听美剧学英语:《淘小子看世界》The Play's the Thing - 1

（单词翻译）

Good morning, class! I would like you all to let out your most agonized¹ groan².

Ah~

Good. Now, let's start planning our springtime class play.

Ah~~~

Been there, heard that. Now, before you give up in despair, you may want to hear my play selection. It has sword-fights, murder, skulls³, even ghosts. How does that sound?

Sounds like Spielberg.

Sounds like Shakespeare.

Sounds like a loser.

We will be doing selected scenes from the play Hamlet. Mr. Hunter, in the parlance⁴ of the theater, you will be a spear-carrier.

Excellent. So this guy I'll play is like what, a warrior⁵ and a hero?

No, this guy you play has very few lines to memorize. Ms. Laurence, you will be playing the tragic⁶ heroine Ophelia. Now, this is a challenging role. She goes quite insane.

Tapanga is insane? What a stretch!

If I were a less-evolved person, I'd say cram⁷ it, brillo head.

Mr. Minkus, you will be playing the role of the wise old Polonius.

Polonius? He only has 48 lines. I sort of pictured myself as the melancholy⁸ Dane.

For those of you unfamiliar⁹ with the reference, Mr. Minkus means the lead role Prince Hamlet. Now, this is a tricky¹⁰ part to cast because Hamlet gets on a lot of people's nerves. He makes one stupid mistake after another. And for 5 acts, he never shuts up.

What? I have a booger?

Words & Information:

parlance : You use parlance when indicating that the expression you are using is normally used by a particular group of people. 说法;语调

brillo head: A brillo head is a person who has ugly, curly hair. Often times a person of mixed ethnic¹¹ descent, a halfie will have that white complexion¹² but black hair. They can accurately¹³ be described as a brillo head.