herebeweredragons reblogged
Ophelia (2018) dir. Claire McCarthy
@sunderedstar movie night let’s watch!!!
herebeweredragons reblogged
Hamlet as a teenage girl, and the ghost. KDC, Lion and Unicorn Theatre 2013
Photo: Andy Marchant / Stephen Russell
The cast seems all around perfect, I mean, female R&G who also play the gravediggers? And damn, the Hamlet/Ophelia dynamic sounds amazing:
“They approach each other as giggly best friends who are exploring crossing that line between friendship and sexual attraction. Their relationship is not just about how they relate to each other and becoming more sexually aware as part of their coming of age, it’s also about dealing with a certain amount of teenage experimentation in the most innocent of ways. There’s no doubt they love each other; but the nature of this love is changeable. Is it the love of a deep close friendship, or is it a romantic love?
— The acting is very well done across the board, but the strength is in the lead roles. Hamlet handles her role impeccably well; her tears are moving, her social interactions sulky yet brilliant. Ophelia is equally delightful. Stunningly beautiful with clever comedic timing. She is also a wise teenager, who like Hamlet, delights in out-smarting the adults around her, until her madness – also flawlessly handled- drives her to her watery grave.” (x)
herebeweredragons reblogged
I tried to argue that Ophelia resonated because Shakespeare had made an extraordinary discovery in writing her, though I had trouble articulating the nature of that discovery. I didn’t want to admit that it could be something as simple as recognizing that emotionally unstable teenage girls are human beings. …
When Ophelia appears onstage in Act IV, scene V, singing little songs and handing out imaginary flowers, she temporarily upsets the entire power dynamic of the Elsinore court. When I picture that scene, I always imagine Gertrude, Claudius, Laertes, and Horatio sharing a stunned look, all of them thinking the same thing: “We fucked up. We fucked up bad.” It might be the only moment of group self-awareness in the whole play. Not even the grossest old Victorian dinosaur of a critic tries to pretend that Ophelia is making a big deal out of nothing. Her madness and death is plainly the direct result of the alternating tyranny and neglect of the men in her life. She’s proof that adolescent girls don’t just go out of their minds for the fun of it. They’re driven there by people in their lives who should have known better.
B.N. Harrison, from “The Unified Theory of Ophelia” (via shakespeareismyjam)
herebeweredragons reblogged
adoringamandaseyfried
xoxogossipcourf
#amanda seyfried for ophelia #not just drowning ophelia though #(there’s so much more to ophelia) #ophelia who hears the whispers in the night that haunt her beloved #ophelia who watches hamlet when he thinks she can’t see him at all #ophelia who plays at being mad so she can uncover all the secrets in elsinore #ophelia who lets everyone think her harmless and silly #just a girl in love they say #there’s nothing ‘just’ about her #love is vicious and cruel and ophelia is vicious and cruel for love #ophelia who plunges the sword into her father’s chest on her own #ophelia who takes back her life from the men who would have stripped it from her without a second’s thought #ophelia who sits back and lets gertrude fall into the trap of her own making #(as katherine pierce would say ‘better you die than i’) #ophelia who leaves with hamlet and horatio #out of denmark #into some unknown city filled with smoke #where no one will notice the fragile-looking girl with flowers in her hair and a prince at her feet (via duskjolras)
Um….yes, please.