Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth

Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth Summary | Dogg's Hamlet Summary

Dogg's Hamlet is a one-act play written by Tom Stoppard. It is usually performed along with another one-act play, Cahoot's Macbeth.

Dogg's Hamlet begins with a game of catch between two schoolboys, Baker and Abel. All their conversation is in Dogg language, which consists of words that sound English, but which have completely different meanings. For example Abel tests a microphone by counting, using the words sun, dock, and trog, instead of one, two, and three. Another schoolboy, Charlie, enters the game of catch and is harassed by Abel, who taunts him by taking the football. They trade insults in Dogg language.

Then Mr. Dogg, the school headmaster, arrives on the scene. He is looking for a truck, which will deliver the lumber to build a platform. When Dogg learns the truck is not there yet, he leaves the scene.

The three boys sit down to eat lunch, speaking in Dogg language all the while. Suddenly, Abel and Baker begin to speak English, but only because they are rehearsing for their school play, Hamlet. English, to these boys, is a foreign language.

The delivery truck arrives, but its driver, Easy, only speaks English. He offends the headmaster, because a common English greeting is an insult in Dogg language. Finally, Easy pulls from his pocket a diagram of a platform, and Mr. Dogg understands that his lumber has arrived. He positions Easy and the boys in a line from the truck off-stage to the place on-stage where the platform will be built.

When Mr. Dogg says, "plank", which means "ready" in Dogg, the first piece of lumber is passed down the line. It happens to be a plank, so Easy thinks he has understood what is going on, and he calls out, "plank," several times. After the first few planks, though, lumber in the shape of blocks, cubes, and slabs come. Easy becomes comically confused.

As this crew builds its stage, the audience begins to see that some of the blocks in the back wall have letters on them. Easy has not noticed the letters, it seems, and builds a wall that says MATHS OLD EGG. When the schoolmaster, Mr. Dogg, sees this, he hits Easy and knocks him through the wall. When the wall is rebuilt, it says MEG SHOT GLAD. Mr. Dogg knocks Easy through the wall again.

As the wall is being rebuilt for the second time, a ceremony begins. A lady comes forward to make a speech that sounds foul in English, but is apparently a normal school speech in Dogg language. The lady helps Mr. Dogg award a number of school trophies, all of them to a student named Fox Major. Instead of carrying his trophies off the stage, he takes away the table they were sitting on.

Then Mrs. Dogg comes forward to announce that it is time for William Shakespeare's Hamlet. As all three exit the stage, the lady is clearly shocked that the wall now reads GOD SLAG THEM. Mr. Dogg gives Easy a dirty look from a distance, and Easy obligingly hurls himself through the wall.

As they rebuild the wall one last time, Easy and the schoolboys take turns venting insults about Mr. Dogg. As they do so, some elements of Dogg language creeps into Easy's speech, so that by the time the wall is rebuilt to say DOGGS HAM LET, Easy is speaking fluent Dogg.

Easy now announces the play, which is a version of Hamlet condensed so that it is now more comical than a tragic. Mr. Dogg, Mrs. Dogg, and the students are the actors. Fox Major, as the best in everything at school, plays Hamlet. Charlie, the brunt of abuse before, must play the girl, Ophelia. Upon conclusion of the acting, there is an even more condensed encore. The actors take their curtain call, and Easy begins to take down the stage by carrying a cube away, while thanking the audience in Dogg language by saying, Cube.