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Hamlet Breaking The Fourth Wall Analysis

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You are settled in your seat watching the play Hamlet unfold in front of you at the Warner Theatre. The person playing Hamlet is in the middle of one of his many soliloquies and at the end of it, he turns and speaks to the audience for a comedic effect. As an audience member, you are surprised and wonder why Hamlet would break character and talk to an audience instead of speaking to himself or be in conversation with other characters. However, there is a critical scene of the play approaching and you do not understand what is about to take place. In this case, you want to be informed of what is going to happen. As a result, a character steps away from the play and begins talking to the audience. It is common known as breaking the fourth wall. This strategy is used in modern theatre to give the audience an insight to what the characters intentions are as well as what is going on through their minds. Author Clifford Odets details to the reader in his play “Waiting for Lefty” that a major character breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience which is an essential to the play’s theme. With this strategy, the reader is able to feel and hear the audience’s emotions as well as understand the plot of the play. Breaking the fourth wall is …show more content…

The audience is dramatized as a group of workers who are emotional and upset about their job situation because they feel they are not being paid the amount they feel they deserved. It was an interesting strategy by Odets to have the workers represent the audience because members of the audience usually do not talk back to the character directly speaking to them. However, it helps the readers understand the back story and summary of the play because without it, it would be very hard to understand why there are five different mini-stories composed into one big

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The scenes consist of the many techniques mentioned above, there are two main characters are shown and the play is set in contrasting between the past and the present. There are two real locations that are the TV studio and Melbourne hotel, however the interplay of the techniques in the scenes works together to create a wartime setting. The audience awareness is developed through the historical information from each scene. Theatrical devices a re combined to create various features and have a great dramatic impact. The structure promotes the audience to watch the play because the structure of this storyboard is contrasted between the past and present that will attract audience attention, as it is an historical play set between different times.

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The cast of the play are unaware of the audience, however, the audience is able to listen to dialogue that occurs throughout the theater, whether it is in the headsets between technicians, on stage between the actors playing their characters in the play and between the director and actors who make adjustments when necessary. The third fourth wall was at its edge of breaking, where the audience is almost unable to tell whether what they are experiencing is real or not. As an observer of the rehearsal of this play, this wall was broken when I understood that what I was watching was a rehersal of a play, of a rehearsal of a play. It was difficult to describe or understand when the cast of 10 out of 12 were actually in or out of character. The complexity of this play lies in the use of metatheatre, which has been exploited to its fullest extent

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In the ever changing world of literature, one play stands the test and that is William Shakespeare's Hamlet. This dramatic, thrilling, tragic play tells the story of a “young prince of Denmark, Hamlet, who is seeking vengeance for his father’s murder.” () The storyline itself is able to grasp the reader, and take them alongside Hamlet as he slowly takes down his enemies and uncovers the secrets, betrayal, and scheming nature of his family. Aside from the storyline, what makes this play great is the monologues, as well as dialogues between characters. Shakespeare incorporates an array of vivid imagery, metaphors, and exquisite vocabulary to make known the passion and heart behind every single character.

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