Nine Hamlets

[side door opens]

Rocky?

Princess?

Rusty?

...

Where the hell are they.

[door closes]

Side door was open.

Like I left it.

...

Strange quiet night.

Cold as Denmark.

Even the crickets seem bored.

They’ll be back.

[fireplace opens]

Just back from San Diego.

Lauren and I saw *Hamlet*.

Ladies and gentlemen...

Nine Hamlets.

That’s my number.

Nine staged Hamlets.

Lauren’s number is three.

Five if you count Olivier and Kenneth Branagh.

Which I do not.

Unless Lauren needs the assistance.

[log placed]

Why keep seeing a play when you know what everybody’s going to do?

Hell, why keep seeing anybody?

...

Young man comes home.

Father’s dead.

Mother married his uncle.

Then his father’s ghost tells him the uncle murdered him.

Naturally, the young man would like more information.

...

[match strikes]

To be or not to be.

[match dies]

Not, apparently.

[second match strikes]

There we go.

[kindling catches]

Everybody watches everybody in that play.

Everybody hides behind curtains.

Arranges little performances.

Pretends to be something in order to find out what somebody else is pretending to be.

Metaphysical espionage.

...

That may not mean anything.

Nine Hamlets.

I’m using it.

[fire begins]

Funny thing.

Once you know a play that well, you’re no longer watching to find out what happens.

You’re watching to find out who you are this time.

I used to think Hamlet’s trouble was indecision.

Then grief.

Then cowardice.

Then brilliance.

Now I think the poor bastard cannot enter the world because everything has to be settled inside him first.

What it means.

What it proves.

Whether the ghost is honest.

Whether love is honest.

Whether he is honest.

...

That’s a crowded room for one man.

[fireplace closes]

Rocky?

...

Nothing.

Princess follows Rocky.

Rusty follows the possibility of food.

They have a system.

...

They’ll be back.

[fire settles]

Rhonda Zamora played Ophelia.

I’ve seen nine Hamlets, but I’m not sure I’d ever properly watched the woman standing in front of him.

Her eyes would change.

At times almost deluded.

Then vacant.

Not distracted.

Vacant as if nobody were there.

But when Hamlet came at her, she didn’t shrink.

There was immense strength inside her.

She was trying to anchor her own dignity while watching the man she loved completely unravel.

And there’s Hamlet...

assigning her a part in it.

Maybe that’s what happens when the self becomes the whole assignment.

Eventually everybody around you gets assigned a part.

...

We may come into this world believing the self is all there is to tend.

Feed it.

Protect it.

Explain it.

Make certain nobody misunderstands it.

...

Youthful souls.

Not young people necessarily.

A soul can remain youthful for a hell of a long time.

Maybe the larger plan—if there is one—is to discover that you can join the world.

Become answerable to something beyond yourself.

Coalesce.

...

There’s a word.

Ladies and gentlemen, we are coalescing.

...

Except Ophelia was already answerable to everybody.

Father.

Brother.

Prince.

Court.

Everybody telling her what to feel and who to be.

And still she fought to remain herself.

That’s what Rhonda showed me.

Not a woman disappearing.

A woman fighting not to disappear.

...

So.

Too much self and you cannot reach the world.

Too little and the world consumes you.

[collars faintly approaching]

...

What the hell is that.

[collars, dogs at door]

There you are.

Jesus.

[door opens]

Rocky.

Princess.

Rusty.

One, two, three.

Come in.

You’re letting Denmark into the house.

[door closes, dogs enter]

Rocky...

What is that on you?

...

Marvelous.

Nine Hamlets.

You’d think by now I’d know where the line is.

[dogs settle near fire]

That’s right, Rocky. Twas...

...another dispatch from Scott Evers.

Read to you by Geezer III.

Hmm.

Where is it.

Oh here it is.

Act II, Scene 2

"O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space,

were it not that I have bad dreams."

Yes.

And if I can remember Polonius...

"This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false to any man."

Not bad. Not good.

What are you lookin’ at, Rusty.