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Ominous music, mist and fog of night and we see the parapets of Elsinore
Castle above.
Muffled cannons roar and a bell’s tolls in the
night, mixed in with the orchestration.
Hamlet comes part way down
the parapet and sits and sings to the stars in a state of wonderment.
It’s important to note that our boy Hamlet is very bright,
but he is only 18 years old and this accounts for his sometimes
rash behavior. He sings.
Hamlet
What
a piece of work is man.
How nobel in reason.
How infinite in faculties,
in form and reason, how express and admirable.
In action, how like a God.
The beauty of the world,
The paragon of animals.
Yet, Man delights not me.
The
lights go off on him, and the lights come up on his friend Horatio,
Hamlets school mate from Wittenberg who is standing below facing
the audience.
Horatio
Look and hear the musing of this prince of Denmark.
His goodly mind turned to conflicted thoughts.
Returned he from bookish Whittenberg to find his world
counter point to his going forth.
His much beloved father, King... now dead.
Buried quick with little pomp
and his graceless uncle ruling in his stead.
His beauteous Mother
Once a comfort when he left for school
is now re-married to this inscrutable.
As school mates do
we wondered through dank Elsinore's passage ways
speaking little and puzzled much
over this twist in fortunes face.
Then, of a sudden the other night,
a ghost doth appear
that much resembled young Hamlets father,
head to toe.
I saw it too or would not report it so.
A musical thunder clap and lighting cut across the sky and the ghost
of Hamlets father, the king in full armor stands up on the parapets
with a spear in his hand.
He is unsubstantial glowing but real enough. As he starts to sing
one can assume he is in agony. Hamlet is standing below looking
up at the apparition.
Ghost
I'm thy fathers spirit!
Doomed for a certain time to walk the night
Until the crimes I have done are purged away.
but if thou did'st love they father much
Now!
Now is the time to say!
Hamlet
O God!
I did!
I do!
Ghost
Then revenge my foul and most un-natural MURDER!
Hamlet
I knew it!
I knew it!
Let me know that I may sweep to my revenge
This very day!
Slower tempo
with tingling violins full of danger.
Ghost
The serpent
that did sting thy father's life
Now wears the royal crown and frolics with his wife.
Hamlet
My Uncle?
Oh my prophetic soul!
Ghost
Ay, that incestuous, adulterous beast
poured poison in my ear whilst I did sleep.
Robbing me of crown, of Queen, and eternal peace.
With all my imperfections on my head.
O and sent me to to this place
that all do rightly dread!
Then
in agony a moaning sounds and a cacophony of crunching grinding
steel plates of a great door closing,
then in still greater fear the ghost sings.
O the dawn approaches.
As for your Mother, do her no harm, my son.
Leave her to heaven. There is a thorn in her Bosom
that will sting her well enough when all is done.
Adieu
Adieu
Remember me.
Remember me.
My loving son.
Hamlet
Ay, poor ghost I shall
I shall!
Locked you are in my memory
from this day forth,
for eternity.
The lights go
down on Hamlet and up on Horatio
Horatio
Much shaken, he returned to me that night
and made me pledge
I would not reveal of what we saw or said.
Hamlet hold out his dagger.
Hamlet
Swear upon this daggers hilt!
Horatio
I swear... then reveled he this,
"The apparition my well have been my fathers ghost
who bids me seek revenge upon his brother,
for his untimely death...
but yet...
but yet!"
Our Prince fearing perdition
more than seeking hot revenge
needs more proof's before he carries out the wishes
of a cold and vaporous apparition.
Hamlet
Thoughtfully
A father murdered,
and a mother's honor stained.
To ferret out this tangled web
I will talk in riddles... and act insane!
Then in a passion again
O that knavish undeserved!
My father's brother!
Ha!
A man of greaves petty faults renowned
Unfit to wear great Denmark's royal crown!
Oh Horatio
The times are out of joint.
O cursed spite
that ever I was born...
to set it right!
Hamlet by Gene Tyburn ©1996, all rights reserved. |
