Act 3, Scene 3 of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2009 production of Hamlet starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart.
Here is the scene just after the “play within the play” where Claudius is praying for guidance and confessing to murdering his brother and replacing him on the throne. For all the stress I feel regarding my project, I can’t help but be amazed by this play—no single character is simple, such as this case where Claudius shows the beginnings of repentance and guilt, plagued by the echo of King Hamlet, only to end his soliloquy with the vile rationalization that though his words speak to forgiveness, his thoughts are focused on the material…the power, and so his confession is moot. Unbelievable.
