Review appearing in the Daily Post of London, 1604
After seeing a performance of Hamlet last night I am, quite frankly, confused. As many of you seasoned theatre goers know, Kyd's Spanish tragedy has been playing to huge crowds and has wowed all that see it. It has ruthless characters and blood curdling ghosts. Hamlet gives the audience this but also let's many questions not be answered. Is hamlet truly mad? Does his madness fuel his killing of polonius? Why are we, as the audience, only told of the death of Ophelia and Rosencrantz and Guilderstern instead of them dying on stage? Why, by the end of the play, does it end in such a carnal way? Why does the ghost not appear more?
The groundlings at the Globe need not worry about these unanswered questions but, as a seasoned appreciator of good theatre, worry that we, as an audience, will need to think more about the plays that we will be seeing on the stage and not just treating the theatre as theatre... A good night out with plenty to heckle about!
