Hamlet has a moment alone on stage before the courtiers join him

In this version of Hamlet, the director, Robert Hastie, has chosen to give Hamlet a little bit of breathing room before the start of the audience chamber scene in Act 1 Scene 2.

It happens straight after the end of Act 1 Scene 1, when Horatio and the guards decide to inform Hamlet about the ghostly apparition of his father. From there, we cut to black and Hamlet walks into the audience chamber with a single spotlight on him. The rest of the stage is in darkness. His expression is sad and comtemplative as he looks at a sash he’s holding in his hands and then places it on a chair.

This seems like a simple moment that doesn’t need a lot of discussion. However, I think it’s important for us to remember that Hamlet is a very long play and bits naturally got cut out for this performance. So if they chose to spend a minute or so letting us just linger on Hamlet as a character before the play’s full action begins, it’s a safe bet to assume they did it on purpose!

For me, the interesting thing here is that Hamlet doesn’t sit on the seat where he placed the sash later in Act 1 Scene 2. He sits on the seat opposite it. So it’s almost like he’s holding that seat for someone important – someone who never shows up. Is it his father, Old Hamlet, that he leaves the sash there for? Like’s he’s reserving him a seat?

This idea is emphasised in the discussion between Hamlet and Claudius later in Act 1 Scene 2, when Claudius talks about how ‘sweet and commendable’ Hamlet’s grief is. Alistair Petrie, who plays Claudius, taps the chair with the sash on it a few times as he talks about the Old King. This suggests that Claudius also sees the presence of the sash as Hamlet saving a seat for his dead father. It is a small but suble gesture that automatically clues the audience into the idea that Hamlet isn’t ready to fully come to terms with the death of his father.

Within the original text, Claudius’s words would suggest that there is something inherently wrong with Hamlet’s methods of mourning. His comments that Hamlet is displaying ‘unmanly grief’ are emasculating, suggesting that men either shouldn’t mourn the death of their fathers at all, or that they should find another outlet to get over it.

The thing is, as a modern audience member watching a modern performance, I would argue that Hamlet’s method of mourning his father is actually quite healthy here. I’m surrounded by images in the media and in my culture of people reserving seats for family members who have passed away at weddings, or pouring a drink for someone they love who isn’t around anymore. It’s a simple, non-destructive way to deal with the fact that you’re still thinking about them.

And we see later on in the play what happens when Hamlet decides to adopt more traditionally manly, violent methods of dealing with the death of his father. He becomes the avenger archetype, eroding his sense of identity and killing the wrong man (Polonius) in the process. I think there is a real juxtaposition to be seen here: Claudius emasculates Hamlet for grieving in a pretty healthy way that’s pretty non-destructive to the people around him. When Hamlet instead turns to an arguably more manly version of grief, the whole court suffers for it.

To me, this harkens to a Francis Bacon quote that I think is essential for anyone studying a revenge tragedy like Hamlet:

This is certain, that a man that studieth revenge, keeps his own wounds green, which otherwise would heal, and do well.

Francis Bacon, ‘Of Revenge‘

Bacon here suggests that grief can be made worse by an obsession with revenge, even if anger and violence are the stereotypically manly responses to a negative emotion. I think that Robert Hastie’s National Theatre (2025) version of Hamlet here emphasises Bacon’s point. Hastie presents us with Hamlet originally choosing a method of ‘healing’ his ‘wounds’ that’s actually really healthy. That makes it even the contrast between healthy unhealthy coping mechanisms even clearer.

Plus, you can tie it to bell hooks’s arguments in The Will to Change, where she suggests that men and boys are ‘coerced’ into converting their emotions into violence:

There is only one emotion that patriarchy values when expressed by men; that emotion is anger. Real men get mad. And their mad-ness, no matter how violent or violating, is deemed natural – a positive expression of patriarchal masculinity. Anger is the best hiding place for anybody seeking to conceal pain or anguish of spirit.

bell hooks, The Will to Change

In fact, hooks’s point here is evident from the very source text itself. Claudius is critical of Hamlet’s form of grief while validating and even applauding Laertes’s grief when Polonius dies later in the play. There are plenty of interpretations of why he might do this. For example, it could be that Laertes’s grief and anger are useful for him to get what he wants, while Hamlet’s grief is an active threat to his position as the King of Denmark. But it could also be an issue with the very expression of that grief. Laertes displays a form of emotion that ‘patriarchy values’, while Hamlet does not. Laertes is praised because his grief is performed in a ‘natural’ way, while Hamlet’s is not. It’s feminine.

But just like Hamlet, Laertes’s more manly display of grief leads to impulsive decisions that he immediately regrets. Even when Hamlet tries to apologise for the death of his father, it’s his honour and masculinity that prevent Laertes from resolving the conflict in a healthier manner. So, the tension between what we as an audience would see as normal, healthy grief and what Claudius celebrates is clear. Claudius’s expectations of masculinity and masculine emotion are actively destructive.

Plus, this version does a lot to show that Hamlet doesn’t actually ask to be addressed by his mother and uncle. He smiles when Claudius introduces his mother and sits with everyone else. Abeysekara’s mannerisms and acting choices in this scene are subtle, suggesting that Hamlet really isn’t trying to draw attention to himsef – except, perhaps, in the distinctly teenage method of dressing unusually. He wears distinctly funereal clothing and paints his nails black, slightly subverting gender norms. But apart from that? It doesn’t seem like he wants to be called out for his grieving method. He’s just minding his own business and gets policed on his gender performance.

This starkly constrasts with Kenneth Branagh’s 1996, where Hamlet stands apart from everyone else and speaks loudly, as if he wants to be noticed. By contrast, the National Theatre (2025) version suggests that Hamlet wants to be left to his grief. It emphasises the fact that it isn’t until people (namely, Claudius and Gertrude, followed by the Ghost) tell him how to react that his coping strategies become murderous. People’s policing of his masculinity and what he should and shouldn’t do lead him down a fatal path.

All of this from a silent moment and a sash placed on a chair, huh? Well, it’s more of a catalyst for other ideas that you can bring in from other parts in the text.