No secret that Hamlet is a whinging git. I loved teaching the play when I was a middle school teacher, but in depth character analysis is a bit difficult with grade seven’rs.

I once was treated to a patronizing lecture designed to dissuade me from my Hamlet dismissing tendencies by a rather learned historian at a summer workshop I attended in my more youthful days.

But though I appreciate some of the dodgier aspects of the play now that I am older, I still think that Hamlet is a big baby, and the play is best when presented in its abbreviated form – kind of like Melville’s Moby Dick, tell the fish story and leave off the color white.  Brevity and wit’s soul and all that.