Stuart Harris set the tone for all hijinks by the Hamnet Players when he wrote the script for "Hamnet"-an 80-line send-up of the original Hamlet. Here is the complete script of "Hamnet", including a mini-set of Elsinore Castle, designed in ASCII characters (for a print version, see Harris, 1995b). It is a wonderful example of textual humor: "diverse elements wrought together in a scrupulous design" (Nash, 1985: 25). We find this script downright hilarious, and we hope readers do too. The scripts of all three Hamnet "plays" are riotously funny, and there are many moments in actual performances which are even funnier. When we first encountered this script, each of us laughed out loud, though alone at the computer screen ( Brenda Danet had discovered them in late April, 1994, when she spotted a "souvenir program" from the group's recent performance of "Pcbeth" on the Fringeware list). It is quite rare for individuals to laugh out loud when alone; laughter is generally very social in nature. What, then is so funny about Hamnet activities?
In the preface to his book on the language of humor, Walter Nash listed a remarkable grab-bag of phenomena that fall under the rubric of verbal humor:
Nash's list reads like an inventory specially created for analysis
of Hamnet textual pyrotechnics. The main source of humor in Hamnet
scripts and performances derives, as it does in most humor, from
the unexpected juxtaposition of incongruous materials (Charney,
1978; Hutcheon, 1985; Test, 1991; Oring, 1992; Palmer, 1994)--in
this case, the juxtaposition of canonical Shakespearean
characters, plots and language with computer jargon and other
components of contemporary popular culture.
To appreciate fully the clever humor in this, and the other
scripts, and in participants' often virtuoso improvisations on
them, one must have an excellent command of both of these two very
different cultural codes. One must not only know Shakespeare quite
well, but also have a good command of computer, and especially
IRC jargon and culture. While the parodic elements in "Hamnet" and
"Pcbeth" would be apparent to anyone who has been exposed to
Shakespeare in school, computer jargon and the emergent culture
of the Net and of IRC are far more esoteric in nature. Part of the
challenge of writing this paper is therefore to make the humor
deriving from the juxtaposition of elements from the two codes
accessible to readers who may not be familiar with IRC. Inevitably,
those knowing both codes will laugh the hardest.
Play with the Characters, Plot, and
Text of Shakespeare's Hamlet
To begin with, Stuart Harris makes "mincemeat" of the characters,
plots and texts of the originals. Reduced size is often a key to
the presence of playfulness (Sutton-Smith and Kelley-Bryne, 1984).
It is almost always a hallmark of toys: think of dolls and doll
houses, tin soldiers, toy cars and trucks, and so on. A manual for
collectors of doll houses comments, "Our sense of fun and fantasy
are stimulated by miniatures" (Editors of Consumer Guide, 1979: 4).
In the present case, gross reduction of the length of the text and
caricaturization of plot and action, along with transformation of
hallowed Renaissance poetry into late 20th century colloquial prose
and even lowly slang, discussed below, transform the play into a
kind of typed Punch and Judy show: "bam bam!!!", "take that!!!" and
in minutes nearly everyone is dead! The number of named characters in
Hamlet is slashed from 17 to 9. A five-act script which takes
ordinarily hours to perform is impertinently butchered to a mere 80
lines. Some characters barely have one or two lines. The part of
Polonius, poor man, is reduced to his one-line death cry:
Play with the Conventions of Script Writing
The "Hamnet" script contains
17 parts to be cast. The list includes
not only the expected Ophelia, Hamlet, King, Queen, etc. but also
the seemingly bizarre "Enter," "Exit," "Prologue," "Scene," and
even inanimate objects like "Drums" and "Colors. "Among these
"textual"
roles, that of "Prologue," at least, was not entirely Harris's
invention. One of the characters in the play-within-the-play in the
original Hamlet is also called "Prologue." At the opening of the
play-withinthe-play, he steps forward to declare:
This is, thus, another form of intertextuality in the script.
Inanimate objects also have to be realized textually, as in
Roles such as "Enter" or "Exit" make it even clearer that
Harris is playing with the conventions of script writing.
Ordinarily the script of a play makes a clear distinction
between stage directions (e.g.,
"Enter Hamlet") and actual dialogue. A basic feature of Hamnet
productions is that the players perform not the play but the text.
Thus, the line
is not just a stage direction to be read by performers when
preparing a production, and to be realized physically when actually
performing the play, but an actual role to be performed. One of
the roles to be cast is literally called "Enter." When all actors
perform their lines, including these seemingly bizarre ones, they
in effect recreate the text online. But that is not all they do; at
the same time, they improvise on it in a host of ways, as will be
shown in the section on Performing Hamnet. One particularly
charming example of how they do this is the following:
The most obvious contrast in the "Hamnet" script is between the now-
archaic literary language of the Renaissance English original
and the colloquial, often slang register of contemporary Anglo-
American English which dominates Harris's version. As we shall see
later on, this contrast provides inspiration for much of the
playful improvisation in actual performances, as well. In the
"Hamnet" script, only two of the 80 lines cite Shakespeare's own
words, intact; the rest is in "IRC-ese." In Scene 2, when Hamlet
and Ophelia meet, the original line "O heavenly powers: restore
him!" (Act III, Scene 1: 147) is embedded in an otherwise entirely
late 20th-century rendering of their encounter, part colloquial
("stuff"; "nuts"), part speedwriting characteristic of "digistyle"
("yr" for "your"; the comics-like "hehehehehe," the "smiley" ;-D).
Contrast Harris's version with the original:
The other line from the original is:
Instead of merely quoting it intact, Harris exploits it to allow for
a pair of adjacent near-homonyms, with comic effect:
One other word from Shakespeare's original lexicon, now archaic,
recurs in the script: "arras", for "curtain." In line 49, Hamlet
"slashes at the arras." The original is "makes a pass through the
arras" (Act III, Scene 4: 23)
The Textual Freezing of Online Style
A distinctive feature of the "Hamnet" script is that it freezes in
a solo-authored, offline text a cluster of features of a style we
have come to experience as distinctively "online" and interactive--
what we have just called, in passing, "digistyle." The very idea of
composing a solo-authored quasi-literary text of any
kind in this online "lingo" is amusing and ironic--Harris has, in
effect, absurdly immortalized a style of communication which is
ordinarily as ephemeral as the wind. At the very least, it makes a
claim for legitimation of the style.
Recent research on the features of computer-mediated messages,
whether the asynchronous ones of email, listserv discussion lists and
USENET newsgroups, or synchronous ones as on IRC, has identified
three sets of features--"oral," written, and uniquely digital--which together
mark these messages as belonging to an emergent, distinctive new register of
late 20th-century English (Ferrara, et al., 1991;
Ruedenberg, et al., 1995;
Danet, et al., in press;
Maynor, 1994;
Yates and Orlikowski, 1994). Messages are not only experienced
subjectively as if spoken, but also frequently contain actual
speech-like features, particularly slang. Here are some additional
examples: from the "Hamnet" script.
While "gotta" and "chem lab" need no explanation, "bummer" may be less
familiar. A bummer is "an unpleasant or depressing experience,
especially one induced by a hallucinogenic drug; a disappointment,
a failure." (Aytot and Simpson, 1992).
Along with the "oral" features of computer-mediated messages, we
also find features mainly associated with writing, or at least with
certain genres of writing. Digital messages partially resemble
notetaking in a lecture (Janda, 1985; Ferrara, et al., 1991), in
which forms of condensation or abbreviation are mobilized because
of time constraints. The abbreviation w/him instead of "with him" in
line 39 is an example in the "Hamnet" script.
An example of ellipsis, omission of initial pronouns, occurs in
line 40 :
Here are some other examples:
The easiest instance of speedwriting to spot is, of course, the
gross reduction of Hamlet's famous 35-line "To be or not to be"
soliloquy to a mere "2b or not 2b!" Other examples make use of
familiar conventions, e.g., "u" for "you," "yr" for "your," and
"pls" for "please." "Abt" is "about; "re" is short for "rehi,"
or "hi again," very common on IRC. "Zup" is short for "What's up,"
and "brb" means "be right back," used when IRCers want to take a
break from the computer screen. "Op" is an abbreviation for
"operator."
The "Hamnet" script also imitates a related IRC practice, abbreviating
other participants' nicks drastically while typing messages as fast
as possible. Although initially motivated by considerations of
efficiency, the use of chopped-up nicks also has a comic effect,
introducing a note of flip familiarity among strangers having fun
together. In line 27, Hamlet says
"Oph" is of course "Ophelia". The similarity to the sounds "Ooof"
or "Oops," as in comics, may also be a source of humor.
The "Hamnet" script is also full of "smiley" icons, otherwise known
as "emoticons"--icons for the expression of emotion
(Jargon
File, 1995);
Ruedenberg, et al.,1995;
Danet, et al., in press;
Godin, 1993). Composed of clusters of ordinary typographic
symbols, they are experienced as a gestalt. The most common ones
are:
To view them, tilt your head toward your left shoulder. Here are some examples
in the "Hamnet" script:
The first is a multiple frown; the second example is a
combination of a wink and a smile with a wide-open mouth, represented
by the letter D; the third is a "wry face," with the screwed-up mouth
represented by the @ sign.
Finally, as in IRC chat "on the fly," Harris has a field day with
multiple exclamation points and the comics-like representation of
sounds when one character after another dies:
Obscenity is rampant in the "Hamnet" script. Harris warns his
readers.
Four-letter words fly thick and fast:
This profusion of profane language mocks the canonical status
afforded to Shakespeare's works and language in the 20th century.
At the same time, we should not overemphasize this point. The
current attitude of reverence toward Shakespeare's works was not
always dominant: as we mentioned at the beginning of this paper,
in the 19th century, outrageous parodies of Shakespeare were a very
common form of popular entertainment in the United States (Levine,
1988). Even in our own times, there have been parodies, e.g.,
those of the Reduced Shakespeare Company, though not typed ones!
There are echoes of the often vulgar British music-hall tradition
and its spin-offs in radio (the Goon Show) and television (Monty Python) in
these textual travesties of Shakespeare (Davison, 1982). In an online
interview, Stuart Harris admitted to being influenced by memories
of the Goon Show as a child growing up in England, as well as by
exposure to the Reduced Shakespeare Company (personal electronic
communication to Brenda Danet, September 20, 1994).
The vulgar language in Harris's send-up should not be taken as
standing in too strong a contrast to Shakespeare's own literary
language either. Even in Shakespeare's own language--though not
necessarily in Hamlet specifically-there is a very wide range
of registers and styles, and, indeed, much has been written about
colloquial and even bawdy language in his plays (Partridge, 1968
[1947]; Hussey, 1992; Hughes, 1991, chap. 5).
IRCers take particular delight in writing what ordinarily might only
be spoken, or scrawled behind the closed door of a public toilet
wall. In the pre-digital era, socialization to the norms of literate
culture worked to suppress expressive aspects of communication in
writing, including the use of foul language. While euphemistic
language is certainly used frequently even in certain situations of
polite face-to-face interaction ( Allan and Burridge, 1991), the
avoidance of vulgar expressions has been particularly strong in
writing of all kinds. In our literate culture, people who might
express themselves vividly in casual conversation, including the free
use of obscene four-letter words, would rarely do so in writing of
any kind, even a personal letter. Even long after the revolutionary
trial of the 1960's which allowed D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's
Lover to be published at last, four-letter words relating to bodily
excretions or sexuality continue to shock when written or in print.
Several other
aspects of the vocabulary of the "Hamnet" script are worth noting.
First is a nod in the direction of politically correct language. The
obverse of obscenity is euphemistic language. The latest round of
concern with "linguistic engineering" is the contemporary American
obsession with politically correct language in public life. This too
finds some expression in the script: when Ophelia is presented as
thinking that Hamlet is "nuts" (line 25), Hamlet corrects her: "Make
that sanity-deprived, pls...." (line 26).
Harris inserted several terms from the lexicon of IRC and computer
culture into the script of "Hamnet". First is the pair of
expressions "lagged" and "lurk". These are known to a wide range of
people familiar with Internet culture, even if they do not have
experience of IRC.
As explained earlier, lag pertains the the problem of time lag in
seeing typed text appear on the screen. The online version of The
New Hackers' Dictionary (the "Jargon
File") defines netlag as
As for lurking, in ordinary use, this term has a generally negative
connotation, present in varying degrees in all four meanings given
by the Oxford English Dictionary:
Lurking on a streetcorner may arouse suspicion, but in Net Culture
the term usually means to observe without participating:
"Nerd" is a well
known expression among people familiar with computer culture.
This is a slang term for a dry, dull, technically oriented computer
professional or hacker who is typically obsessed with programming.
It can be used more generally to denote "a foolish, feeble, or
uninteresting person; also, a studious but socially inept person"
(Ayto and Simpson, 1992).
One of the simplest and most common forms of play with the IRC
software, both in IRC encounters generally and in Hamnet
activities, is play with the /nick command. Nearly everyone who
participates on IRC adopts a nickname, called a "nick" for short
Ruedenberg, et al., 1995;
Danet, et al., in press;
Bechar-
Israeli, 1995,
this issue). All one needs to do is to type
/nick [nickname] (e.g., /nick daisy or /nick lollipop)
and immediately an acknowledgment appears on the screen.
There are several further kinds of play with nicks worth
mentioning. The software allows for no more than nine characters,
which must be continuous--that is, there must be no empty spaces
within the nick. Thus, whereas the names of Polonius, Laertes,
Hamlet, Ophelia, Ghost, King, Queen, etc. need no adaptation, those
of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, as well as Fortinbras are cropped-as
<R_krantz> and <G_stern>, and <Fort_bras>,
respectively, with whimsical effect. This cropping invites us to
verbalize them in their reduced form, e.g., as "R-Krantz," instead of
"Rosencrantz." It is also playful, of course, to employ the /nick
command to create the roles of <Audience>, <Scene>,
<Enter>, <Exit>, <Drum>, <Colours>, and
<Attndts> during performances. IRC commands are
used in other, still more humorous ways in the script:
These seven snippets incorporate IRC commands in two very
different ways. In the first three instances, the command is merely
cited or mentioned in a witty manner, without any intention of
activating it as part of the software in real time. "I'm counting
on you to /KICK the bastard" is an allusion to one of the more
aggressive commands available to IRCers: if one wishes to "bump"
someone from a channel, say, a person nicknamed, <ladybug>, one
has only to type
and the acknowledgment
will appear on screen.
As for the use of "op" in "don't op me man" (example 2), this is a
reference to the notion of channel operator in the IRC software.
Often called "chanop" for short,, the first person to open a
channel is the channel operator, and is therefore in control of
who may join and who may speak. In effect, then, this is a "with-
it" way of expressing Hamlet's ambivalence at the awful knowledge
that his mother and uncle murdered his father and the resultant
pressure on him to take revenge. The passage in the original which
comes closest in spirit is
"Suggest u /JOIN #nunnery" is a clever way to render the famous
line of the original, "Get thee to a nunnery" (Act III, Scene 1:
142), in IRC jargon. "Nunnery" is transformed into an IRC channel
by the addition of the # symbol; to join any channel one must type
the channel name with that symbol attached to it at the beginning
(#hamnet, #hottub, #nicecafe, etc.)
In neither of these cases will bringing the lines up on screen
activate the IRC software to carry out the command. The command
is merely mentioned, referred to. In contrast, in the other five
instances, it is to be used performatively in real time, that is,
to activate actual IRC commands in order to produce textual
results which, when viewed on-screen, will become a meaningful part
of the performance. The Hamnet Players were "born" the day that
Harris realized that the IRC software could be used this way
(Harris, 1995b: 498).
It was a clever idea, but it didn't work very well. For instance,
during the December performance, <Ophelia> was apparently cut off
by a netsplit just when she was supposed to "drown" by typing
/signoff drowning. By the time she had managed to log back on,
participants had already moved on to later lines in the script. In
the February, 1994 performance, the person playing <Ophelia> was so
busy improvising and elaborating her lines that she simply ignored
the instruction to execute the command.
Here we find wit and word-play and banter and bumfun; slogans
and captions and catchwords; allusion and parody; ironies;
satires; here are graffiti and limericks; here is the pert rhyme,
and here the twisted pun; here are scrambled spellings and skewed
pronunciations; here is filth for the filthy..., and here are
delicacies for the delicate (Nash, 1985: 1).
<Polonius> Arrrghhhhh! [50]
Prologue. For us, and for our tragedy,
Here stooping to your clemency,
We beg your hearing patiently.
Hamlet Act III, Scene 2: 159-161)
<Drum> Like, rat-a-tat, man [75]
***<<Action>>**:_Enter Hamlet
608:<_enter> i'm just a lowly stage direction...*sigh*...
i have no say.........
(Logfile, December, 1993, L: 603).
<Ophelia> Here's yr stuff back [22]
<Hamlet> Not mine, love. Hehehehehe ;-D [23]
<Ophelia> O heavenly powers: restore him! [24]
<**<<Action>>** Ophelia thinks Hamlet's nuts [25]
<Hamlet> Make that "sanity-deprived", pls.... [26]
OPHELIA: My lord, I have remembrances of yours,
That I have longed long to re-deliver;
I pray you, now receive them.
HAMLET: No, not I;
I never gave you aught.
OPHELIA: My honour'd lord, you know right well you did;
And, with them, words of so sweet breath
composed As made the things more rich: their
perfume lost, Take these again; for to the noble mind
Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove
unkind. There, my lord.
(Hamlet, Act III, Scene 1: 93-102)
QUEEN GERTRUDE Hamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.
(Hamlet, Act III, Scene 4: 9)
<Prompter> Psst! Thou hast thy father much offended.. [47]
<Queen> Oh, right.... Yr dad's pissed at u [48]
<Hamlet> Holy shit!!!! Don't op me, man!!!! I've gotta think abt
. this, + I've got chem lab in « hr. :-(((( [14]
<Hamlet> 2b or not 2b... [17]
<Hamlet> Hmmmmm. [18]
<Hamlet> :-( Bummer... [19]
<G_stern> fuckza matter w/him? [39]
<R_krantz] Guess he must be lagged. Let's lurk [40]
<Hamlet> re, Ghost. Zup? [11]
<Ghost> Yr uncle's fucking yr mum, I'm counting on u to /KICK
the bastard. [12]
<Hamlet> Holy shit!!!! Don't op me, man!!!! I've gotta think
abt this, + I've got chem lab in 1/2 hr. :-(((( [14]
<Hamlet> 2b or not 2b... [17]
<Hamlet> Make that "sanity-deprived", pls.... [26]
<Hamlet> Fucked if I know. brb... [37]
<Hamlet> Oph: suggest u /JOIN #nunnery [27]
:-) ;-) :-(
smile wink frown
<Hamlet> Holy shit!!!! Don`t op me, man!!!! I've gotta think
abt this,I've got chem lab in 1/2 hr. :-(((( [14]
<Hamlet> Not mine, love. Hehehehehe ;-D [23]
<Queen> Holy shit this Danish vodka is like poison :-@ [63]
<Polonius> Arrrghhh!!! [50]
<King> Aaaaarrgghhh! [66]
**<<Action>>** : King dies [67]
<Laertes> AAaaaaarrrrrrhhhh!!!! [68]
**<<Action>>**: Laertes dies [69]
<Hamlet> AAAAaaaaaarrrrrrhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [70]
Those of a nervous or puritanical disposition are warned that
this is adapted for the generally ribald irc population: This is
not your father's Shakespeare. (Harris, 1995b: 501).
<Ghost> Yr uncle's fucking yr mum. I'm counting on u to /KICK
the bastard.[12]
<Hamlet> Holy shit!!!! Don't op me, man!!!! I've gotta think abt
this, + I've got chem lab in « hr. :-(((( [14]
<Hamlet> Fucked if i know. brb...[37]
<G_stern> fuckza matter w/him? [39]
<Hamlet> Ma: what the fuck's going on?[44]
<Queen> Oh, right.... Yr dad's pissed at u [48]
<Queen> Holy shit this Danish vodka is like poison :-@ [63]
<Attndts> Holy sheeeeet!!!!![77]
<R_krantz> Guess he must be lagged. Let's lurk [40]
**<<Action>>** : R_krantz lurks [41]
**<<Action>>** : G_stern lurks [42]
A condition that occurs when the delays in the {IRC} network
or on a {MUD} become severe enough that servers briefly
lose and then reestablish contact, causing messages to be
delivered in bursts, often with delays of up to a minute.
(Jargon File, 1995).
(1) to hide oneself; to lie in ambush; to remain furtively or
unobserved about one spot;
(2) to escape observation, to be concealed or latent;
(3) to move about in a secret or furtive manner;
(4) to peer furtively or slyly.
One of the silent majority, in a[n] electronic forum; one who
posts occasionally or not at all but is known to read the
group's postings regularly. This term is not pejorative and
indeed is casually used reflexively: "Oh, I'm just lurking."
(Raymond, 1991: 229).
In asynchronous discussions and newsgroups or on IRC, this practice
has no negative connotations, whereas in MOOs, according to Marvin
(see this issue), it does. Usenet and listserv discussion lists
usually have far more readers than contributors.
<Queen> Now look what u've done u little nerd. [52]
(1) <Ghost> Yr uncle's fucking yr mum. I'm counting on u to
/KICK the bastard. [12]
(2) <Hamlet> Holy shit don't op me man!!! [14]
(3) <Hamlet> Oph: suggest u /JOIN #nunnery [27]
(4) =====PROLOGUE /TOPIC World_Premiere irc
Hamlet_in_Progress [2]
*** PROLOGUE has changed the topic on channel #Hamnet
to "World_Premiere_irc_Hamlet_in_Progress"
(5) <Ophelia> :-( [28]
***Signoff: Ophelia (drowning) [29]=============
(6) HAMLET /KICK * Polonius [51]
***Polonius has been kicked off channel #Hamnet by Hamlet
(7) ============= FORT_BRAS /NICK _King [78]
***Fort_bras is now knwn as _King [79]
/kick ladybug
***ladybug has been kicked off channel xxxx by ABC
The time is out of joint O cursed spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
(Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5: 189-190)
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