Fifteen Minute Hamlet

There have been several posts about Hamlet adaptations and references, and I found one that is really pretty hilarious, Tom Stoppard's 15-Minute Hamlet. This play is an abridged version of Hamlet that cuts everything but the most famous quotes and lines from the play, of which there are quite a lot. 15-Minute Hamlet actually comes from a play called Dogg's Hamlet by Tom Stoppard, the writer of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which we will read. Dogg's Hamlet, a play meant to be performed along with Stoppard's Cahoot's Hamlet, is about a group of schoolchildren who speak the weird language of Dogg, which uses english words but without the same meanings that we associate with the words, rehearsing the fifteen minute version of Hamlet. Cahoot's Hamlet depicts a performance of an abridged Macbeth by actors under the watch of a secret police. The two plays together are meant to explore themes of the nature of language and literary censorship, particularly in Czechoslovakia (which we know all about). The comically abridged version of Hamlet from these plays has been taken and frequently performed because it's a very amusing take on such a well-known work of literature. The inclusion of all the famous line's is hilarious when they are just stitched together right next to each other, but also celebrate the great cultural impact that the play has had.

Below is a video of one adaptation of 15-Minute Hamlet into a film version, which stars Phillip Seymour-Hoffman. In this film version, Shakespeare is filming this abridged performance. The short film shows the continuous filming of a 13 minute version of the play, then shows Shakespeare and others cutting and editing the film down to a rapid-fire 2 minutes of Hamlet highlights that is even more absurd and funny. The acting also pokes fun at certain famous elements of Hamlet, such as Ophelia and Hamlet's relationship and the Oedipus Complex undertones in the work, as depicted by how creepily close Hamlet is to his mother in the closet scene in the first run through the play, which escalates to Hamlet like leaping on her in a ridiculous way in the 2 minute rendition. So if you have 20 minutes I would highly recommend watching this video, I think a lot of you might appreciate the humor. And maybe the night before the test the 15 minute version will be good to study if you don't want to watch through the 4 hour long full adaptations.