“Hamlet’s basically a teenage boy. He has all these desires, but he doesn’t have the balls to reach out for them. So he goes mad, wanks off about Ophelia, and ends up so boring somebody has to kill him.” - Naomi
No, teen drama writers Naomi. Hamlet is simply smarter than you.
The play is four centuries old, so it’s hard for you to identify with a world where a demon could be lying to you. But stabbing a guy through a curtain isn’t inaction. If young George W. Bush had shanked his father’s Chief of Staff, you wouldn’t say the guy “doesn’t have the balls”.
If you’re not very bright, a character who’s pretending to be crazy looks an awful lot like a character who actually is crazy. But if the character breaks the 4th wall, looks directly into the audience and says, “I’m about to play crazy right now,” it’s all pretty clear.
