And So Falls the Prince of Denmark

Act V Scene II (Part 1)

Act V Scene II (Part 2)

          Everything culminates to this moment.  Hamlet fails to make progress in his plan and the King along with Laertes has a plot against him.  The Royal Shakespeare Company's Hamlet Act V Scene II opens with Hamlet staring into a broken mirror.  Here, Hamlet's broken face foreshadows what is to come.  Everything is falling apart, but he doesn't know it.  He still has this confidence, either genuine or forced, that he'll be able to win against Laertes.  This confidence comes up in his interaction with Osric.  He non-chalantly lies back and mocks Osric, seemingly without a care in the world, but the way David Tennant chose to portray Hamlet in this scene reflects the character's true state of mind.  In this scene, Hamlet is disheveled, his shirt messy and his hair all over the place.  This suggests that Hamlet is trying to keep himself collected, but with great effort.

          In the second part of Act V Scene II, King Claudius sets his plan into action.  Seeing that Hamlet is more skilled than Laertes, he offers him the poisoned cup.  After Hamlet rejects it, Gertrude takes the cup and toasts to Hamlet's fortune.  Claudius warns to her to not drink, but Gertrude, in a sacrifice to save her son, drinks the the poison.  The actress that portrays Gertrude adds so much more to this moment, particularly with the delivery of her lines.  There is such a defeatist tone to it that speaks volumes to the strength of her love for her son.  To her, there is no other way.  Once she falls and reveals the poisoned cup, Claudius takes a line meant for Hamlet, "Treachery!  Seek it out." (5.2.323)  This move by the director serves to emphasize the manipulative nature of Claudius.  In this desperate last attempt at self-preservation, he cowers at the thought of facing his consequences.  This fear is so great that when he is forced to drink the poison, his quick resolution reflects how he'd rather death than face punishement.  Although I feel the shrug by the actor is a bit cheesy, it does accurately portray his preferance for the "felicity" of death.

          Another interesting aspect about this version of Hamlet is the random security camera shots.  These shots are particularly effective in this last scene because of the effect they have on the viewer.  It makes the audience feel as if they were actually watching all of the event unfold in real-time, as if in a security office.  This augments the suspense of moments such as the start of the fencing match and the round that Laertes plans on poisoning Hamlet.
       
          Let's not forget Hamlet's famous death scene either.  As Hamlet dies he asks for Horatio to refrain from killing himself in order to spread Hamlet's legacy.  He refuses to be reduced to nothing as the bones in graveyards are.  Horatio agrees and cries as Hamlet dies in his arms.  The director decided to exclude Fortinbras, which only amplified the finality of Hamlet's demise.

Overall, the director's decisions to cut off lines and give some to other characters and his ingenious security-camera aspect prove extremely supplemental to the scene.  The actors' delivery took this scene all the way home as well, giving heartfelt and deeply tragic emotion to their characters.  In the end, Hamlet accomplishes his quest, and as a man who despised life, is released from its grips and set free into the abyss.  So falls the Prince of Denmark.