Essay Comparing Hamlet And Vogel's How I Learned To Drive

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet comes nearly four hundred years before Paula Vogel’s How I Learned to Drive, yet they tell similar stories. While both plays have their own unique qualities and overall style, they both focus on one character’s relationship with the world around them. Hamlet, however, only acts within the world of the play, while Lil Bit switches between scenes and narration. Additionally, Shakespeare’s play takes place in a large castle while Vogel relies on chairs to represent different locations. To add a new twist to Hamlet, it is possible to play with Vogel’s minimalistic type of theatricality which grew in popularity throughout the twentieth century. Therefore, a more modern production of Hamlet will highlight a theatrical style by changing how soliloquies appear in scenes while updating technical elements like costumes and set. …show more content…
When Hamlet vows to test Claudius with a play in act two, he will instead deliver his speech to his audience (Act 2, Scene 2). Much like Lil’ Bit, Hamlet interacts with the audience and brings them into the action with him, as every other character becomes a moldable puppet in his story. Throughout his soliloquies, the characters in the next scene will come into their places and freeze while the set changes behind him. This will furthermore add to the sense of two worlds which Hamlet switches between. As he jumps into each scene, other characters will come to life as lights rise on the action. Since set changes occur quickly and repeatedly, a few objects will represent each