I am kicking myself for not jumping on the whole Hamlet on Trial thing going on down in Washington. I’m being bombarded with links to it now. When I first saw this story about a mock trial where Hamlet is tried for killing Polonius, I thought it just some weird law school academic exercise. I guess I was wrong. Everybody seems to have loved the “performance.” The verdict? Split decision. Apparently other similar trials in the past have found Hamlet sane…so what does that mean, guilty? Held accountable? It doesn’t really say. This particular article I’ve linked to doesn’t seem to take the actual arguments very seriously, pointing out both sides use of the whole “Hamlet talks to himself as if there’s an audience that can hear him” thing to be the defining issue of whether he’s insane and/or suicidal. Could they not call Horatio, who was witness himself to Hamlet saying “I shall seek it meet to put an antic disposition on”? Or are we going beyond the whole “acting crazy / really crazy” thing and just assuming that perhaps he has really gone crazy? Man, I’m sorry I missed it, sounds like I would have enjoyed that.
