What to Take IN

One of the greatest advantages of Shakespeare’s plays is that they lend themselves to many different interpretations. Not only can the plays be acted in different ways, but also people can understand and view them differently.  In the beginning of the podcast, this is shown when glimpses of different interpretations of Hamlet are played. All of the actors’ voices and interpretations are different. Even though the play has a literal meaning people interpreter that meaning in different ways. Also people take in different messages and read and understand the play differently, base on their current situation and what they want to learn from it. 

For many, the prisoners from the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center were not only acting out one of the most important plays in history; they were engaged in an act of self discovery.  At first they were reading lines, and had difficulties because many did not graduate from high school, but towards the end, they transformed into the characters they were playing. They took something that materially had no meaning to them and were able to complete the meaning of the characters through the memories of their respective crimes. Since the first time that Dan Waller read the ghost’s opening scene he knew he wanted to play it. He felt that the man he killed was “talking to [him]” through the ghost, reminding him“what [he] put him through.” Also, James Word saw so much of himself in Laertes that he ended up feeling “I am Laertes. I am. I am.”  A 400-year-old play, that many would think had nothing to do with them, changed them.   This is also true for those forced to reflect on crimes they have committed. The prisoners acted out a play, and through the play, they relived their crimes.  More importantly, they rediscover their humanity in the face of a society that has deemed them monstrous. As they discovered themselves in the characters, the felt human again. In their perspective, they went from being monster to actors, which gave them the feeling that they were important.

The prisoners were just acting out Hamlet. But when they starting reading the lines, they understood the poem because they were able to compare themselves to it. Life comes with things that may seem to have no relevance to your life, but every situation has something to offer, you just have to want to learn and grow.