A New Thought on Hamlet's Most Famous Soliloquy

This'll probably only work once, but, hey:

Think of it as the type of Shakespeare's early-days soliloquy: Direct talking to the audience, and not one of his later-days ones: Audience overhears character talking to himself. Or rather, think of it as a hybrid, direct address to the audience AS character thinks things through.

Hamlet comes on stage, solus, (yes, Claude and Polly are hiding). He paces, thinking. Everyone knows what's coming. But he stays silent until things feel really awkward, like Michael Jackson at the Superbowl. Then he turns to the audience, looks directly around the room for as long as anyone can stand it and he says, "to be." And the house lights come on full. Light explodes everywhere, and (timing here is important) the lights stay bright just long enough for the average member to start to have a glimmer of what's going on, and he says, lights going dark at "or," "or not to be."

And the brightness of the lights before make this darkness as dark as can be.

Hamlet goes on in an explanatory way. He hasn't noticed the lights going up or down. "That is the question" (i.e. "that this play is asking"). People's eyes adjust. Hamlet is in no hurry to get through this speech. Just as the eyes start to see the outline of Hamlet/actor, the stage lights start to come up, but so slowly that no one can tell whether that is what is happening or whether their eyes are continuing to adjust.

He goes through the rest of the speech as though he's explaining the play to the audience. But the meaning is occuring to him at the same time. Or at least the illustrations and examples are occurring to him in real time.

He melts back into the play at the sight of Ophelia.

NB: This also helps us over the "bourne" problem. In the play he seems to have forgotten that he's seen a ghost. But in this performance, he's letting you know that that is a play, and this is real life.

Red, White or Blue

(draft)

(capo second fret: A D F#m E7 C#m Bm A shapes, quick strum, upbeat)

B                       E 

Why are you afraid today?

              G#m            F#7

You’re gonna die anyway

       D#m                            C#m

Or is the world trying to make

     E              B

A victim of you?

In A-merica

We shouldn’t care of you’re

Red or you’re white

It makes me blue

To see my brothers and

Sisters of color are

Suffering at the hands of

Systemic abuse

Black man in the street

He just wants some peace

Cop comes up and says

What do you do?

I’m just walking here

Isn’t that pretty clear

Haven’t you anything

Better to do?

In A-merica

We shouldn’t care if you’re

Brown or your black

But maybe we do.

Cop says he’s had enough

Puts the man into cuffs

Says "I gotta make

An example of you.”

On the news it said
That young man is dead
People in the streets yell
"What did he do?"

In A-merica

We shouldn’t care if you’re

Rich or you’re poor

Red, purple or blue.

You said we're weak:

Peaceful riots in the street

The presidential Orangeman

Threatening you.

“If you don’t go away

I knee to the ground I say

I bring the army in for

Smothering you.”

You may be surprised to know

That’s not how it goes.

Americans everywhere

Coming for you.

Red, white, black and brown

Driving you outta town

It really isn’t hard to see

The failure of you.

All A-merica

Sees just what you are.

It's time you start to think of
Something better to do.

We Talked

We talked and talked and talked
Until Darrel Danger got it right.
So we set that account aside
And kept on talking.