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The essay views William Shakespeare's play Hamlet as a kind of London double-decker tourist bus. Visible on the open top level is the revenge tragedy. On the lower level, hidden in typical Elizabethan cryptic fashion, is an illustration of the internal journey an actor must take in order to be able to portray, "to be," the character of Hamlet. This makes Hamlet two plays in one, both a revenge tragedy and an actor's guidebook. When corroborated alongside the teachings of Konstantin Stanislavsky, the advice on acting outlined in Hamlet proves to be surprisingly sophisticated and contemporary. Is it a coincidence that the central question of the play is "To be or not to be" and the goal of Stanislavsky's teachings is to achieve the "I am being" state while acting?
G. M. C. Sprung (Tue,) studied this question.