A deeper dive into actor Kraft’s favorite play
By Jessica Sage
Picking up from last month’s Part I on “Hamlet,” what is it about the play that most perplexes you?
I’d say trying to determine what words and which character is to speak them most perplexes me. Indeed, that’s the most profound challenge confronting all directors and actors who attempt to climb the Everest called “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.”
That play floating in our minds and memories is most often one that has been pieced together from a version published in 1604/1605, and another published in 1623, alongside 35 other plays of William Shakespeare.
By “pieced together,” I’m referring to the more than 1,000 variants in the dialogue, speech headings and stage directions in both of these texts.
I know, Barry, that you’d like to give me a taste of some dozen or 16 of these variations that are dear to your heart, but how about limiting the list to just three or four — space and time considerations, you understand?
Of course I do. My first example comes just 30 lines after the play opens: a character will say (referring to an otherworldly figure that has been recently appearing on the battlements of Denmark’s Elsinore Castle), “What, has this thing appeared again tonight?” Who speaks this line, Horatio, a scholar and close friend of Hamlet, or Marcellus, a sentinel/officer and also a friend of Hamlet?
In the 1604/1605 book of the play, Horatio asked the question. In the 1623 version, the question is posed by Marcellus. In their succeeding interactions, I sense a slight rivalry between these two friends of Hamlet’s — the soldier and the scholar.
Can you think of a variation in the stage directions having significance?
I think so. In the first big Court scene (Act I, scene 2), Polonius, chief councilor to King Claudius and Queen Gertrude, enters with his son, Laertes, but his daughter, Ophelia, is not present in the scene. However, in the later version of 1623 both of Polonius’ children are present. I can imagine telling discussions — concerning Ophelia’s appearance or non-appearance — taking place within a theater planning to mount a production of “Hamlet”!
I sense how exciting you’re finding this comparison of “Hamlet” scripts. Have you one last example, for now, that will tide us over until we find the opportunity to explore the topic again?
Jessica, do you recall Hamlet’s final utterance at the end of the play?
Well, I certainly had no idea you’d be putting me on the hot seat concerning “Hamlet.” Thank goodness I’ve learned from you over the decades. Are his last words, “The rest is silence,” and then he dies?
Correct! That is, correct as far as the 1604/1605 text is concerned. However, 19 years later, in the first folio, following those four words, we read “O, O, O, O.”
For the 1623 “Hamlet,” the rest is not silence. Did this Hamlet wish to die in silence and the pain of shuffling off his mortal coil prevent it? Did some kind of laugh escape his lips? Were those “O”s an illumination, a lightning before death? I believe those four textual “O”s are more worthy to be explored than ignored.
Jessica Sage is the founder and producing artistic director of Rogue Theater Company. Barry Kraft’s exploration of “Hamlet” takes place on Feb. 7 and 8. RTC’s 2026 season runs from February to November with an exciting lineup of productions, readings, and discussions. For more information about the theater company and its upcoming season, and how to purchase tickets, see roguetheatercompany.com.
Related story: Sage on Stage: Barry Kraft on ‘Hamlet’
