Ophelia's first appearance in "Elsewhere in Elsinore" immediately establishes just how different the play will be from "Hamlet," upon which it is based.
Shoulders back and voice strong, the commanding Ophelia in "Elsinore" starkly contrasts with the desperate and enigmatic Ophelia who traipses, shadow-like, through "Hamlet."
This play is indeed different. With an all-female cast, it focuses on what happens in the castle when the men are gone. Hamlet, King Claudius and Laertes, the alpha males that drive "Hamlet," are all completely absent. The audience learns of their actions only through pieced-together dialogue between the female characters. Even the action of the play, which uses the plot of "Hamlet" as a template, puts a distinctly feminine stamp on the course of events.
"This is a really different take on Hamlet," Hillary Billings, a sophomore in the School of Public Affairs who plays Dakin, a servant woman, said.
The captivating new play, written and directed by AU Department of Performing Arts professor Caleen Sinnette Jennings, fills in the blanks and answers the questions too often left unasked by high school British literature teachers.
What is it like for Ophelia to come of age without a mother? Who is there for her as she grapples with the confusions of womanhood? Who does the cooking and cleaning for Hamlet's giant castle, and what do they talk about?
"It takes on really important questions," Ezree Mualem, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences who plays Tava, another servant woman, said.
Instead of sketching the female characters as though they were constantly pining for their men, Jennings addresses the relationships between the females. For example, the handful of servant women becomes Ophelia's adopted mothers. Dressed in drab cloaks and constantly laboring under tremendous duties, the relationship between the servants and Ophelia is necessarily hierarchical. The servant's heads must bow before her. However, they are the ones who carry her into adulthood, and they are the ones who celebrate and explain her newfound fertility when she has her first period in the beginning of the play. They fill a hollow left behind by her mother's death.
Ophelia's close friendship with Gruin, Horatio's sister and her tutor, is also compelling. Honest and witty, their conversations refreshingly revolve around the men in their life. When Gruin asks Ophelia about Hamlet, she caustically replies, "I'd rather marry a hedgehog than a prince."
Perhaps the most important relationship, however, is that between Ophelia and her dead mother, Hilda. Murdered by King Claudius because he was afraid of her power as a pagan goddess, she returns as a ghost to offer advice to her beloved daughter. As Ophelia comes of age, she must come to understand her mother as well, the woman Gruin often refers to as a "saint."
Strong performances from Ophelia, played by Shalia Sakona, a freshman in SPA, and Gertrude, played by Maggie Pangrazio, a junior in the School of Communication and CAS, beautifully bring Jennings' dialogue to life.
Sakona said playing Ophelia helped her develop as an actress.
"Ophelia goes through more challenges and growth then any other character I've played," she said.
Pangrazio voiced a similar sentiment, saying that Jennings helped her find her character in her body and voice.
"I've never played anything remotely like a queen," she said. "I had to learn how she carries herself."
The servant women also master the sarcasm that fills their songs of drudgery. When the head servant, played by Amanda Scheirer, a sophomore in CAS, laments, "death is sour, life is shit," it makes Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be" speech seem whiny and shallow in comparison.
Performed with sparse scenery in Katzen's Studio Theatre with the audience close enough to make eye contact with the cast, the true star of the play is Jennings' writing.
Like a retelling of history by the silent and ignored, this play is important because of the questions it poses and answers. It finally lets the one-dimensional female characters of "Hamlet" stand on their own two feet, with impressive results.
