Hamlet.3.1 by n3krozoft mord is a very simple and direct software art project for computers running the Apple Macintosh operating system (9 and earlier). No instructive-descriptive text is needed to run HAMLET.3.1. Because the software project's main strenght is directness, the following will spoil it for those who have not yet downloaded and doubleclicked HAMLET.3.1:

Stereotypical, synthetic voices named "Fred", "Victoria", "Bruce", and "Agnes" are giving a comically unemotional rendition of act 3 scene 1 of Shakespeare's tragedy "Hamlet". This ensemble of text-to-speech voices has been a feature of the Apple Macintosh operating system from very early on. "AppleScript Help" suggests that the over 20 different voices can be used in scripts to perform roles like reporting the outcome of actions, reading the content of database fields and "other information".

The script code looks as if the author(s) made an effort to make the reading even more unemphatically uniform, adding an [[emph -]] tag to every line. Scene 1 of act 3 is the morbid scene where Hamlet is debating taking his own or someone else's life in the overquoted "to be or not to be" monologue. Victoria, Bruce and Agnes read these anticipated lines in predictable monotony - exposing the humanizing at work in text-to-speech software and in theatre alike.

by Annina Rüst, posted 14 Nov 2004
URL: runme.org/feature/read/+hamlet/+97/