I got my chuckle for the day over a blog post by Timothy McSweeney that’s being passed around. It reduces William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” to a Facebook news feed. Even Robert Pondiscio over at the Core Knowledge Blog acknowledges that the Facebook rendition of “Hamlet” is a good example of world-class skills and world-class content working together hand in hand.
My favorite stanza (if it can be called that) is the one that refers to how Hamlet’s mother took a husband immediately after her first husband, Hamlet’s father, went to his grave.
The king poked the queen. The queen poked the king back. Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends. Marcellus is pretty sure something’s rotten around here. Hamlet became a fan of daggers.
I saw “Hamlet” most recently last summer, performed by the Shakespeare Theater Company as a “free for all” in a local park. Hamlet’s madness seemed surprisingly contemporary. Why shouldn’t it be adapted for Facebook?