Hamlet: Reflecting on Act 1

At the crux of it, act one is describing and introducing the characters, and setting the scene. The revelation, which happens in all Shakespearean plays, is through a ghost (The late King Hamlet) To his son. Hamlet Sr reveals that his brother Claudius, who has since put it upon himself to rather politely seat himself firmly upon the throne of Denmark, and to lie himself scandalously in the bed of his brothers wife, actually poisoned him. The ghost beseeches Hamlet to seek revenge, which Hamlet does in his own, rather original way. Act one ends on a cliff hanger with Hamlet revealing to his faithful guards he is going to pretend to be mad. For some reason.
Also in Act one, we meet the beautiful Ophelia, daughter of Polonious (The late kings advisor) and Laertes(young Hamlets friend.) Her father and brother advise and positively forbid her from being too easy with Hamlet, who seems to have taken a shine to her, and tell her in no uncertain terms to stop giving him her smiles of face their extreme displeasure. To this she agrees, but obviously, believe her we do not. This makes Ophelia come across as quite sparky, which is always fun. Pity she kills herself.
Hamlet Jr Understandabley has some pretty dark thoughts regarding his mother, which he vents in an extremely long speech. For some reason they don't want him to go away to university but rather to stay with them, which i see as a bit stupid as he's not exactly been a ray of sunshine in the castle lately. Hamlet in fact appears quite pleasant to his mother, "ah, tis a fair reply" and this shows him as two faced and quite weak.