How I Got Here

In graduate school I first approached the character of Ophelia in scene and monologue study. Until that point I hadn't thought much of her. A small role really, mainly composed of mad ramblings. But there is something about her that is more than that. Something that, upon second look, made me fascinated by her. Part of that fascination comes from the fascination of others. Plays about Ophelia, books derived from her name, countless paintings of her covered in flowers and sinking beneath the water...she has become greater than the sum number of words she actually speaks in the play.

When I was cast as Ophelia last year, I began by reading the play, and also by seeking out as much other material on her as I could find. There are many, many books on Hamlet, as you can imagine, and all of them take at least a nod at Ophelia. Many of the choices I ended up making about her arose from this reading, whether I tried a suggestion or rebelled against what I saw.

One thing that struck me was this: Ophelia in scholarship is not the same Ophelia as the one in the playing of Hamlet. Although there are many brilliant ideas about her, I found that many of them deny the fact that Ophelia (and Hamlet for that matter) when played on stage are full, complete people in that world.

I have had the desire to write a performance piece on Ophelia for a long time. But as I tried writing I found that I was clearly stuck. I didn't want to write a one-hour lament, I didn't want to write a piece of her "looking back" on what happened to her, and I didn't want to attempt to recreate scenes from the play in the solo format. What became clear to me recently, as I looked over my notes from last summer-trying to find a clue as to how to begin, was that this discrepancy between Ophelia and all I had studied about her was the story I wanted to tell.

These posts will chronicle my process as I write this piece. I write this blog as an archive for myself, to help me discover, as the piece takes shape, how it is that I got there.