Assignment 1 Creative Writing Exercise
You know me. Not into all this violence, and that Hamlet I’d been dragged to before… well, I’d rather not say. The manner and actions were distasteful, but I’d rather not speak ill.
When my dear lord husband announced the good news that Master Burbage would be the noble prince in this fresh version, I relented. After seeing that superb artiste’s Malvolio in ‘Twelfth Night’ and his “Richard II” four years past, I knew I’d been in safe hands, and I do like a good play, me. Oh, and was I right! The minute he strode onto the stage, my chin rested upon my hands and there I stayed. He spoke to me, and me alone, though surrounded by the throng who gasped, cried, cheered and screamed in unison, and which I was part of. Even though the Ghost scared me silly, and the swords flashed silver, I could hardly look away.
Who knew what a twist this Master Playwright Shakespeare would throw? A slippery one, that one! I thought the dagger would slide into the king when the players performed his dread reinactment, but no! On they went, to delve deeper, and how Master Burbage expressed fuller madness, or was it not? My mind has come away full of winding tangled wonder ready for unknotting. He grasped my heart and soul. Though at times, I would have leapt upon that stage and given him a good slapping! Then t’other times, I would have clambered again to grasp and shake sense into him, then hugged him so tightly to ease the grief. How I cried!
There was no question of the insanity of the undone Ophelia. The descent in which she fell, the poor girl! From blossoming beauty to hysterical songstress and then her final dive into death. I drowned my sorrow for her. To see complete collapse in such a short time, I clean forgot that our Ophelia was a lad, such was the talent of performance.
Each character brought to the stage a realness that I thought I was watching actual private goings-on. I felt I was spying… like Claudius and Polonius!
That Queen, what a cow! For not seeing her son’s debilitating grief, and siding with her new husband. What women marries her husband’s brother? Two months after his death! His flesh not yet decay, no wonder he was turning in his grave.
So to the ghost, even though you knew it to be another player. The way they caused the unnatural to walk in a manner so different from the rest, you couldn’t help but think that dark arts were in the making of this tale. The chill to my own bones, I felt that death walked abroad in that theatre tonight. Yet, was it a true ghost? If Horatio could admit it along with Hamlet, it must be true, but later, Queen Gertrude could not see it. Was this Hamlet’s madness, or her guilty refusal to see the truth? I don’t know. This is another knot to unravel in my thoughts. What a treat have I experienced this eve! Truly a spectacle that will go with me to my own grave.
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