.britaininprint.net/shakespeare/study_tools/

http://shakespeare.about.com/od/hamlet/a/hamlet_themes.htm

http://www.teachit.co.uk/armoore/shakespeare/hamlet.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamlet

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revenge_play

Some useful Websites:

See: www.rsc.org.uk- for information on Shakespeare and his theatre, and

for classroom resources on Hamlet from the Royal Shakespeare Company

See: www.shakespearesglobe.com

- for information on the Globe theatre reconstruction

Some interesting video resources:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11380973

- actor Sam west talks about different ways of interpreting the ‘To be or not

to be’ soliloquy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOjpvNPr3JU

- the closet scene from director Gregory Doran’s RSC production with

David Tennant Some interesting audio resources:-

www.bbc.co.uk/archive.hamlet/8529.shtml- actors Kenneth Branagh and

Michael Pennington talk about playing Hamlet

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00l16vp

12. THEATRE GLOSSARY

http://www.shakespearesglobe.com/discovery-space/adopt-an-actor/glossary