Hamalot: Ophelia's Deaths
Ophelia's death has always been for me and many the most painful point in the play.
Therefore, I'd like to actively disarm it, especially considering this may get played to kids.
Even turn it around into comedy.
A fun option might be to make her semi-immortal, like a video game character.
This was done with the charactyer Xander on the Comedy Central cartoon Drawn Together.
Xander was killed regularly, but instead of staying dead a life token would fly away and a counter would drop by one, then he'd get up or re-materialize. In an episode where he attempts suicide he has to do it hundreds of times.
So I propose that Ophelia dying could be a major ongoing gag!
Kill her several times early by sword accident or prat falls for example. Make it obviously mortal, such as visible arrow through head, but somehow sell that she survives.
This is not unlike the "increasingly injured" character as used by 80s Prom and Triton Clowns as an ongoing gag, where each appearance they are wearing more medical gear such as slings and bandages.
For the final blow-off maybe do a life countdown throughout, even references to her being a cat, counting down from nine (or maybe lower, explaining that she'd died a few times as a kid). Her final passing would thus be life zero, and audience knows she's not coming back, but would get a laugh.
Alternative comedic approaches are possible:- Make her a goth, who would welcome or even hungers for death.
This would disarm the death by giving the audience knowledge that Oph would be glad. - Make her enormously optimistic and suddenly sane again just before getting offed.
"I feel great! Like this is the first beautiful day of the rest of my life!" - boom
What circus-arts Oph performs will depend on the skills of the most appropriate actress for the part.
As a major character, Oph must be capable of some significant performance art for a featured act, such as juggling or silks.
Silks in particular could well suit Oph, and be performed as her death, echoing the original where whe drowns due in part to being wrapped in willow boughs and such.
Therefore, the rendering of Oph's death may depend heavily on the particular skills of the actress cast, so multiple approaches should be fielded.
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2006.01.01