It's a tragedy, and he's the protagonist of a tragedy, not a hero. His becoming obsessed with the unjust death of his father and fucking everything up is the whole point. Saying he's acting like an ass is both obvious and a distraction from the main event, which is to see a great man brought low by his flaws, and to contemplate fate, the human condition, or whatever else you can take away from the play.
So I'm talking here about jumping-off point, the beginning of a process, not the end of it. The process would take weeks or months of rehearsal.
Virtue signaling a fictional character created a couple of hundred years ago. Nice! You are the hero we desperately need.
> "How now, a rat!" That's not madness or heat of the moment:
That's open for debate. But we are talking about a character who sees his dead father's ghost. Also most would chalk it up to the "heat of the moment" as the scene led to the murder. If he saw polonius walking down a corridor, he wouldn't have killed him. So, "madness and heat of the moment"?
> Hamlet's nowhere near the greatest villain
He isn't a villain at all. He's a tragic figure.
> but he's not a good person, either.
He's not a bad person either, virtue signaling aside. That's what makes him one of the greatest characters in literature.
His treatment of Ophelia is dreadful. Laying her death at his feet is an overstatement, but "misogyny, gaslighting and open sexual harassment" isn't. The deaths of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are undeserved: they don't know that they're bringing Hamlet to his death.
He could perhaps be forgiven (in the violent context of the setting) the death of Polonius, but he's being deliberately obtuse in his fake justification of "How now, a rat!" That's not madness or heat of the moment: he knew it was murder. He might not be lying that he thought it was Claudius, though he'd just seen Claudius and decided not to kill him.
That switch, at least, drives some interesting choices for the actor and director. Hamlet's nowhere near the greatest villain, but he's not a good person, either. The play gives performers a great opportunity to find a base for him and picking that through his many inconsistencies: being able to play that strong commitment at every moment can yield a great performance. But it's a challenge to find something you can commit to.