Hamlet And Hamlet Comparison Essay

In class viewed was, two different versions of Hamlet, and notes were taken while watching them. The notes were to compare and contrast the two different productions, using the book version of the play as a reference. In analyzing the two pieces I looked specifically at the stage direction, characterization, and textual accuracy of each production. While investigating the two versions there were many variances between them and the play itself. The choices made by the director about setting or direction and whether they should follow the play line by line changed the play’s meaning and interpretation, also the choices actors made about their characters changed them as well. Only certain scenes were viewed in class; the most important, impactful,

The second scene of the play, all the main characters are together mourning the death of the late King Hamlet. Eventually a disturbance arises, and Claudius, Gertrude and Hamlet argue. In the Branagh version of the play Claudius seems to hang on Gertrude and not the other way that Hamlet suggested. “Why, she would hang on him as if increase of appetite had grown by what it fed on;” Act I, scene II, page 11. Also Hamlet had seemed to be more closed and not as willing to show his rage. In the Doran version Claudius had seemed like a scarier person, almost as if people ad known something about him that he wasn’t revealing. “Of impious stubbornness; ‘tis unmanly grief; it shows a will most incorrect to heaven,” Act I, scene II, page 9. Hamlet had an incredulous way about him. He didn’t want to believe what was happening. In both versions the dramatized the relationship between Hamlet and Gertrude just as the original play does. They show very well the temporary hate that Hamlet shows for her. “Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears had left the flushing in her galled eyes, she married. O, most wicked speed, to post with such dexterity to incestuous sheets!” Act I, scene II, page