Hamlet Play Analysis

Tasked with the production of Hamlet, Professor LaPenta had to make important changes to play in order to suit the needs of the modern audience. Decisions that Professor LaPenta made impacted the audience’s analysis of the play. The costume choices in a play are important roles in drama, character creation, and visual aesthetic. The purpose of costumes in regard to a visual effect is to focus on different colors and provide a rhetorical insight to the audience on the director’s purpose. Additionally, the style of a costume should reflect the time period and setting that the play takes place in. The set of a play is equally as important as the costume design in terms of a theater’s “visual systems”. These design elements reflect the themes and mood, style, and emotions of a play, as well as indicating the historical or geographic context of the production. The design of a play can be of fundamental importance to its conceptualization by a director or, conversely, the director’s initial conception of a play can force the design (or the designer) to work in a particular way. In both cases, the design is open to another level of reception as it subsequently acts as a communicator to the audience.

Within Professor’s LaPenta’s Hamlet changes are made in order to connect with the modern audience in a manner that allows the audience to relate to the play and actors by using alternative costume choices. The costumes used in Professor LaPenta’s Hamlet are adapted to be similar to clothing worn in modern day by those of similar ages to the characters in the original Hamlet production. These non-traditional costumes within the play included some major differences than the attire worn by royalty historically during Shakespeare’s time period and between the imagery implied from the original text and film adaptations of the play. The costume of Hamlet within Professor LaPenta’s Hamlet version changed appropriately throughout the production. When Hamlet first appeared, he was wearing a black suit, which is simply symbolism for his mourning of the loss of his father. This is discussed by Hamlet after his mother questions him on his prolonged mourning after it is observed that no one else is still wearing mourning attire,

Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration of forced breath,

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected havior of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief,

That can denote me truly (1.2.80-86).

It is certainly understandable that Hamlet’s mourning may take longer than others after the death of his father, but in the original text Hamlet’s costumes change as there is more suspicion of his insanity. After Hamlet confronts Ophelia about seeing is father’s ghost she reports,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet all unbraced,

No hat upon his head, his stockings fouled,

Ungartered, and down-gyvèd to his ankle,

Pale as his shirt; his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purport

As if he had been loosèd out of hell (2.1.88-93).

Ophelia uses imagery to describe Hamlet’s attire from his head to his toe and explains the horrid look she observed in Hamlet. She describes him as disgruntled and tattered, and basically that his physical appearance is to one of a ghost (pun intended). However, in Professor LaPenta’s adaptation, Hamlet lacks this dilapidated appearance; instead he looks like more of an informal college student. While, yes, Hamlet (the character and actor) is an informal college student, this portrayal of him affects the audience’s understanding of the play. Hamlet’s ragged manifestation is designed to give the audience insight into his absurdity, however, the appearance of LaPenta’s Hamlet lacks the insanity factor, and in response the audience loses an understanding on the beginning of Hamlet’s mindlessness.

The costumes designed by Professor LaPenta better represent Ophelia rather than those of Hamlet. Hamlet would be nothing without Ophelia, and even though she is underrepresented within the play, her role is vital to the rhetorical meaning that Shakespeare originally attempted to convey. Throughout the first few acts of the play Ophelia appears to act as a conservative woman who the audience could trust, even though she had a questionable and unhealthy relationship with Hamlet. She fulfilled the “good girl” stereotype of being submissive to patriarchy.