Noel Coward Plays 5, Vol. 5 Book

I don't have any earth-shattering insights to share from this most recent of god-knows-how-many readings, but this time through I was struck by:

1) what a damn fine piece of stagecraft this is, from the suspenseful, moody opening on the castle battlements to the solemn dead march carrying the prince offstage, and

2) how Shakespeare seems to want Hamlet's personality--particularly the wellspring of his actions (and lack of action)--to remain an enigma, and that he achieves this by infusing the character with so much of himself--so much wit and poetry, so much despondency and savagery--that the result is that the audience simply bows before the great mystery of human personality, and that this reverence for the unknown lurking in the heart of an extraordinary man intensifies the sense of pity, horror and waste that fills us at the end of the play.