Secret Love Life Of Ophelia: theatrical blue balls

Vancouver: Hey, remember that guy Shakespeare? He wrote some shit and we totally jizz all over it hundreds of years later? You remember that guy? Well, playwright Steven Berkoff remembers him too and he’s created a letter-writing rendition of the troubled relationship between Hamlet and Ophelia.

Using letters to convey the emotions traveling between the tortured Hamlet and his very willing Ophelia is an interesting choice. A letter can take everything one might not want to say in person or wish they could say in person, but makes it less intimidating. If you want to be blunt, put yourself out there without too much intimacy, a letter can do the trick quite nicely. This works as a concept, but in theory I feel I’d prefer to read these letters on the page.

Not that the performances by Alicia Novak and Darren Boquist are lackluster, they immerse themselves wholeheartedly in their all-consuming love and lust, but I wasn’t convinced that their correspondence was enough to hold my attention. I will say that in the staging, the letters themselves were a lovely visual comprising most of the set decoration and they were used as props during the exchanges between Hamlet and Ophelia. Then again, I’m a sucker for stationery.

Thankfully, Hamlet is as angst-ridden as ever. And he is horny. Seriously, that guy wants his pole polished something fierce. Ophelia too, is ready to get it on. With an adorable and mischievous smile on her face she dances about the stage reciting her letters with a flowery, seductive tongue. The first half-of this production finds many pseudo-Elizabethan ways to describe the penis without ever actually using the word penis. Or cock, or dick, etc. There are also more creative terms used to describe a blowjob than in every teen movie combined. Their desire is severe and their love passionate. As a viewer I kept waiting for them to make contact, rip each other’s clothes off and hump the day away. The play itself gave me theatrical blue balls.

Their untamed horniness takes up much of the play, leaving the political and familial issues to take a back burner as the play nears its close. And even though that is the only conflict in the piece (how can they be together if everyone is pushing them apart) it comes as an afterthought. They both want it, and yet they cat and mouse, they beg for the other to make a definitive move. If these were your friends you’d tell them to get a room.

I’m not a fan of revisionist writing or theatre. I don’t need to know what so-and-so did after the book or play ended, or what he was thinking in a scene the creator chose not to write and include in the first place. I didn’t feel that I came away with any new insight about Hamlet or Ophelia or her secret love. There is nothing secret about her love in Hamlet.

If you’re feeling a little randy, but don’t quite want to go all the way, then perhaps you’ll be in the mood for this uneven Shakespeare revisioning.

Side note: I am really pleased that my junior high school French teacher’s vest has finally been put to good use again as Hamlet’s brocade-fantasy garment. Everything 90’s is in again. Also, Ophelia’s dress was clearly the winning design in the Helena Bonham Carter house-dress Project Runway challenge. Fab. I loved it. And even though the corset was precariously low, we were not treated to a nip-slip. A minor tragedy, one might say.

For showtime information lust your way here.

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