Kayla pointed out that I may need to focus my topic a little, so I thought I'd narrow it down on Hamlet, as there's tons of spying and deceit going on in this play. Claudius kills his brother in secret, which upon finding out, Hamlet decides to act crazy, making Claudius and Gertrude ask Rosencrantz and Gildenstern to spy on Hamlet. And then for the queen's safety, Polonius spies on Hamlet and him mom, which gets him killed, and moves the plot along.
I think Othello could also be useful in my study though, as I ago's planning includes a lot of spying and deceit to make his plans work. I think it could be cool to sort of campare Hamlet and Iago as foils of each other. Both of them use a lot of lying and deceit, but Hamlet is a 'hero' while Iago is a 'villain.'
hmmm...
So I emailed about 6 artistic directors for Shakespeare theatre companies, asking them about how they would stage a spying scene. I want to know what disguises they would wear, whether they would show the person hiding to the audience, and so forth... I'll let you know how it goes.
So you're most interested in the staging of spying or spying as a plot device, or both?
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure... probably both. But now I'm thinking maybe it could be a backdrop for a comparison between Iago and Hamlet...
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