In a play with very little cohesiveness, between actors,
scenes, costumes, set pieces etc. etc. etc, one scene in particular stood out
from the rest.
I found act 4, scene 5, when Ophelia goes mad, to be, by
far, the best in the production. So many of the actors relied on obvious
interpretations and cliché line-deliveries to get through their moments. But, I
felt that this scene was shockingly chilling and that a lot of thought had been
put into a specific interpretation of it. The choice to sing Ophelia's lines worked perfectly to convey he profound insanity. Additionally, the timber of her voice gave an incredibly despondent undertone to her almost tuneless singing. The actress's choices made it very clear that Ophelia's insanity is completely real and unbridled, and ultimately, her performance made this scene the climax of the entire play.
Up until this scene, the emotions of the characters were extremely controlled (maybe they were just bland), but Ophelia's descent into insanity proved extremely intense and wild and marked the first point in the play when I was actually interested in the action onstage. She took her performance past the stiffness and awkwardness of many of the other actors and successfully played the role of a girl forced into insanity.
I've actually seen Ophelia singing in previous interpretations of Hamlet, but what I enjoyed about this particular actress is that she wasn't afraid to change her tone and intonation depending on what she was saying - that really impressed me. Another thing you might consider is how she wasn't given actual flowers to give out but was 'picking' them from her hair. Makes you wonder, where exactly did she get he wreath from?
ReplyDelete