Hamlet
Hamlet is Shakespeare's most famous play, a 400-year old tragedy about incest, revenge and madness.
The title character is the son of King Hamlet, who appears in a ghostly meeting to the young prince. The dead king accuses his brother (young Hamlet's uncle) of murdering him. As Prince Hamlet investigates, he faces a conspiracy involving schoolmates Rosencrantz and Guildenstern; Ophelia's father Polonius; and even his own mother. Homicide, suicide and duels to the death follow.
Hamlet's quest to avenge his father's murder destroys his own life. He betrays his suspicions inopportunely in an angry tirade and is watched closely from then on. The king's advisor Polonious orders his daughter Ophelia to break off her courtship with Hamlet; Hamlet kills Polonius (for spying on him) while he is hidden behind a wall hanging. Ophelia, already upset over the sudden end of the courtship, goes crazy after learning Hamlet has killed her father and drowns herself.
Hamlet's only friend in the lengthy play, his schoolchum Horatio, is the only major character who doesn't die. When Hamlet feigns mental illness to cover his unusual activities, he confides to Horatio, "I am only mad north by northwest" and "There's a method to my madness".
His investigation is hampered by
Major film versions of the play have starred Laurence Olivier, Mel Gibson, Kenneth Branagh and Ethan Hawke. For years, Olivier's performance was considered an inapproachable ideal. The Gibson version used modernized English and portrayed a grittier, tougher Hamlet. The Branagh version, clocking in at 4 hours because it includes every line in the play, features Billy Crystal in a comic role as the gravedigger. The Ethan Hawke version is set in Manhattan with Denmark as a corporation and Julia Stiles as a girl friend driven to suicide by Hamlet's antics.