Ghosts, Murder, and More Murder.
“Hamlet, William Shakespeare’s longest and most-performed play. People love Hamlet. The play that is, not necessarily the character. Hamlet is a Tragedy with a capital T (I guess I don’t have to point that out, since you can see clearly in the text that the T was capitalized). By Tragedy, I mean virtually everyone dies at the end. John will talk a little bit about the history of the play and the different versions of it that have appeared in the centuries since it was written. You’ll also learn about some of the big themes in the play, get a brief plot overview, and the all important connections between Prince Hamlet and Simba, the Lion King. Seriously though, The Lion King is totally just a Hamlet musical with animals instead of people.”
Ophelia, Gertrude, and Regicide
“MORE about Bill Shakespeare’s Hamlet. John talks about gender roles in Hamlet, and what kind of power and agency Ophelia and Gertrude had, if they had any at all (spoiler alert: we think they did). You’ll also learn about regicide, Ophelia’s flowers, and Hamlet’s potential motivations. Also, Oedipus comes up again, but we don’t buy it.”