Dirtbag Hamlet

by Mallory Ortberg · February 11, 2014

DIRTBAG SHAKESPEARE imagines modern remakes of Shakespearean plays with a teenage dirtbag cast. The rest is pretty self-explanatory.

A GHOST appears.
GHOST: have you ever listened to Sublime
HAMLET: [makes j/o motion]

dh1

CLAUDIUS: who drew this dick on my face
HAMLET: does your face not always look like that

 

GERTRUDE: Hamlet I invited some of your friends over
HAMLET: [smoking] theyre not my friends
i wish i were dead

 

GHOST: hamlet you must avenge my death
HAMLET: i dont have to do anything
youre not even my real dad
GHOST: yes i am
HAMLET: whatever

dh2

GHOST: have you killed Claudius yet
HAMLET: no
GHOST: why
HAMLET: fuck you is why
im going to the cemetery to touch skulls

 

Enter HAMLET, skateboarding
OPHELIA: My lord, I–
HAMLET ollies over OPHELIA’s head
HAMLET [offstage]: we were never dating

dh3

GERTRUDE walks down the hallway. Enter HAMLET, skateboarding.
HAMLET: SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
(HAMLET skates backwards) UUUUUUTT

 

LAERTES: Ophelia is dead
HAMLET: damn
LAERTES: she drowned herself
HAMLET: thats metal
i knew she was cool

 

(HAMLET is dying)
HAMLET: Horatio
come here
(he does)
HAMLET: Closer
(he does)
(HAMLET draws a dick on his face)
HAMLET: ahaha
(He dies)

dh4

Images by Matt Lubchansky, who makes comics and occasionally leaves his apartment in New York. His work includes Please Listen to Me and New Amsterdam Mystery Company. He’s on Twitter, and doesn’t expect you to get his name right.


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65 Comments

    1. Site_for_Soris +35

      I just re-read this 5 times hoping there were some gems I had missed. It is perfect, except for not being longer. SLUUUUUUUUUUUU (skates backwards) UUUUUUUUT

      1. mbculver +6

        Ohboyohboyohboy. Next up…Dirtbag Romeo & Juliet? Much Ado about Nothing featuring Dirtbag Claudio? (Oh wait, Bill basically took care of that for us already.)

  3. thejcar +87

    Hamlet: mom i hired a bunch of musicians and i want to perform a song for the court
    Gertrude: Lovely, dear, glad to see you are taking an interest in things!
    Hamlet: [Sings Sugar Ray’s “Fly” with the lyrics Iiiiiii want you to dieeeeee]

      2. MalloryOrtberg +42

        Mercutio [dying]: this is so gay
        romeo this is so fucking gay

        (dirtbags still say gay as a pejorative but you love them anyhow)

    2. maccrocodile +29

      Also: Much Ado About Nothing

      Beatrice: Shut up, BeneDICK.
      Benedick: Whatever, slut.
      Beatrice: Lol, you’re gay.
      Benedick: Wanna make out?
      Beatrice: Sure.

        2. TheAntiHumorEquation +11

          Othello:

          Iago: Desdemona is banging Cassio.
          Othello: SLUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT

  5. super_novice +77

    This (as tweets) sped by me on tumblr last night with like 22,000 notes. You’re totally the most popular girl in 10th grade, Mallory.

  12. cherrispryte +81

    As I said on Twitter last night but am reposting here because I am tickled by my own whatever –

    I’VE GOT TWO TICKETS TO IRON MAIDEN, BABY … CAUSE ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD, SO THEY PROBABLY CAN’T GO. OR WHATEVER.

    1. packedsuitcase +6

      I think I was just dating that guy. (Wait, no, that’s not right – he was VERY SPECIFIC about us *not* dating. “We’re seeing each other, isn’t that enough?”)

  15. MrsTeacherFace +4

    This is the only time I have found myself wishing that I taught Seniors/British Literature/Hamlet. If I shared this with my 11th grade students, they wouldn’t understand it at all. 🙁

    1. Brunhildenburg +4

      They don’t have to read it before that? I had to read it in 8th grade, and then again in 10th along with putting on a production of it with my class for Shakespeare day at school.

      1. MrsTeacherFace +5

        No, here they read Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade and Julius Caesar in 10th grade. 11th grade is American Literature, 12th is British. Some of ours read Macbeth senior year, some read Hamlet, depending on whether they’re in AP or not.

        2. EPWordsnatcher +1

          I got R&J, Hamlet, Macbeth (I think?) and King Lear, though I can’t remember the order.

        3. Brunhildenburg +5

          Okay, I just remembered that ours rotated, with the exception of Romeo & Juliet for 9th grade, according to which plays were being put on by THE Shakespeare Festival every year. We started in 7th grade (Richard III for me!) and we would go through the book and then take a class field trip to Ashland to see the play. Probably most people didn’t do that, which I’ve never thought about, and now am incredibly grateful that I grew up only 3.5 hours away.

          2. Brunhildenburg +3

            They do some non-Shakespeare plays too, so 11th grade we read & watched Death of a Salesman. So I’ve seen Richard III, Hamlet, Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer’s Night Dream, Comedy of Errors, Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, and A Winter’s Child (honors english students got to go more than once a year when in high school because we were speeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeecial).

          3. victoriabarrett +1

            A dance company from here in Indianapolis used to be the resident dance company, until the festival cut them out of the budget. Because of the festival, though, for years they were one of the only modern dance companies whose dancers were paid year-round instead of on a seasonal schedule.

          4. betsymurgatroyd +5

            We didn’t get to see Shakespeare. I never understood why we didn’t go to see Shakespeare. We had to read Shakespeare every single year but never get it together enough to tie the reading in with whatever it was The Festival was performing?
            When my drama class/club went it was to see Member of the Wedding.
            The bite in the ass is that we were 30 minutes from Ashland. Really no excuse.

        4. madgehowlet +9

          Is this where I can make my stand that letting (let alone MAKING) 9th graders read R&J is a TERRIBLE IDEA. They do this, then show up in college with some very warped ideas about not just the play but so many, many things in the world and I have three 50-minute sessions to fix them. IT IS NOT A LOVE STORY. IT IS BARELY A TRAGEDY. IT IS A FARCE, THROUGH AND THROUGH.

          That is my stand. Thank you for your time.

  16. Frumiosa +23

    Here in New Haven, Yale Repertory Theatre did Hamlet with Paul Giamatti last year. It was basically this except he was a 45 year old misogynist academic who still lived with his mother.

  18. Brunhildenburg +2

    This prompted me to go check Mallory’s twitter feed from last night (I was getting shitfaced and cleaning up at pool last night, so I neglected the twitter), where I learned that she watched Parenthood for the first(!) time the other night. Oh that movie. It is the best. I need to download it right now.

    1. nightsstar +11

      I read “shitfaced and cleaning up a pool” and thought 1. how, dangerous. 2. are you theodore decker?

  20. chnellociraptor +6

    There’s a not small part of me that wants to print 3000 laminated copies of this and hand it out to all the dirty teenagers who come see my company’s Hamlet as reference material.

    Hey, do you guys have any experience designing study guides? I might have a gig for you.

  23. mkpatter +2

    Dayum, how do you get your illustrations done so fast! I have worked with an illustrator on a piece ONCE and it literally took like 6 months.

  24. Megano!

    Dayum, how do you get your illustrations done so fast! I have worked with an illustrator on a piece ONCE and it literally took like 6 months.

  25. Betsy Murgatroyd

    We didn't get to see Shakespeare. I never understood why we didn't go to see Shakespeare. We had to read Shakespeare every single year but never get it together enough to tie the reading in with whatever it was The Festival was performing?
    When my drama class/club went it was to see Member of the Wedding.
    The bite in the ass is that we were 30 minutes from Ashland. Really no excuse.

  27. Madge Howlet

    Is this where I can make my stand that letting (let alone MAKING) 9th graders read R&J is a TERRIBLE IDEA. They do this, then show up in college with some very warped ideas about not just the play but so many, many things in the world and I have three 50-minute sessions to fix them. IT IS NOT A LOVE STORY. IT IS BARELY A TRAGEDY. IT IS A FARCE, THROUGH AND THROUGH.

    That is my stand. Thank you for your time.

  28. Bittersweet

    Ohboyohboyohboy. Next up…Dirtbag Romeo & Juliet? Much Ado about Nothing featuring Dirtbag Claudio? (Oh wait, Bill basically took care of that for us already.)

  32. Victoria

    A dance company from here in Indianapolis used to be the resident dance company, until the festival cut them out of the budget. Because of the festival, though, for years they were one of the only modern dance companies whose dancers were paid year-round instead of on a seasonal schedule.