Now, says Hamlet, I could drink hot blood. It takes place in the middle of the play, straight after the 'play within the play' or 'mousetrap scene' which have allowed Hamlet to reach complete certainty about the nature of the Ghost and therefore the decision to commit to his revenge. The so-called 'closet scene' is a pivotal scene in Hamlet. What exactly does the Ghost represent? Why does he appear now? Why doesn't Gertrud see him? Does Gertrud really believe that Hamlet is pretending to be mad? That Claudius has killed old Hamlet? Was she an accomplice in the murder? Was she an adulteress? This paper addresses these questions through an analysis of the most interesting solutions offered by actors and directors who have staged and screened Hamlet, as well as refer to some of the most insightful scholarly interpretations. This is also the only moment of the play when we see the erstwhile Royal Danish family reunited, and the behaviour of the parents is as puzzling as that of the son. The scene can be seen as a revelatory moment in which the Prince unmasks his true cruel Machiavellian self or reveals the purity and nobility of his character in which he shows himself as a misogynistic bully or as a person who is no longer feigning madness but has actually lost his mind as a son still bent on revenging his father and ready to drink hot blood or as one more interested in policing his mother's sexuality. A Freudian view of Hamlet promotes a by now conventional staging that illustrates a supposed oedipal link between Hamlet and his mother. This climactic scene is a disconcerting moment that lends itself to various interpretations. He thereby undermines the belief and trust that the stage (and the world) can be a 'place of truth', where people and lives can show who they are and - ultimately - be themselves. What does it mean that in this tragedy truth is not doing its job, and only comes out twisted, partial, and wild? Shakespeare turns Hamlet into a bad actor, a modern man who doesn’t fit in the old world, but has nowhere else to go. He does take revenge on Claudius - he acts according to the old code of honour - without revealing the truth. He really misses every opportunity to reveal what happened. During the whole play only Hamlet knows what really happened, but he cannot or doesn’t want to speak up. The special and specific thing about Shakespeare's play is not that Hamlet is indecisive, but that he does not speak. In the logic of tragedy, the denouement or the end is expected to be a moment of revelation and truth. Unpublished English translation of a reworked article originally published in Dutch 'Bad acting: over Hamlet', in DWB, 2000. ‘O my prophetic soul/ My uncle’ (Hamlet, 1:5) When Hamlet meets the ghost of his father, the ghost declares that Claudius murdered him.
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