Hamletcetera

What comedies lurk within tragedies? We’ll study Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (1601) & three recent plays that unravel its focus on royals, revenge, & masculinity. Tom Stoppard’s sparkling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1967) crafts absurdist comedy by centering characters so minor they’re interchangeable. James Ijames reframes Hamlet’s dilemma in the raucous, queer, Black, Southern Fat Ham (2022 Pulitzer Prize for Drama). Lauren Gunderson’s A Room in the Castle (2025) recruits Shakespeare’s female characters into a sly, savvy feminist plot. Reading these devotees’ revisions of Shakespeare for their own sakes, we may also ponder broader issues about texts that assume other texts (fan fiction’s high-toned ancestry) & the evergreen impulse to flip tragedy to comedy.

Learners will need to acquire 3 plays in paperback print + one PDF ($5 apiece direct from the playwright’s agent; instructor will provide contact information).

Class will meet on these dates: 3/3, 3/10, 3/17, 3/24, 3/31, 4/7, 4/14.

About the instructor: Bob Chibka taught in the Boston College English Department 1984-2015.  His publications include critical essays (mostly about 18th-Century British novels), short stories, one lonesome novel.  He lives happily ever after in Brewster, where he still enjoys being pushed around by sentences & returning the favor.