ABSTRACT
In the RSC Hamlet of 1980, Michael Pennington's Hamlet, listening intently to the Player's account of Pyrrhus, So as a painted tyrant Pyrrhus stood, And, like a neutral to his will and matter. A bold touch, and perfectly in keeping with the play's echoic, self-referential quality. Everything that happens in Hamlet relates to the consciousness at the drama's centre; and Hamlet, with his supreme self-awareness, constantly sees in others images of himself. Now this quality of Hamlet animates the doubling possibilities that are coded into the text. The concept of virtuoso doubling is scarcely mainstream, and the actor playing Polonius is unlikely to relish the implication that this is the first leg of a comic double. Poloniuses are usually praised for not overdoing the comic touches. Shakespeare's two-part structures are fundamental to his dramaturgy. From Richard III to The Winter's Tale, there are numerous before-and-after compositions, some of them, like Timon of Athens, exceptionally clear-cut.
