Playwright and Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri has a fresh take on the world’s most famous play.

The D.C. theater scene is back to Shakespearean business as usual.

Graham Hamilton as Hamlet. What a difference a little emphasis makes. Suddenly an innocent phrase like “country matters” sounds suspiciously like the c-word. A flick of the hand toward the stomach renders an afflicted Ophelia pregnant. It’s with light touches, not a heavy hand, that director Joseph Haj puts his mark on a streamlined production of Hamlet now being staged at the Folger. The production has its accents – a spare, white, clean-lined set,…

Poor Prince Hamlet can’t bring himself to slay his treacherous, usurping Uncle Claudius while the guy’s at prayer. To be, or not to be. That is the . . . point? Mayhaps. Every script goes through revisions. The script of a play — Hamlet, say — that predates copyright law, and that was often scribbled down as it was performed and passed around in incomplete or inaccurate transcripts, could diverge in innumerable directions, like…