Abstract
The fact that Ophelia has been used by all manner of artists to channel a wide array of historically contingent cultural fantasies about madness and femininity has been extensively demonstrated — most brilliantly and comprehensively (in my opinion) by Carol Thomas Neely and Carol Rutter.1 Critical work of this kind has tended to see Ophelia, the theatrical character, as an index of social reality: either the citation of pervasive cultural conventions for imagining madness; the embodiment and harmonization of disparate, idealized notions of femininity; or the revision of early modern textual and theatrical conventions (the Shakespearean language of madness, the use of boy actors) for specifically contemporary, often politicized, purposes. As both a textual and a theatrical phenomenon, any modern Ophelia stands in for a woman — or a kind of woman, or a group of women — that the culture at large cannot, or will not, or is notably preoccupied to, imagine and represent. It has proved more difficult for criticism to think of Ophelia as a specifically theatrical character — to describe, that is, the acting of a given Ophelia in terms of the effects of embodied presence rather than gestures toward or citations of a significant absence. This is the problem with which my essay is concerned, and I hope to demonstrate how it is both a problem of late-modern scholarly engagements with and imaginings of the craft of acting and a problem of the Shakespearean text and the playwright’s compelling but somewhat insidious view of the ends of acting.
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Notes
See Carol Thomas Neely, “Documents in Madness: Reading Madness and Gender in Shakespeare’s Tragedies and Early Modern Culture,” Shakespeare Quarterly 42.3 (1991): 315–38
Carol Chillington Rutter, “Snatched Bodies: Ophelia in the Grave,” Shakespeare Quarterly 49.3 (1998): 299–319.
Robert Speaight, “Shakespeare in Britain,” Shakespeare Quarterly 16.4 (1965): 313–24; 322.
Arnold Edinborough, “The Director’s Role at Canada’s Stratford,” Shakespeare Quarterly 20.4 (1969): 443–46; 444.
Maurice Charney, “Shakespeare in New York,” Shakespeare Quarterly 28.2 (1977): 211–16; 212.
J. C. Trewin, “Shakespeare in Britain,” Shakespeare Quarterly 30.2 (1979): 151–58; 157.
Richard Pettengill, “Review of Hamlet at the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre,” Shakespeare Bulletin 25.3 (2007): 86–89; 89.
Elizabeth Klett, “Review of Hamlet at the Houston Shakespeare Festival,” Shakespeare Bulletin 21.3 (2003): 129–31; 131.
Berners W. Jackson, “Stratford Festival Canada,” Shakespeare Quarterly 28.2 (1977): 197–206; 199.
Frank Occhiogrosso, “New Jersey Shakespeare Festival,” Shakespeare Quarterly 30.2. (1979): 189–91; 190.
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Roger Warren, “Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon,” Shakespeare Quarterly 36.1 (1985): 79–87; 81.
Yu Jin Ko, “Theatre Review of Hamlet, presented by the Actors from the London Stage at Wellesley College,” Shakespeare Bulletin 25.2 (2007): 77–81; 79.
Maris Peters, “Review of Hamlet in Estonia,” Shakespeare Bulletin 22.4 (2004): 118–20; 119.
Kaara L. Peterson, “Review of Hamlet performed by the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company,” Shakespeare Bulletin 23.4 (2005): 94–96; 95.
Yu Jin Ko, “Hamlet Between the Lines,” Shakespeare Bulletin 26.4 (2008): 108–14; 110.
Elizabeth Pentland, “Review of Hamlet, performed by Necessary Angel Theatre Company,” Shakespeare Bulletin 27.3 (2009): 475–77; 477.
Christian Billing, “Review of Hamlet at the Donmar Warehouse,” Shakespeare Bulletin 27.4 (2009): 646–56; 655.
Deborah Montouri, “Review of Hamlet, performed by the Shakespeare Theatre Company, Washington, DC,” Shakespeare Bulletin 25.4 (2007): 121–31; 130.
Nicholas Radel, “Review of Hamlet at Bob Jones University,” Shakespeare Bulletin 23.3 (2005): 85–87; 87.
Alan S. Downer, “The Hamlet Year,” Shakespeare Quarterly 5.2 (1954): 155–65; 164.
Robert Speaight, “Shakespeare in Britain,” Shakespeare Quarterly 21.4 (1970): 439–49; 443.
Robert Speaight, “Shakespeare in Britain,” Shakespeare Quarterly 17.4 (1966): 389–98; 396.
Derick Marsh et al., “Shakespeare in Australia,” Shakespeare Quarterly 31.3 (1980): 395–400; 399.
Arthur Colby Sprague, “Shakespeare on the New York Stage, 1953–1954,” Shakespeare Quarterly 5.3 (1954): 311–15; 315.
Dennis Bartholomeusz, “Shakespeare in Sydney,” Shakespeare Quarterly 33.4 (1982): 496–97; 496.
Jeanne Addison Roberts, “Shakespeare in Washington, D.C.,” Shakespeare Quarterly 30.2 (1979): 192–96; 194.
Arthur Ganz, “Hamlet New York Shakespeare Festival,” Shakespeare Quarterly 38.2 (1987): 209–11; 210.
Magda Romanska, “Ontology and Eroticism: Two Bodies for Ophelia,” Womens Studies 34.6 (2005): 485–513.
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© 2012 Kaara L. Peterson and Deanne Williams
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Lopez, J. (2012). Reviewing Ophelia. In: Peterson, K.L., Williams, D. (eds) The Afterlife of Ophelia. Reproducing Shakespeare: New Studies in Adaptation and Appropriation. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137016461_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137016461_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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