What Does Horatio Want?

Over at Gus's blog, there's a talkback from hell, nicely rendered by Liz Duffy Adams (author of the smart, sexy Or,). My favorite bit of spot-on stream-of-consciousness:

Talkbacker 4: There’s so much great stuff in this play, Bill, some of it is just brilliant. Really, very poetic, very powerful. But right now it’s really kind of a mess, you know, it’s all over the place. Like in the, what is it, the fourth act, when he comes back and tells us all that mishigas about switching the letters and being captured by pirates? Well, that’s just poor craft, poor playwriting; I’m sorry, but it just is. First of all, it’s ridiculous, I mean, pirates? And plus you just shove it in there, it’s so over-determined, you need him to come back for the play to keep going so you just have him pop up, say, oh, yeah, switched the letters, Guildencranz and Rosenstern are dead, rescued by pirates, la la la, let’s move on. It just doesn’t work, the audience will never buy that. It took me right out of the play.

RTWT.