That sounds super cool! I've seen a couple of Shakespeare ballets now and he really does seem to adapt well to the medium. Maybe because I do know the stories, maybe because the stories are about the sort of Big Emotions that dance is good at portraying?
I love your description of the Ophelia staging especially - her madness with the mirrors and the cast grabbing at her, and then after she dies everyone else literally throwing her around. It's a beautiful evocation of the way everyone in the play treats her. And interesting that Gertrude gets a little extra time to mourn her: it's clear in the play that she does care about Ophelia, but I don't know that it's often highlighted.
As you know I ALSO just saw a Hamlet on Friday, and I was really struck by Horatio's "oh god please be normal" when we get to the part where Hamlet is announcing that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and oh I'm just going to jump in Ophelia's grave now. He is truly trying SO hard. He came up to Denmark to visit his college buddy who just lost his dad and somehow this has escalated into a roomful of death??
no subject
I love your description of the Ophelia staging especially - her madness with the mirrors and the cast grabbing at her, and then after she dies everyone else literally throwing her around. It's a beautiful evocation of the way everyone in the play treats her. And interesting that Gertrude gets a little extra time to mourn her: it's clear in the play that she does care about Ophelia, but I don't know that it's often highlighted.
As you know I ALSO just saw a Hamlet on Friday, and I was really struck by Horatio's "oh god please be normal" when we get to the part where Hamlet is announcing that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and oh I'm just going to jump in Ophelia's grave now. He is truly trying SO hard. He came up to Denmark to visit his college buddy who just lost his dad and somehow this has escalated into a roomful of death??