Some years back, PBS was playing a series of Shakespeare's plays on videotape, performed, I believe, by the Royal Shakespeare Company, in a project to get all of the Bard's plays on tape. Fine actors, excellent performances. One hopes they've been transferred to DVDs. They may be available somewhere—I hope!

I had a superb English Lit. prof when I was attending the University of Washington (actually, I had several superb profs there), who taught a Shakespeare class. She had an interesting take on Hamlet. She said that the standard interpretation, and the one most Shakespearean actors use, is that Hamlet actually was a bit mad. That he was dithering and indecisive when it came to wreaking vengeance upon his uncle for having murdered his father, married his mother, and assuming the throne.

The prof said no. The question that Hamlet had to answer to his satisfaction was whether or not the ghost actually was the ghost of his father. She said that it was a common superstition at the time that sometimes a demon, or the Devil himself, would appear to a bereaved lover or relative in the guise of the departed and try to get the mourner to commit some heinous act against an innocent person in order to entrap the mourner's soul. This, she says, is underlined by Horatio's warning to Hamlet as he follows the ghost to the edge of the parapet, and Hamlet's question to the ghost, "Angels of grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or a goblin damned? Be thy intents wicked or charitable?" Of course, if it is a "goblin damned," it will lie to him, and Hamlet would be aware of that.

Why doesn't he get right to it and off his uncle? Two reasons:   If he had, it would have been a very short play. But the main reason was that he had to play detective and verify what the ghost had told him, hence such things as the "play within the play," in which he did catch "the conscience of the king." Once he was sure that the ghost had told him the truth, and it was indeed the ghost of his father, it was just a matter of looking for an opportunity to wreak vengeance on Claudius without it looking like a simple political assassination. The conspiracy between Claudius and Laertes—the "fencing" match, with Laertes' foil sharpened, and the back-up plan of the poisoned wine—provided it for him when the treachery became obvious.

Mel Gibson (not what you would call a seasoned Shakespearean actor) played Hamlet as manic-depressive (or so he said). Lawrence Olivier (1948) opened the play with a voice-over, saying "This is a play about a man who couldn't make up his mind," which seems to indicate the standard interpretation. But—he didn't play it that way. He seems to rave mildly and talk nonsense when others are around, but you also see him with a fairly canny expression on his face as he, undetected, eavesdrops on conversations. Detective at work. I haven't seen Kenneth Branagh's interpretation.

The four principals, Hamlet, Laertes, Claudius, and Gertrude (along with Ophelia and Polonius earlier) wind up dead at the end. And the rest of the cast is cut down by John Brown on his way to Harper's Ferry!

Don Firth