We now have looked at the script, and have gained some idea of how Hamnet productions are run from behind the scenes. It is time to look at the best part of all--actual performances and the carnivalesque atmosphere in which they take place.
Synchronous modes of computer-mediated communication like IRC make possible live, dialogic exchange in real time without physical presence. For the first time in the history of human communication, writing has become a mode of live performance (Reid, 1991; Rheingold, 1993: Ruedenberg, et al., 1995; Danet, et al., in press; Reid, 1995). When Howard Rheingold joined the WELL, his home base in cyberspace, he discovered that "I was audience, performer, and scriptwriter...in an ongoing improvisation" (Rheingold, 1993: 2).
As a synchronous chat form, IRC offers participants ideal conditions for artful performance. What Bauman (1977) has written of oral performance turns out to be equally applicable to the new written forms:
Whereas improvisational performance on IRC is a special case of the
"spontaneous, unscheduled, optional performances of everyday life,"
Hamnet activities are scheduled, public, and elaborate "cultural
performance[s]" (Bauman, 1975) with additional, strongly
improvisational components.
In previous work on writing as performance on IRC
(Ruedenberg, et al., 1995;
Danet, et al., in press), we identified five frames
of interaction, or meta-communicational
frames of reference (Bateson, 1963; Handelman, 1976) which are
activated while participants are engaged in online encounters
These are (1) Real Life; (2) The IRC Game; (3) a Party Frame; (4)
The Pretend Frame; and (5) The Stage Frame.
With some adaptation, this idea of nested frames is suitable for an
understanding of Hamnet performances as well. Instead of a Party
Frame, we have a Theater Frame in which "actors" and producers
go about the business of running a production; the actual
performance of the planned show, the script, takes place in the
collective Pretend Frame. Finally, a fifth Performance Frame is
that in which individuals--both "actors" and audience members who
contribute to the online doings, "do their stuff"--demonstrate
their wit and skill.
Improvisation in Hamnet Performances
In previous research (
Ruedenberg, et al., 1995;
Danet, et al., in press)
we documented the great skill of IRC players in
improvising "on the fly" a textual and graphic simulation of
smoking marihuana, using the mundane possibilities of the computer
keyboard--dashes, colons, brackets, and so on. Skillful
improvisation of this kind is very typical on IRC.
On the face of it, online performance involving a script might
altogether lack improvisation and could, in fact, turn out to be a
boring, merely technical challenge, even leading, perhaps, to a
creative "dead end." As we have seen, however, "actors" are
encouraged to improvise on their lines, though not so much as to
threaten general continuity of the performance. In an email letter
to Brenda Danet, with six performances behind him, Harris wrote:
Several factors fostered improvisation and an element of surprise
in Hamnet performances. First of all, Harris's plan was to
distribute to the players only their own lines, leaving the full
script to be a surprise, revealed only during the performance. For
the most part, this worked, though with time and increased
publicity about Hamnet activities, people wanted copies of the
entire script, as well as logs of performances, so that the
spontaneity of repeat performances, at least, could be partially
undermined. Still, the players improvised on the scripts with glee
and panache in a remarkable variety of ways.
Second, those who received their lines a few days ahead of
performance time could play with them, modify, expand and elaborate on
them, creating a little file for each one. This is just what Brenda
Danet did, trying to flesh out her tiny three-line part in Pcbeth.
Third, the quite high turnover of participants at the various
performances guaranteed a amount of unpredictability as to what will
happen, how people will realize their roles, etc. Fourth, the failure
of some pre-cast players to show up at performance time added its own
element of surprise; one could only partially plan ahead what to do in
such cases. In many instances, Harris simply "played" the role
himself. Finally, the problems of lag and netsplits kept participants
in suspense and created crises more often than participants would have
liked.
Parodying Other Shakespearean
Plays
One of the wittiest forms of improvisation during Hamnet performances
is the citation of snippets, and sometimes even of extended passages
from plays other than the one currently being performed, i.e.,
suddenly citing a line or two from Macbeth while mounting a
performance of the parody of Hamlet. Sometimes content from
other plays is brought in, but expressed in language quite different
from the original, just as the "Hamnet" script translates
Hamlet into IRC-ese. The opening of Harris's script fosters
this by recycling a famous passage from As You Like It:
Unix is, of course, one of the major types of mainframe computing
operating systems today. And men and women active on IRC are not
players but IRC addicts. This is an allusion to the quasi-addictive
quality of IRC, a phenomenon all too familiar to IRC regulars
Ruedenberg, et al., 1995).
But what we want to look at now is improvised citations of
passages and content from other plays done "on the fly" during
"Hamnet" performances. These may be interwoven into the ongoing
interaction during the preparation or warm-up period before the
performance, into the actual performance itself, or even into
freefloating dialogue in after-the-show online cast parties.
One variety of play with intertextuality is the insertion of brief
"oneliners." Thus, during the December performance of "Hamnet",
<Gazza>
(Gary Hunt in RL), Harris's online as well as RL pal
from Bath, England, slated to play <R_Krantz>, popped on during the
preparations, only to announce that he would have to sign off,
drive home from the university, and then log on again. As he signed
off, all could read the bit of text he had inserted alongside the
/signoff command as he executed it:
Readers may recognize this as the most famous line in
Shakespeare's Richard III, and a humorous way of referring to the
fact that <Gazza> would be needing some means of transportation
in order to get home.
<Me> from Alaska played with several nicks before accepting
the role of <ophelia> in the February production. While
temporarily taking on the nick <hamlet>, and very pleased with
herself for doing so ("Hehehe," she types, immediately following
the nick change), she writes:
This is a line from Titus Andronicus ,III.1.187 (Titus: Come
hither, Aaron). Later, when cast as <Ophelia>, she did it again,
suggesting that she may have planned this type of improvisation in
advance.
This time the line is, of course, the title of Tom Stoppard's
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Stoppard's own spin-
off from Hamlet. The effect of such citations is even more comic
when they are experienced in context. Harris liked this bit of
improvisation; he handed <Ophelia> a rare compliment:
Another form of improvisation is to pretend to be a character from
another Shakespearean play. Thus, a person logged into the #hamnet
channel during December preparations suddenly
changed his/her nick from <Spectator> to <MacBeth>(line 1164).
The move does not go unnoticed:
<Recorder>'s wink ;-) is in recognition of the playfulness in this
move. <MacBeth> proceeds to exploit his nick, pretending to talk to
one of the witches in Cockney dialect:
In the original, Macbeth does not actually ask the witches what is
in their cauldron; rather, he asks them what they do, and how they
know what they know:
Moments later <Quantum Cat> types:
(To remind readers how these lines are entered, this is done by
typing "/me wonders if he is in the right play"; the /me command
turns the text into a descriptor of the person.) This is yet
another form of playfulness, and by Harris's own account, a very
important component of the ability to create virtual theater on
IRC (Harris,
1995b). <Quantum Cat> is both "inside" the role of MacBeth and
"outside" it; he pretends to be a character in search of a play,
something like Pirandello's characters in search of an author.
In addition to citing passages from other plays, participants
also play with lines from the original script of Hamlet, as in the
following example during preparations for the February performance:
This line was entered when all participants were extremely worried
about the possibility of an imminent netsplit. The addition of
"now" turns the citation into a witty comment on RL vulnerabilities
of the medium and the likelihood of a netsplit.
Another instance of playful citation was <KaiKul>'s recycling
of Hamlet's line "Get thee to a nunnery," which he typed to
<Ophelia> long before the performance ever started:
By far the best improvisation on Shakespearean texts which we
have encountered in all six performances, to date, occurred in the
waning moments of the ill-fated November
attempt to perform "Hamnet". The performance was already in shambles,
as a result of the electricity outage in California, and Harris
himself was about to log off, after having managed, as he put it, "to
hack his way back on" via a server in Taiwan. At that point, someone
logged on as <rosenKRNZ> and began to spout clever parodies of
Hamlet and Macbeth:
While the others wind down after the failed performance,
<RosenKRNZ> produces a brilliant improvisation on the famous
"To be or not to be" soliloquy. (It is unlikely that he had
coordinated with Harris to play the part of <R_krantz> since he
crops "Rosencrantz" to <RosenKRNZ>.) A moment later he changes his
nick to <Hamlet>, suggesting that though he may know Shakespeare
well, and may even have worked a bit on preparing some kind of
parody of this famous soliloquy, he was reacting
spontaneously to the situation (we will return to this issue later).
He forges ahead, mindless of what the others are saying.
The parody is clever, first of all, because of the reformulation of
"to be or not to be" in even more condensed form than in Harris's
script: "2B | !2B" is the mathematician's formal way of expressing
"is/is not." This is outdoing--"out-speed-writing"-- even Harris
himself. Even more impressive is <Hamlet>`s quick adaptation to
the disastrous situation brought about by the electrical problem. Let
us compare his parody with the original:
<Hamlet> has substituted "splits" and "lags" for slings and arrows
(line 870). In addition to this being entirely appropriate on the
semantic level for the kinds of troubles that IRCers are "heir" to,
and for the immediate situation at hand, these are remarkably good
approximations on the level of sound: "splits" and "lags" are
both single-syllable words, and "splits" begins with spl;
"slings" is also a one-syllable word, beginning with sl.
Moreover, both words have the same vowel sound i. While "lags "
has only one syllable and "arrows" has two, they share the same
a vowel. Finally, the plurals ending in s in the
parodic phrase are not only appropriate semantically but echo the
plural in the original.
The transformation of the heart-ache and the thousand natural
shocks/ That flesh is heir to into "the splits and lags/ That net
is hair to" is technically not perfect in terms of amount of phonetic
material, but, nevertheless, it is extremely clever. Not only does
<Hamlet> substitute one pair of troubles for another, Net-
related pair, but he draws a contrast between "flesh" and "net": just
as the flesh is heir to troubles, so the Net is subject to troubles as
well--splits and lags. He cannot resist the temptation to substitute
the near-homophone "hair" for "heir", because of his association to
"net" as in "hair net" (in "hair" the h is aspirated; in "heir"
it is not.
He substitutes "logoffing" for "consummation", also a clever move. In
this context, consummation obvious means "death" or "end" in the
original. To log off, or to be logged off--cut off--is a kind of "Net-
death." Not only that, for those who are long-time IRCers, its quasi-
addictive quality creates extreme frustration when one is "bumped"
from the Net or one's equipment is down, for one technical reason or
another. William Gibson, author of Neuromancer (1984) , the
quintessential cyberpunk science fiction novel, portrays the central
character of the novel, called Case, as "high," feeling good, only
when he is "jacked in" to cyberspace. Thus, only someone like our Net-
Hamlet, who is "mad," could prefer cyber-death to being "wired" and
logged on.
"To lag, to split/ No more" is a clever adaptation of To die,
to sleep no more. Once again, the symmetries are impressive, if
not perfect: both pairs are one-syllable words, to begin with.
Second, in both instances, the member of the pair with the larger
amount of phonetic material falls into the second slot--it takes
longer to pronounce "split" than "lag", just as it takes longer to
realize "sleep" than "die". In short, both expressions conform to what
is known as the "principle of end-weight" which is often
characteristic of binomial expressions--word pairs (Malkiel, 1959;
Gustafsson, 1974, 1976; Danet, 1984). Third, and perhaps most
remarkable of all, "sleep" and "split" contain precisely the same
three consonants!
Harris (<Producer>) is so impressed by this improvisation that
he performs the /who command, to see what he can find out about
<Hamlet>'s identity. Here is what he learns:
Our <Hamlet> turns out to be a student at the Technion, Israel's
M.I.T., who has tucked yet another nickname: "Quantum Cat," into
the material included with his address.
Moved to compete with <Hamlet>, Harris then loads his "advice"
file, the extended parody of Hamlet's advice to the actors in the
play-within-the play, thus showing that he too can produce a good
parody. As clever as it is, we know that his parody was composed
offline, whereas those we are looking at here are improvised, to a
great extent if not entirely.
Another participant, called <Tyree>, tries to keep up, typing:
This is, of course, a close approximation of "Frailty, thy name is
woman," from another famous soliloquy in Hamlet, the one in
Act I, Scene 2 that begins "O, that this too too solid flesh
would melt" (I.2.129). "Nick" is a clever substitute for name, not
only because it is a contemporary special case of the more general
name, but also since both are one-syllable words beginning with
n.
Still in disguise as <Hamlet>, Quantum Cat now begins yet
another wonderful parody, a "mish-mash" of no less than four
different, famous passages from Macbeth, Here is the first
portion:
Despite the infelicities of rapid typing this is, of course, a
recognizable send-up of the famous "tomorrow and tomorrow and
tomorrow" speech from Macbeth:
He has substituted baud rate for pace, a wonderful choice, since
"baud rate" is the technical term for the speed at which modems
transfer information over telephone lines. This speed is never fast
enough for users: although in a matter of years it has climbed from
300 to 2400 to 14,400, and increasingly to 28,800 baud.
Logged in time is substituted for recorded time, once again
equating "life" with being logged on, as he did in the parody of
Hamlet cited above. And bit instead of syllable is an apt choice
too: whereas syllable is used by Shakespeare metaphorically as
the smallest unit of time, Quantum Cat mobilizes the very word
which means not only "small piece or amount" in the general sense,
but also happens to be the technical name for the smallest amount
of information in the world of computers. Finally, /whowases
shares with yesterdays the idea of "past," something in the past.
/whowas happens to be is an IRC command which players can use
to check the identity of some person who has just logged off--it
means "Who was X?" A person who has logged off is essentially
"dead" to those still logged onto a channel.
This passage is followed by a parody of lines from the two
famous scenes in Macbeth, in which Macbeth encounters the
witches. <Hamlet> writes:
The original of the first is:
The line in <Hamlet>'s parody may appear merely to predict that
McBot will be "chopped," e.g., chopped down, killed, contrary to the
original line, but this is incorrect. In fact, this is a clever
translation of the idea of the original into IRC jargon. In every
channel, only one person may receive the status of channel operator--
the person who may grant or deny various privileges to the others
logged onto that channel--e.g., to give them "voice" (/voice), to
kick, kill or ban them (from the channel or the
server), and so on. The first person to join a channel, to "open" it,
is automatically designated as the channel operator. But once several
people are logged on, the rights of the channel operator may be passed
on to others. In typical IRC jargon, "channel operator" is abbreviated
to "chanop." Thus to be "chanoped," or, in its even briefer version,
to be choped, is to be promoted--to be king of the channel!
McBot picks up on the preoccupation with "bots" and the difficulties
of knowing whether a participant on IRC is a person or a bot--"bot" as
in "robot," a kind of computer program. Many servers incorporate
"bots" which perform various functions and can even be programmed to
"say" things which make them sound like people!
Once again, there are phonetic similarities between the original and
the parody; the phonetic distance from Macbeth to McBot is not very
great: beth and bot both begin with b, and th and
t are the voiced and unvoiced versions of the same consonant.
From there it is easy enough to add the humorous "Mc" in McBot.
As for the second line, this is a transformation of
"Noise" is substituted for "toil", and "troublelag" for just plain
"trouble". In the IRC context, "noise" doesn't just mean abrasive
sound in the usual sense--it often means "disturbances online,"
including, perhaps, those of netsplits--in other words, various forms
of technical interference with the smoothness of communication. Note
also that noise shares with the original "toil" the same vowel sound
oi. Thus, once again, the expression both makes sense,
semantically, and maintains some continuity of sound.
Finally, we come to
This line is straight from the passage
Once again the substitution of "channel" for "dagger" is far more
than the mere substitution of one noun for another. Just as the
dagger comes and goes in Macbeth's consciousness, so channels come
and go, because of the infernal problem of netsplits. But whereas
Macbeth is haunted by the image of something he'd like to be rid
of, Quantum Cat and other IRCers want just the opposite: they want
to see what is constantly eluding them. On the level of sound there
are again impressive symmetries. "Channel" and "dagger" are both
two-syllable words with the accent on the first syllable and with
the vowel a in the first syllable.
As if all this play with Shakespearean texts weren't enough,
<Hamlet> manages to get a parodic snippet of still another one on
screen, before Harris closes shop for the day, this time from
Romeo and Juliet:
The original is a line of Romeo's from Act II, Scene 2, "But
soft! what light through yonder window breaks?" (line 2). Quantum
Cat might have gone parodying Romeo and Juliet and other plays,
if Harris and the others had not logged off at that point.
Were these parodies entirely improvised online? Or, had Quantum
Cat reviewed his Shakespeare carefully and, in fact, prepared them
ahead of time? We should also ask: is English his native
language? After all, for most Israelis, Hebrew is the native
language. Perhaps he is an immigrant, or the son of immigrants
from an English-speaking country. We say "he" rather than "she"
because the majority of students in technical and scientific
subjects in Israel, as elsewhere, tend to be male.
We cannot know how much he had prepared in advance, but a
careful examination of his parodies of many of these speeches
strongly suggests that they were not fully worked out in advance.
While he may have done his homework, and jotted down some
ideas for parodies, we believe that he suited the contents at least
partially "on the fly," to the crisis of the moment--the current
netsplit caused by the thunderstorm. He may have thought ahead of
time that "splits and lags" are a suitable kind of trouble to
substitute in the soliloquy, but, most likely he never dreamt that he
would have an opportunity to use this idea quite so soon.
There is an additional argument in support of this interpretation.
Fully worked out parodies tend to be more perfect in form than those
of Quantum Cat, with careful lexical substitutions in critical places;
however they may also be somewhat pedestrian (see, e.g., the parody
of Hamlet's soliloquy in Brett, 1984). Thus, we are quite convinced
that even if he reread his Shakespeare in advance, and even if he
began drafting some parodies, there is an extremely impressive, major
online component to them.
Many wonderful instances of improvisation are take-offs on the
"Hamnet" script itself. Thus, in the February performance,
<Ophelia> modified her original line
This <Ophelia> makes light of both Hamlet and his possessions.
She calls his possessions "crap," instead of "stuff," as called for by
the script. Although these terms are both clearly from the domain
of slang, "crap" belongs to the domain of obscene slang, whereas
"stuff" is neutral. She addresses Hamlet as "babe"--a contemporary
term of address which is over-familiar in the context of addressing
a prince. In just one contemptuous sentence, she flips over the
traditional stereotype of Ophelia as a delicate, romantic,
submissive, creature, and conveys instead an independent Ophelia
who is more "with it" than Hamlet. He is made out to be a very
contemporary student with a Mac computer, an outdated version of
Word Perfect (<Ophelia> probably meant Word Perfect 5.1 and not
51.a), and some pornographic magazines. In mentioning the Mac,
<Ophelia> is toying with the rivalry between the PC and the Mac,
and expressing the view that the PC is in the ascendant. Along the
same lines, we might add, really "with-it" people find their
pornography not at the corner store but on the Net!
In the December performance, <Brazil> improvised in another way.
Changing his/her nick first to <flirt> and then to <exeunt>,
<Brazil> introduced a fleeting, Monty-Python-like bit of stage
business into the proceedings.
With roles for "exit" and "enter" already created in the script, it
was a short step to inventing additional ones of this kind
spontaneously. The obviously silly suggestion that the Pope and
his entourage walked in and out of the scene is very much like the
bits of pop-up business in the Monty Python CD-Rom called "A Complete
Waste of Time" (Seventh Level, 1994). This CD-Rom is so interactive
that almost anywhere one clicks on the computer screen, something
surprising, outrageously funny, and completely out of context pops up,
only to disappear in seconds. (This "now-you-see-it-now-you-don't"
element was present in the television series too, is enhanced by the
CD-Rom medium). For those puzzled by the abbreviation "wtf," read it
as "what the fuck?" The obscenity is in the spirit of Monty Python
too.
The last of the <Ghost>`s lines cited above was improvised
during the December performance. This is a fleeting reference to Bugs
Bunny, the Disney cartoon character with his huge buck teeth,
stuttering th...th...th...that's all folks! at the end of the cartoon.
An additional bit of sly humor is the impossible cue number--
9999999999. This little performance may have been entirely improvised
on the spot, it may have been planned ahead, though typed in real
time, or it might even have been prepared as a mini file ready to be
uploaded. There is no way of knowing which of these is correct.
Playing with the Role of Actor
Another source of inspiration for improvisation, within the theater
frame, is the situation of being an "actor". In a variety of ways, the
players devise verbal equivalents of actors' "onstage" and
"backstage" behavior. Thus, the actors textually try their costumes
on, and take them off:
Just as RL actors do, these virtual actors peek out at the audience
before the show:
They send and receive virtual roses. In the December performance
and after the February performance
Like all actors, when the show is over, the players also take
their "bows:"
And <G_Stern> suddenly comments, "I wanna talk about guild
wages" (line 1352). Almost immediately, <Laertes> "calls his
agent" (line 1356), continuing this pretend-frame.
Later, just as the performance was finally about to begin,
after a false start, <The_King> types
Playing with the Role of Audience
The "actors" are not the only ones who play around, improvise,
raise a textual ruckus--members of the audience do too.
Technically, all that is necessary for "audience" to be represented
on screen is for one person to use the nick <audience> and type
"Clap, clap, clap...", as line [1] of the script calls for, and to
comment "hmmmmmm....." at the end [line 80]. All others who joined
#hamnet channel could just lurk, throughout. In fact, there are
plenty of "audience" hijinks of all kinds. Here are some examples:
Playing One's Role in the Performance of Hamnet
Among the most amusing types of improvisation on one's role are
those where individuals "impersonate" inanimate objects. Thus,
<Ghost> and <Drum> have a field day in the December performance,
mobilizing comics-like means to convey sound. This is a kind of
textual equivalent of doing charades in real life:
In the February performance the ghost used textual means to flesh
out his role:
When Harris asked December performers if all had their lines,
<Drum> replied:
Earlier, <Drum> also imitated the sound of a drum textually:
The <Ghost> exploits an emergent convention in the world of CMC:
capital letters are experienced as SHOUTING, and hence are
generally discouraged. Here,he/she indicates the shift from initial
loud sounds to fading ones by switching from capital letters to
small ones, as in
In line 2156 the <Ghost> offers a witty pun: ghost of an act echoes
ghost of a chance, We can read it as a reversal of "act of a
ghost." As for <Drum>, typing "Boom boom boom" is the textual
equivalent of beating one's chest in a charades game, in order to
convey that one is "a drum."
Just as RL performers like to have a cast party after the
performance, virtual ones do too. In the December performance, all
remained on #hamnet for the festivities. In the second, February
performance, after the show, Harris "moved" the festivities to
another channel, called, of course, #castparty.
One of the signs of a celebration is the intaking of spirits. As we
mentioned at the beginning of this paper, there was "champagne"
at the December cast party:
<DRUM> got into a party mood by changing his nick:
The intention was probably "DRUM is now known as <party_time>, but
since only 9 characters are allowed, "time" has been abbreviated to
"tm."
At the February cast party, in addition to virtual champagne, the
players drank "sherry," Danish "vodka," "beer," and "Southern
Comfort," and <Ophelia> even "snorted cocaine."
Interspersed with the audience's reactions were many comments by
the cast, who conducted what Harris called a "post-mortem" on the
performance. They applauded their own performance, but also made RL
judgments about how it went, and how to do better next time. At the
December cast party, the mood was rather subdued,
since most were preoccupied with figuring out how to improve the
technical and logistic arrangements in the future.
Here are some of the suggestions made for future productions at
the December cast party:
Eventually, Harris adopted <Fort_bras>`s suggestion and cast the
main roles ahead of time, in future productions.
The February cast and audience were more exuberant:
The players also play with IRC commands and functions in a
host of ways, beyond those called for by the script.
Non-performative Reference to IRC Commands
In a one-liner during the December performance <G_stern> types:
This looks just like the usual way one types IRC commands, e.g.,
But there is no such command to set lag on or off! Lag is not
subject to the commands of the program at all. It is a "trouble"
inherent in the medium, and, as we have repeately pointed out, one
which plagues participants incessantly. In short, <G_Stern> is
using the format of IRC commands to say in a playful manner,
"Let's hope there won't be any lag." Hardly anyone notices this little
move, except for <Recorder>, who types "Haha" in the very next
line--at least he/she appreciated the thought.
Another form of playfulness with the IRC software and in-group culture
exploits the ambiguities of knowing who is a person and who is a bot
on IRC. As we mentioned earlier, on many servers "bots" are installed
to perform certain functions. They are programs which can emulate
live dialogue, along with executing various automatic IRC commands.
Sometimes it is quite difficult to know if one is chatting with a
person or with a script-generated "entity," especially if that
individual's contributions are interleaved with those of many others.
In that spirit, during the February performance, <Usher> wrote
what no real bot would ever admit:
An address including a userid is given for <Usher>. Although this
is no proof of being a human, very likely, he/she is playfully
commenting on the uncertainty of knowing who is really a person.
Whereas <G_Stern> pretends to use an IRC command, <Ophelia>
uses one performatively, but in a playful way, to comment on how
long it is taking to get organized:
Since the log was created by Harris himself, we cannot see on
screen the actual command she typed, but only the acknowledgment
by the software that the command has been
executed. In order to create the text in line 1105, she had to have
typed
As we have seen, Harris built plenty of obscenity into the
players' lines. The players have a field day with additional,
improvised forms of obscenity while online--not merely verbal
obscenity, free use of four-letter words, but also, amusing
simulations of action. There are good examples of "pissing" and
"farting" in public in both the December and the February
performances of "Hamnet". Here is the
one from the December performance:
<The _King> wanders off (not "wonders"--just a typo) for a "leak"
in line 1570, "piddles" (line 1576), and "washes hands" (line 1578).
The choice of "piddles" is apt: it is a word of Elizabethan origin,
and one we use nowadays mainly in connection with children and pets-
e.g., "the dog piddled". The expression "w[a]nders off" does not
succeed in creating a simulated private space; in effect
<The_King> is piddling "in public." In the February performance one
of those present "passes wind:"
None of the participants even "blinks," textually. <_Producer>
quickly freshens the "air" in the channel with a "cyber-aerosol"
spray, and the preparations continue. In both examples there is
also a comics-like element of onomatopoeia: "piddle" and "*blat*"
imitate the sounds of the action.
Like "taggers" creating subway or other public graffiti all over
the world, IRCers experience a special glee in "getting up" with a
forbidden inscription in a public "space" or "place" (Castleman,
1982; Cooper and Chalfant, 1985). Just as Harris had fun
incorporating four-letter words in his mock-literary work, so the
performers had fun using them in written real-time chat.
While waiting for the show to begin at the December performance,
Harris found himself alone with <GeekChrus>. He introduced his
own brilliant version of a well-known parlor word game to pass the
time and keep themselves amused.
The principle of this game, hinted at by Harris in line 323, is
that players challenge each other to think of pairs of words in
which the addition of a letter, or of a combination of letters in
a word yields another word. It's no coincidence that the string
["lf"] chosen by Harris comes from the world of computers. The
expression "line feed" means, as a verb, "to feed the paper
through a terminal by one line (in order to print on the next
line); and as a noun, "the `character, which causes the terminal to
perform this action"
(Dictionary of
Computer Jargon, 1995). <GeekChrus> instantly
understands what game Harris has in mind (perhaps they have played
this game before), and comes up with a wonderful pair: "sesame" and
"selfsame". Harris rises to the challenge and offers another: "pier"
and "pilfer". In the next round <GeekChrus> throws out the word
"shelfish" (sic), but before he can provide his own second word,
Harris comes up with sheesh, an apparently outmoded term in
computer culture denoting impatience. This term appeared in at least
one previous version of the Jargon File but is not included in the
latest version available online (Jargon File,
1995).
The players also play with spelling in a number of ways. Look, for
instance at this line from the December log:
Not only the "crown" is "crooked"--<G_Stern>`s spelling is too! "Ure"
is "your", and "crown'z" with a z is a zany way to write
"crown is". This is not just another case of speedwriting motivated by
considerations of efficiency. It takes almost as many letters to write
"ure" as "your". If "u" is short for "you", then "ur" could have been
short for "you are." "Moreover, unless <G_Stern> is extremely
practiced in substituting z for s, it might even take
longer in terms of cognitive processing, let alone typing, to produce
"crown'z" than "crown is" or even " crown's"!
The substitution of z for s is characteristic of playful
linguistic practice in hacker culture (Meyer and
Thomas, 1990;
Barlow,
1990; Raymond, 1991; Slatalla and
Quittner, 1994). Hackers make eccentric use of z, not simply to
provide a more phonetic transcription of the actual pronunciation of words or
expressions. Everybody knows that modern English spelling often has little or
nothing to do with sound. Like hackers, seasoned IRCers also signal their own
specialness and solidarity through these eccentric spelling practices.
Another example of z as the sign of the plural, also in the December
performance, is:
Another of the typical substitutions made by hackers is ph for
f, as in "phreak" for "freak" and in "phrack", a computer
underground magazine (Meyer and Thomas,
1990; Barlow,
1990;
Slatalla and Quittner, 1994). "Phreaking" (from "phone phreak") is "the
art and science of cracking the phone network" or, by extension, "security-
cracking in any other context" (Raymond, 1991: 281). A well known hacker named
Mark Abene spells his nickname "Phiber Optik" rather than "Fiber Optic" (Slatalla and
Quittner, 1994). Whereas Abene replaces c with k, yet
another common hacker practice, Harris replaces ck with c. One of the most
striking characteristics of performances by the Hamnet Players is the
extraordinary, often brilliant punning that goes on. Defined in a simple and
charming manner, puns are a type of wordplay in which "two meanings competing
for the same phonemic space or as one sound bring forth semantic twins"
(Hartman, 1970: 347, cited in Fried, 1988: 8). The Hamnet Players frequently
throw out one-line puns, which are sometimes noticed by the others, sometimes
not, in the rush of rather rowdy goings-on. Here is a clever one by
<mattfest>:
Shakespeare's own theater was called "The Globe," as readers will
no doubt recall. And the Hamnet Players are creating global
theater. The difference in sound between "glob" and "globe" invoked
by the hyphen in "glob-al" also harks back to a pun in the New
Hacker's Dictionary: hackers enjoy calling the Boston Globe the
"Boston Glob" (Raymond, 1991: 9). This pun is particularly apt in a
broader sense too: Shakespeare's period was one when RL global
exploration was a major cultural theme, whereas our own is one in
which a new virtual, global culture is developing, and the activities
of the Hamnet Players are an important part of that trend.
Another cute pun in the December log is
<Fem> and <me> are buddies in Alaska. <Fem> is saying, literally,
that she brought along a friend, whose nick is <me>. Harris may
have been expecting these two: both end up playing key roles.
<Fem> becomes <QUEEN> and <me> plays <Ophelia>.
Sexual punning appears in a bit of improvisation on the script
during the December performance.
In another example, <Fem> types, as part of her ongoing
flirtation with <President>,
<Fem> exploits capitalization to highlight the pun on her
interlocutor's nick.<br>
As amusing as these examples are, sexual punning is far more
brilliant in an extended sequence in the December log, during an
ongoing flirtation between the <King> and <Queen> (aka <Fem>).
The transcript below has been edited heavily--not to censor it, but,
on the contrary, to highlight all the clever wordplay, which occurred
over rather a long stretch, and which may go unnoticed if buried in
the text, interwoven with many other kinds of content.
This brilliant improvisation is a striking instance of what
Delia Chiaro (1992: 114) calls "ping-pong punning," in which
participants picks up on the ambiguity of words used, and try to
outdo each others, cleverness. This type of punning is generally
quite conscious; people hear each others, contributions and
consciously try to outdo them, or at least to keep up the flow of
puns. In contrast, other types of punning, in speech at least, may be
unconscious or unintentional (Sherzer, 1978).
Whereas Chiaro is talking about spoken punning, we are dealing with
interactive typed punning, something new in the world with the advent
of digital technologies. It is apparent that the wordplay hinges on
the sexual connotations of "thing", "part", "member", and "log", as
well as "enter", though at least in the case of "log", <Queen>'s
initial use of it may have been innocent enough:
Just at that moment, several others had reported that that were
logging the performance, so maybe she (the RL person disguised as
<Queen>) really wanted a record of it, and had no licentious
connotations in mind. In any case, the others quickly added it to
the list of expressions to play with. The sexual innuendo is quite
subtle and context-dependent; not a single one of these expressions
normally has a distinctly sexual connotation.
Another aspect of the humor in this long sequence depends on
still other kinds of play with language. Look again at
The two sentences appear to be syntactically and semantically
analogous, at first glance. However, "Queen" is a noun, while "left"
and "right" are adverbs. Here, the humor derives from play with
syntax (Chiaro, 1992: 40-43). The underlying meanings of "exit right"
and "enters Queen" are, of course, entirely different!! Line 1496
was not a part of the script, and was therefore improvised as a
humorous follow-up to line 1495. We shouldn't forget to mention the
punning use of "enter," which has served as a mere stage
direction till now.
Play with language continues to be an important part the
flirtation in later portion of the log, though it doesn't quite
measure up to the brilliant series of puns in the sequence just
presented.
The move from "pinches" to "punches" once again reveals elegant
play with sound, since all phonetic material remains identical,
except for the switch in vowel sounds from i to u in the two
words. <The_King>`s response reflects attention to the formal
aspects of his utterance too--it maintains the same syntactic
structure, mirroring <ThE_QuEeN>`s lines exactly.
Earlier, we encountered an example of a homophonic pun in
improvisations on original Shakespearean plays by Quantum Cat
("heir" vs. "hair"). During the February performance of "Hamnet", at one
point <Dudester> asked "who's Kristen?" Harris replied:
Harris may have started out by trying to recall the name in all
seriousness, but once he has typed it and it pops up on screen, he
can't resist the slight graphic change from "Rhuc" to "Phuc". It is
not clear what inspired him--was it the graphic similarity between
R and P, in combination with the letter h, or was
it the possibility of two different pronunciations of "Rhuc"? Thus, an
ostensible attempt to spell an exotic Asian name ( Vietnamese,
Cambodian?) became a wonderful opportunity to introduce an obscene
pun; but that is not the end of the story. He adds a further Oriental
twist, another kind of play--this time with spelling: he spells "Fuck
you too" in vaguely Chinese or Vietnamese fashion.
In all the many varieties of puns and punning which we have just
discussed, the pun is generally intentional. Sometimes, people make
puns unconsciously; they occur in a serendipitous manner. In our
previous research on IRC we documented the serendipitous exploitation
of a typographical error: a player called <Thunder> was writing of
packing a bowl with marihuana; instead of typing "bowl", he typed
"bowel". This led him to write "shitty pot" (Ruedenberg, et al., 1995;
Danet, et al., in press). In the December
performance of "Hamnet", <Ophelia> typed
"Midevil" can be read as "medieval", as "mid..devil", and as
"mid...evil". Readings as "evil" or "devil" are both pertinent to the
context of the original play, as well as to the linguistic context--
the association with STUD.
Playing Around: Virtual Flirting
In the midst of staging the production, the players also carried on
their own private games, notably flirting. When the body is missing,
one wonders, how do people flirt? The answer is: as in everything
else, by typing. Flirtations flourish on IRC, but take on new,
additionally humorous connotations when participants are "wearing"
their "Hamnet" nicks. One flirtation in the December performance was
between <Ophelia> and <Laertes>.
This continues, off and on, not only before the performance, but
during it, as well:
Except for the fact that these two people are currently "dressed"
in their "Hamnet" nicks, this could be just an ordinary flirtation on
IRC. However, knowing that they are stage brother and sister in
the play, we find the note of "mock-incest" humorous. It could
be, of course, that they were not aware of this added dimension of
their interaction.
We have seen that exuberant improvisation permeates performances of
"Hamnet", so much so that we have referred to them, off and on, as
"carnivalesque." But how, readers might want to ask, can we speak of
"carnival" if this medium is disembodied? Carnival has always been
a celebration of the body, especially "the lower bodily stratum"
(Stam, 1989: 90; Bakhtin, 1968). Peter Burke (1978: 186) reminds us
that the word "carnival" comes from the Latin carne--meaning
both "meat" and "the flesh". "Hamnet" performances are obviously not
carnivals as we have known them in the past: there is no smell of
roasting meat, no rollicking music, no jostling crowd of people
bumping into one another, no wild dancing in the streets, no dazzling
play of color in celebrants' costumes. Except for relatively minor
additions of graphics and sound, what we have till now--certainly in
productions of "Hamnet", but even in productions of the later scripts--
is just a lot of typing! Nevertheless, we suggest that performances
are "carnivals of words" in a more than superficial sense.
In Caillois's (1961) terms, PAIDIA is present as well as LUDUS.
PAIDIA is "the spontaneous manifestations of the play instinct"
(Caillois, 1961: 28) and LUDUS, "a taste for gratuitous difficulty"
(Caillois, 1961: 27). Both spontaneous and structured forms of play
are present. In the spirit of our discussion of the "both/and" nature
of "Hamnet" scripts and performances, in the Introduction to this
paper, we can now suggest that they are both theater (LUDUS)
and carnival (PAIDIA). Despite the absence of the body, if one
lays the template of "carnival" against our materials, the overlap is
striking, indeed. In Figure 2, presented below, we list basic
elements of traditional RL carnivals, and their manifestations or
equivalents in "Hamnet" performances. *If the
following does not appear to you as a table, please click here
Many elements of Mikhail Bakhtin's famous analysis of carnivals
(Bakhtin, 1968) are present in our materials, as inspection of a list
developed by Stam (1989: 93-94) reveals. To begin with, what Bakhtin
calls the valorization of Eros, or the life force is unmistakably
present in the exuberant spirit of these performances.
Second, just as RL carnivals usually are characterized by a dramatic
concatenation of life and death, or highlight themes of death handled
in a slapdash manner, so we found the Punch-and-Judy-like killing off
of characters in "Hamnet". Built into the script, it was carried out
with gusto and often with additional flourishes in actual
performances. Third, just as in RL carnivals, people wear masks and
costumes which transform their identities, so IRCers--in this case
both performers and audience members--"wear" nicks which transform
their RL identity. Through this transformation they are temporarily
released from their RL identity, and have license to be and do what
they want. Moreover, in the case of virtual theater, the players "get
into costume" by changing their regular nicks to the special ones
called for by their role. Fourth, though there is less preoccupation
with the body than in RL carrnivals, the little that is present is
very prominent. Recall the virtual representations of "piddling" and
"farting" in "public." As for subversion of established power, there
is some ambiguity as to how to apply this category to a situation of
virtual interaction. What is subverted, and what are the power
arrangements that are being subverted--those of the real world or
those existing within IRC? At the least, the parodization of canonical
Shakespeare, not only at the level of the script, but the constant
improvised reference to other plays besides Hamlet, and the
ease with which people incorporate their themes and content into
their games, are certainly subversive. In addition, making fun of the
rules and practices of IRC seemingly subverts them but also
contributes to their validation, much as what happens in RL carnivals
(Turner, 1969; 1986a; 1986b; Gluckman, 1956; 1963, cited in Burke,
1978: 201). Perhaps the prime characteristic of carnivals is the sense
of communitas, of the temporary suspension of hierarchical
difference while participants are in a liminal state, and the
resultant feelings of solidarity among equals (Bakhtin, 1968; Turner,
1969, 1986a, 1986b; Stam, 1989). Team spirit, an awareness of a
unique mutual undertaking, even a sense of making history together
certainly characterize performers and audience members, as we have
seen. This spirit also leads to celebration of the event, at a "cast
party, "including the imbibing of virtual champagne. Valorization of
"low" language is a seventh feature of carnivals--release from the need
to use polite, cultivated or civilized language. We saw this in
abundance in "Hamnet" performances--well beyond even that already in
the script. Rampant obscenity, slang and colloquialisms were threaded
throughout, even beyond what is called for by the script. Related to
the proliferation of low language in carnivals is the rejection of
decorum at the behavioral level (no. 8, Figure 2). In our materials,
once again, there are many instances of this. We find breaches of
etiquette-e.g., audience members threatening to throw fruit or being
noisy and interrupting the proceedings, performers flirting with one
another, though this is not called for by their role. There are also
breaches of (IRC) Netiquette. Witness the behavior of <javalima> in
December:
There is an unwritten norm on IRC that one doesn't barge in on a
channel; second, one doesn't change the topic--that is the
prerogative of the chanop--the channel operator. Third, the
offensive choice of topic speaks for itself.
Yet another of the features of carnivals stressed by Bakhtin, the
presence of an anticlassical aesthetic--the mixing of styles and
voices--is, as we have seen, overwhelmingly present in "Hamnet"
performances. We saw that the players greatly elaborate on the mix
of low language and Shakespearean materials already in the script,
adding snippets from other Shakespearean plays, mocking
Shakespearean style, and so on. Recall the contrast we drew between
the archaic Renaissance language of Shakespeare
himself and the many super-contemporary expressions threaded
throughout the logs. One of our best examples was "Exeunt the Pope
and his entourage." This delightful bit of nonsense dresses
contemporary imaginary content with the Latin exeunt, straight
out of the obsolete language of script-writing.
RL carnivals are participatory spectacles par excellence; the
boundaries between performers and spectators become blurred, as
spectators join in the festivities, and all become part of the same
milling crowd. "Hamnet" performances are also spectacles--textual
ones. The primary sense involved is that of sight--everything that
takes place must be seen on the computer screen. Even more important
is the fact that audience members are very active. As we saw, only one
person is supposed to play "audience," but in fact, those who come to
see the show invent all kinds of virtual bits of behavior, verbal and
non-verbal--passing popcorn, hissing and booing, expressing
impatience, and so on. As in RL spectacles, there is also a definite
sense of occasion; this was noted already at the very beginning of
this paper.
Finally we come to the component which we see as most important of all
in the present context, what we have called the sense of abandon in
Figure 2. In Stam's (1989) synthesis of Bakhtin's model of carnivals,
he mentions uncontrollable, wild laughter as one of their most
prominent features:
If, after all, we are analyzing written communication on computer
screens, and if we have no taperecordings of participants'
responses as they sat in front of their monitors, what evidence can we
provide of the sense of abandon which accompanies uncontrollable
laughter? There are some instances of written-out laughter in the
log, usually written as "hehehehe." However, these instances are
rare. At the same time, judging by our own reactions, we are sure that
both players and audience were not just having a wonderful time, but
had many a belly laugh. Moreover, we believe there is evidence in the
logs themselves that justifies this claim. In RL carnivals
uncontrollable laughter is one expression of ilinx. Caillois
(1961) classified games into four categories, one of which is ilinx,
or vertigo. Ilinx consists of "an attempt to momentarily destroy the
stability of perception...(and) reality with sovereign brusqueness"
(Caillois, 1961: 23). We agree with Test (1991) that
Hamnet performances are carnivals of wordplay. In any instance where
the formal aspects of language are foregrounded, where the free play
of signifiers predominates, there is potential distraction from taking
in referential meaning (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, 1976, Introduction;
Palmer, 1994: 140-141), but the distraction is usually relatively
limited. When wordplay is as rich and prominent as it is in our
materials, and experienced in a rowdy crowd atmosphere, even if
virtual, participants share a sense of heightened excitement. Perhaps
the zenith of this excitement was experienced in the December
performance during the sequence of ping
pong punning. In the spirit of Test's (1991) discussion of ilinx
in literature, we suggest that even a one-line pun is a "tiny ilinx",
to borrow his term; it can induce an explos of laughter. We believe
that there is a cumulative effect of being present at, and of
participating in extended sequences of wordplay in "Hamnet"
performances. If our own experience is any indication, people tend to
laugh much more than is obvious from their typed reactions, and even
to laugh out loud--a phenomenon which, as we mentioned at the
beginning of the paper, is quite rare for individuals when alone.
A distinction is often made between wit and humor, the former being
more intellectual and the latter more earthy and emotional. We might
allow ourselves a reserved smile at a witty remark, but break out in a
hearty laugh at an earthy, humorous one. This would be in keeping
with the general notion that wit is an expression of refinement,
subtlety, and the self-control that comes from the policing of the
body and the acquisition of gracefulness--"subjecting one's
communication with the outside world to a set of aesthetic norms"
(Palmer, 1994: 132).
Which variety is the more prevalent in "Hamnet" performances? We
believe that Hamnet wordplay is both very funny and very
witty. A good deal of the wordplay includes components which are
likely to induce spontaneous laughter. For example, the ping-pong
punning sequence in the December log is both witty and obscene. In
contrast, an example like "Exeunt the Pope and his entourage" is more
narrowly witty and would, if our experience is any indication, evoke
an appreciative smile and/or some textual equivalent of it.
When Harris played a parlor wordgame with <Geekchrus> in the
December performance, <Geekchrus> rose to the challenge of the game
and came up with a clever move. In appreciation, Harris commented,
This is a perfect example of a reserved, yet appreciative reaction to
evidence of pure wit. Most other humor in "Hamnet" performances is
a mixture of wit and more earthy varieties of humor, mainly because
of the prevalence of obscenity.
Performance involves on the part of the performer an assumption
of accountability to an audience for the way in which communication
is carried out, above and beyond its referential content....the act
of expression on the part of the performer is thus marked as
subject to evaluation for the way it is done, for the relative
skill and effectiveness of the performer's display of competence.
Additionally, it is marked as available for the enhancement of
experience, through the present enjoyment of
the intrinsic qualities of the act of expression itself.
Performance thus calls forth special attention to and heightened
awareness of the act of expression and gives license to the
audience to regard the act of expression and the performer with
special intensity
(Bauman, 1977:11).
If irc actors ever got so skilled, and the irc audience so tame,
that the entire script came out exactly as written, the
performance would be a failure by definition
(personal electronic communication to Brenda Danet, July 27, 1995).
=====PROLOGUE /TOPIC World_Premiere
. irc_Hamlet_in_Progress [2]
*** PROLOGUE has changed the topic on channel #Hamnet to
"World_Premiere_irc_Hamlet_in_Progress"
<PROLOGUE> All the world's a Unix term....[3]
<PROLOGUE> ...and all the men & women merely irc addicts....[4]
Line 485:***Signoff: Gazza (A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse....)
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 738:<Hamlet> Oh titus come hither...
74l:<Hamlet> Oops wrong play
(logfile, February, 1994)
Line 1880:<Ophelia> R_krantz and G-Sterns are dead...ooops, wrong play :)
(logfile, February, 1994)
1886:<_Producer> ophelia: hehehehe nice 1
(logfile, February, 1994)
Line 1171: <Recorder> Wrong play Spectator. ;-)
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 1175: <MacBeth> oy! hag! wots in ya cauldren?
(logfile, December, 1993)
Macbeth. How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!
what is't you do?...
I conjure you, by that which you profess,
Howe'er you come to know it, answer me;
(Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1: 47-51).
Line 1273: *MacBeth wonders if he is in the right play.
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 858:<Uros>: To be or not to be..that is the question now
(logfile, February, 1994)
Line 1124:<KaiKul> Get thee to a nunnery woman. >!
(Logfile, December, 1993)
864:*** RosenKRNZ is now known as Hamlet
...
866:<Hamlet> 2B | !2B
867:<Hamlet> ^ the question
868:<Producer> Welcome lobber... the perf is cancelled
869:<Hamlet> Whether tis nobler to the mind
870:<tyree> So pls keep me posted on retry huh Producerf?
871:<Hamlet> To suffer the splits and lags
872:<Hamlet> That net is hair to
873:<Producer> tyree:u bet
874:<Hamlet> Tis a logoffing devoutly to be wished
875:<lobber> was wondering where everybody was
876:<Producer> Hamlet:u hv definitely got the idea
877:<Hamlet> To lag, to split
878:<Hamlet> No more ...
882:<Hamlet> And with a nick to say we...
884:<Hamlet> The heartaches and thousand kilobytes]...
888:<Hamlet> Why don't we do MacBeth?
889:<Hamlet> She should have lagged hereafter
(logfile, November, 1993)
Line 56 To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The
slings and arrows of outrageous fortune Or to
take arms against a sea of troubles
60 And by opposing end them. To die: to sleep. No
more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to; 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die: to sleep.
(Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1)
Line 879:/whois Hamlet
880:***Hamlet is 2887087@techst02.technion.ac.il (The Quantum Cat)
881:*** on channels: #hamnet
(logfile, November, 1993)
Line 890:<Producer> Enter the speech, I pray u, as I /QUERYd it to you...
891:<Producer> Trippingly on the kybd...
892:<Producer> But if u screw it up, as many of our Unix ops do...
893:<Producer> I had as lief the town crier opped my /loads
894:<Producer> Nor do not decorate yr lines w/attribs too much, ^V thus,
895:<Producer> For in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I
may say whirlwind of yr passion....
896:<Producer> ....You must give + beget a temperance
that may lend irc smoothness
Line 898:<tyree> Fraility, thy nick=woman
(logfile, November, 1993)
Line 899:<Hamlet> Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
900:<Hamlet> Creeps this pitty Boudrate d
901:<Hamlet> From channel to channel
902:<Hamlet> Til the last bit of logged in time
903:<Hamlet> And all out /whowases out merely carriers
...
905:<Hamlet> Lighting the \path or blinded fools
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time, And all our yesterdays
have lighted fools The way to dusty death.
(Macbeth, Act V, Scene 5: 19-23).
907:<Hamlet> Hail McBOT that shall be Choped!
908:<Hamlet> Double double noise and troublelag +tub;
(logfile, November, 1993)
Witch 1. All hail, M hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!
Witch 2. All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!
Witch 3. All hail, Macbeth! that shalt be King hereafter.
(Macbeth, Act I, Scene 3: 48-50).
All (3 witches). Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.
Macbeth, Act IV, Scene 1: 10-11).
Line 906:<Hamlet> Is this a channel I see before me?
(logfile, November, 1993)
Is this a dagger, which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:--
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
(Macbeth, Act II, Scene 1: 33-35).
Line 915:<Hamlet> But soft, what Topic through yonder channel Breaks?
(logfile, November, 1993)
<Ophelia> Here's yr stuff back [22]
to
Line 2287: <Ophelia>: Here's yr crap back, babe: your Mac,
your WP 51.a, amd your dirty mags [22]
(logfile, February, 1994)
Line 2119:***Brazil is now known as _flirt...
2123:***_flirt is now known as Brazil...
2148:***Brazil is now known as _exeunt.
2149:*_exeunt The Pope and his entourage
2150:<_exeunt> wtf?
(logfile, December, 1993)
988:* G_Stern tries his costume on
2591:* Ophelia slips out of her costume and tosses it aside.
"I hate stage
2592:+clothes!"
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 1587:* The_King looks out between the curatins - whoah...big corwd
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 1839:* laertes orders roses for ophelia. hopes they will be delivered after
1840:+performance
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 2601:* Ophelia goes to her dressing room and finds a zillion roses for her.
(logfile, February, 1994)
Line 2332:* exKing finishes strongly, then takes a *bow* to raptuous applause
2485:* Femmy does deep bows....
(logfile, December, 1993)
2477:<Ghost> *flourishing bow*
(logfile, February, 1994)
Still another game is to invent lines having to do with one's
"occupation"as a professional actor. Thus, in the December
performance, <GeekChrus> asks,
Line 577:<GeekChrus> is thre a rep of actor's guild in the house?
Line 1990:*The_King thinks this wait wasn't in his contract
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 1003:<jeffrey68> I think the audience is hgtting
restless...
1016:<jeffrey68>: theater owner should have
passed out free drinks....
1025: <fan> more popcorn please. and could someone tell
that lady in the third row
1026:+to take hat off...
1031:<AUDIENCE> throws fruit at javalima...
1052:<fan> can I pull the curtain open?...
1122:*Spectator is waiting restlessly in the stalls...
1453:*KaiKul has eaten all his popcorn and started on
the box...
2046:<AUDIENCE>: mild clapping and shouts of "this
better be good! we have fruit!"...
2327:<Cyberpook> Clap...clap...clap...
2328:<Gallery> applauds...
2333:*ovations are coming from all over...
2349:<Recorder> It was cool, except for the parts that
sucked...
2351:<masc0789> My mother would have a stroke, but
definitely a great leap forward...
2353:<Ig> Author. Author....
2368:<vanGogh> autographs pls!...
(logfile, December, 1993)
<Ghost>: Line 1015: BOOOOOOoooooooo HHHOOOOOOoooooooooo How's that for haunting?...
1340: WWWOOOOOooooooOOOOOWWWWWWW...
OOOOOOoooooooo :-) What's going on guys?...
1439: Ran out of time... got to go. WOWOOOOOOOOO ooooooooo...
1942: I left my sheet a home...
2120:WWOOOOOOooooooo......
2156: Better clean up this ghost of an act....
2224: th th th th that's all folks [9999999999]
2488:* Ghost haunts everyone
(logfile, February, 1994)
Line 1571:<DRUM> I don't but I'm just a prop
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 973: <Drum>: Boom Boom Boom Boom BoomBooom...
1325: Boom Boom Boom
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 1439: Ran out of time...got to go. WOWOOOOOOOOO ooooooooo...
Line 2404;*laertes pops the bubbly...
2498:*mortal pops open champagne and cork knocks the Producer unconcious.
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 2455:***DRUM is now known as party_tm
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 2329:*ENTER applauds!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...
2432:<_exit> at least 3 lines were dropped...
2473:*Femmy hugs producer..wonderful..THANK YOU...
2481:<Producer>:femmy:Dahling u were wonderful...
2484:*Femmy does deep bows....
2492:*President wants Femmy's autogram
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 2421:<mortal> You might want to use two chin a split screen to give...
2422:+direction to the actors in one and the play in the other...
2224:*Femmy suggests a less busy channel...
2453:<_exit> I think +v for actors/crew only would help....
2479:<Fort_bras. Producer: Get the players cast beforehand
and E-mail their parts...
2480:+a day or two ahead of time.
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 2468:<tyree> BRAVO! BRAVO!
2469:<hamlet> Darlings you were wonderful!!!!!
...
2471:<Ophelia> .me dances around stage in bare feeties.
...
2475:* llr applauds and *whistles.....BRAVO!!!!!
2478:<tyree> MORE!
2479:<_King> awesome
2480:<R_krantz> Hamlet old man. Well donre sir. Of course
I would have been better
...
2484:* _King takes several bows
...
2486:<_Producer> Well done everyone all mahvellous
...
2511:<tyree> action: jumps up and down shouting BRAVO!
(logfile, February performance)
Line 2168: <G_Stern> /set lag off
/join #hamnet
/list channels
/set mode on
/set mode off
Line 599:<Usher> I'm only a bot
(logfile, February, 1994)
Line 1105:*** ophelia has changed the topic on channel #Hamnet
to SOMEDAY THIS WILL
1106:+START
(logfile, December, 1993)
/topic SOMEDAY THIS WILL START
Line 1570:* The_King wonders off for a leak
...
1576:<The_King> *piddle*
...
1578:<The_King> *washes hands*
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 657:*Dudester pases the wind *blat*
658:*Dudester* excuses himself
...
660:*_Producer freshes the chan
...
662:<_Producer> with a cyber-aerosol
(logfile, February, 1994)
Line 322: <Producer> :
323: <_Producer> Little-known fact #2: The game of Go
is just golf with the line
324:+feed missing
325:<_Producer> :
326:<GeekChrus> sesame
327:<GeekChrus> selfsame
328:<_Producer> good 1
329:<GeekChrus> not quite
330:<_Producer> pier
331:<_Producer> pilfer
332:<GeekChrus> shelfish
333::<_Producer> oh, sheesh...
(logfile, December, 1993 )
Line 1746 <G_Stern> king: ure crown'z on crooked
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 414: <Zygon>: martbob: tankee :) *huggerz*
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 319: <mattkest> Prod? can we declare the Hamnet is
appearing in the Glob-al
320: +theater?
321:<_Producer> good idea
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 700:<Fem> I brought me with me
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 2159:*ophelia thinks hamlets nuts
2160:*audience wonder what's going on
2161:/l ham26
2162:<Hamlet>Make that "sanity-deprived," pls.... [26]
2163:<_exeunt> what about his nuts? :)
(logfile, December, 1993)
Whereas the first occurrence of "nuts" in line 2159 is part of the
original script, the second, by <_exeunt>, is not. Note that he
marks his cleverness with a "smiley." This may or may not have been
an intentional pun.
Line 2402:*Femmy needsa PRESSing.
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 1339:* King wonders if queen wishes to produce
any litle heirs?...
1353:<King> Queen?
1354:* QuEeN re evaluates the King//...says..'with that little
thig'???
1355:<King> Melady?...
1371:<King> Queen - but, you ain't got me excited yet!...
1390:<QuEeN> King...what..so then I won't need the
tweezers???...
1392:<King> Queen - no...calipers, maybe...
1420:<DRUM> PLease keep it in the royal Chamber, you too.
1421:<QuEeN> Microinches??...
1429:* ophelia thinks that the king and queen should
be BANISHED...(or at least
1430:+thrown in the dungeon *evil laugh*)...
1435:* King sits on his thone, unabashed...
1460:* King unfolds his full manhood...better?
1461:* ophelia chucks the king twards and
audience member eheheh...
1469:<G_Stern> give king his /PART
1470:<King> heh heh
1471:* King has a HUGE part...
1478:* QuEeN chuckles...at her witless mate...
1484:<King> Queen - no wits maybe, but a very nice ****...
1495:* King enters Queen
1496:* TheGhost exits right...
1714:<SCENE> Is this going to be logged?...
1716:<Recorder> SCENE: I am logging it....
1718:<DRUM> I am logging
1721:* Recorder is logging this session....
1729:* ThE_QuEeN would like a log file sent to her...
1742:* The_King gives the Queen his log...
1753:* ThE_QuEeN examines said log....and puts it to
flame...
1770:* KaiKul warms his hands on the burning Log
(logfile, December, 1993)
1729:* ThE_QuEeN would like a log file sent to her...
1495:* King enters Queen
1496:* TheGhost exits right...
2093: *ThE_QuEeN pinches the King...
2095: *ThE_QuEeN punches the King...
2097: *The_King gropes the Queen...
2101: <ThE_QuEeN> ooopsa...
2307: exKing fancies a bit of necrophilia with the
Queen....
2342: *exKing gets his end away with the Queen
Line 388: <_Producer> dude: she auditioned,
she has a SE asian name like Rhuc
...
390:<_Producer> Phuc
391:*tsasntme* kristen as in telerama sysop?
392:<_Producer>: Phuc Yoo Too\
(logfile, February, 1994)
1870: *ophelia Kisses laertes and thinks he is such a
midevil STUD...
(logfile, December, 1993)
Line 1468: *laertes eyes ophelia longingly...
1476: *ophelia winks at laertes...
1485: *laertes slyly moves towards ophelia...
1491: *ophelia giggles...
1510:*laertes wonders what ophelia is doing after the
show....
1661: *laertes is feeling realy excited....
1870: *ophelia Kisses laertes and thinks he is such a
midevil STUD...
(logfile, December 1993)
Line 2071: *laertes is falling for ophelia he thinks...
2082: *ophelia gives laertes a SMOOCH (you big stud you)
(logfile, December, 1993)
Figure 2. Elements of
Carnival in Hamnet Performances
Feature
How Expressed
1. Valorization of Eros, life force
exuberant spirit of Hamnet activities.
2. Concatenation of life and death
Punch-and-Judy-like treatment of death;
preoccupation with
death, slapdash treatment of it.
3. Transformations of identity
masking of identity through use of nicks;
textual "costumes"
for roles; release from RL identity,
license to be and do
what you want; gender-switching.
4. Celebration, preoccupation w the body
virtual representation of bodily functions, e.g., "piddling,"
"farting".
5. Subversion of established power
improvised parodization of Shakespeare;
validation of rules and practices of IRC through mockery.
6. Communitas
team spirit; awareness of mutual undertaking; making
history together; celebration; champagne.
7. Valorization of "low" language
obscenity; slang; colloquialisms.
8. Rejection of decorum
breaches of both theater etiquette and IRC Netiquette:
flirtation; noisy audience; throwing fruit; stealing nicks.
9. Anticlassical aesthetic
multiplicity of improvisational styles, and voices:
juxtaposition of oral/written; old/new; high/low.
10. Carnival as participatory spectacle
textual spectacle: event with beginning and end; performers
vs. audience; blurring of boundaries; sense of occasion.
11. Sense of abandon
the ilinx of wordplay.
Line 974:*** javalima has changed the topic on channel #Hamnet to shit
(logfile, December, 1993)
The culture of real laughter (as opposed to canned
or forced laughter) is absolutely central to Bakhtin's
conception of carnival: enormous, creative, derisive,
renewing laughter that grasps phenomena in the
process of change and transition.... Carnivalesque
laughter can be raucous, subversive, even
angry...laughter is profound, communitarian,
erotic, a current passing from self to self in a free
and familiar atmosphere. (Stam, 1989: 120).
no linguistic phenomenon can compete with physical activity
in inducing this condition....But language can shock, inflict
pain, induce instability, and otherwise disorient perceptions
and feelings in such a way that is as real as dizziness or the
feeling of falling (Test, 1991: 133).
328:<_Producer> good 1
(logfile, December performance)
Hamnet article:
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paper table of contents]
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contents]