How is it different watching the play Hamlet to reading it?

One of the most important things that any one ever said to
me about reading Shakespeare is this: "Plays are written to be performed." That single
statement completely changed my philosophy on teaching. It helped me overcome my fear of
teaching Shakespeare and set me on a path to using Shakespeare as much as I could in the
classroom.

It's very difficult to say exactly what would be
different, but I can give an example of how seeing Hamlet performed would be different
than reading it. Let's look at Hamlet's famous "To be or not to be" soliloquy - perhaps
the most famous speech in the English language. This part of the soliloquy comes in the
middle. There are phrases and words that might be difficult to understand when sitting
and reading it. But when you watch someone perform it, it comes
alive:

Who would bear the whips and scorns of
time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
the pangs of
despised love, the law's delay,
the insolence of office and the
spurns 
that patient merit of the unworthy takes 
when he himself
might his quietus make
with a bare
bodkin?

All of these words might merely
be words to the reader, but to the audience member, they come
alive. An audience member might not be able to understand the words. He or she might not
know what a contumely is or what a bodkin is. An audience member doesn't necessarily
need to know the definition of these words. The actors and their interpretation make the
audience member feel what it means by showing them. This is the essential difference
between merely reading the play and participating in it as an audience
member.