himself. From a staging perspective, I am interested in having the actors’ physical movements reflect their emotions. Hamlet could get physical with Ophelia by holding her shoulders and pushing her, which would certainly give her something to get upset about. On the other hand, his words are more hurtful than any shove. For example, Hamlet and Ophelia approach each other until they are almost touching, and then Hamlet turns away on the line, “I love you not.”
As Hamlet is exiting, he turns back to Ophelia and walks toward her for the line, “God has given you one face and you make yourselves another.” This back-and-forth staging works on two levels: It reinforces the attraction/repulsion dynamic between Hamlet and Ophelia. Also, if Hamlet is indeed pretending to be mad, it paints a convincing portrait of someone who is behaving erratically. Finally on Hamlet’s line, “It hath made me mad,” Ophelia turns her back on him, as if it is too painful for her to see him this way.
Beginning actors frequently do not know what to do with their bodies while they are on stage. They either move too much or too little. Just as we can vocally color words through inflection, tone, pauses, and pitch, so can we add body movements that add to a word’s meaning. On his line, “marry a fool,” Hamlet performs a little stutter-step and a hand pose to signify a fool’s jest. When Ophelia describes Hamlet’s “noble and most sovereign reason, like sweet bells jangled,” she lifts her arm up and rings an imaginary bell. Often a simple physical gesture can help an actor put her stamp on a character and make Shakespeare’s words her own.
ACT III, SCENE I: OPHELIA MONOLOGUE
It is important to know your character’s entire journey throughout the play, even if you are only performing a scene or monologue. When playing this speech by Ophelia, it is helpful to know Ophelia goes mad several scenes later and subsequently drowns herself. Perhaps you can exhibit hints of Ophelia’s future breakdown during her emotional response to Hamlet’s presumed madness. Experiment with Ophelia’s tone. Try speaking as a fully sane person who is upset over the loss of reason in a loved one. Then try the speech as someone who is so distraught that she herself is losing her grip on reason. Is there anything in the text that can aid you in your choice of how to depict Ophelia’s mental and emotional state?
Ophelia is still sane during this speech and is bemoaning Hamlet’s apparent mental decline as evidenced by his irrational and cruel behavior toward her in the scene. She is hurt, of course. She and Hamlet have been intimate, and first he tells her he loved her once, then immediately denies it. This monologue contains striking irony in her description of Hamlet’s madness since she herself goes mad—with fatal consequences.
The monologue can be broken down into four distinct sections, each with its own mood and tone. First, she describes Hamlet’s good qualities and laments their absence in his present condition. Second, she describes her own sad state as a result of Hamlet’s mistreatment. Third, she describes Hamlet’s mental condition in detail. Finally, she restates her own distress.
If you play each of these sections with the appropriate tone, your speech will travel through Ophelia’s feelings about Hamlet and their relationship, giving the monologue lively dynamics and strong emotions.
Let’s start with the first word: “O.” There is a Shakespeare theatre game that I learned from Folger Education, wherein the speaker says the word “O” in several different ways: surprised, horrified, sad, weary, etc. The sound of the word “O” changes with each reading, and indeed the sound of any word in a monologue changes with the textual and emotional interpretation you choose.
Experiment with two or three different ways of saying “O”: shock, dismay/sadness, and, just for variety, anger. How does that change the sound of the word? Think about what has just happened: Hamlet has verbally abused Ophelia. Perhaps, as some renditions have chosen, he even threw her to the ground. If you are playing this monologue as part of the scene, you can react to what has just happened on the stage. If you are playing the monologue alone, you may summon a reaction based upon what you imagine has just happened.
Notice how many times the letter “o” appears in the first two lines: “O”, “noble” “o’erthrown,” “soldier’s,” “scholar’s,” “tongue,” and “sword.” This gives you an opportunity to find a place to echo or restate the “o” sound, not only for poetic reasons but also for emotional ones. Pick two more “o” sounds to emphasize. Words that immediately come to mind are “noble” and “o’erthrown,” but you should experiment to see if any others resonate with you.
With each descriptive word in the second line, Ophelia describes Hamlet’s qualities in terms of the roles he plays: courtier, soldier, and scholar. The second part of the sentence attaches a body part or object to each role. Oddly, they are not in the right order. You must look at the speech and attach the corresponding body part or object to its role. The first role, “courtier,” matches with the first descriptor, “eye.” However, the second role is “soldier,” and the second descriptor is “tongue,” which actually applies to “scholar.”
Should you wish to add a gesture to each word, first try doing so with the roles (courtier, soldier, scholar) and then try the gesture again, this time with the body part or object: (eye, sword, tongue.) The key here is that you have options to work with; by experimenting with alternate gestures and vocal interpretations, you might unearth a fresh view of the text.
For the next three lines, Ophelia extols Hamlet’s virtues. Note that she is listing his good qualities directly on the heels of suffering his abuse; this says a lot about her character and her opinion of Hamlet. There could be a bittersweetness to her descriptions, since these are attributes that seem to have now disappeared.
Experiment with saying these three lines (beginning with “Th’expectancy” and ending with “observers”) in two ways. First say them as if Ophelia is happily in love with Hamlet and enumerating his good points. Second, utter them sadly, as if mourning the loss of these qualities. Finally, see if you can keep some of the initial joy of the first reading so that your description of Hamlet is at once regretful of loss and remembering happiness. You may end up choosing a delivery that is more definitively mournful, but I still suggest trying alternate interpretations because it is a good way to discover nuances in the character and the monologue.
The words “quite, quite down!” echo the “o” sounds we explored earlier in the speech. Perhaps you could draw the “o” sound on “down” to parallel an emotion-provoking sound you made earlier. Notice how in the next two lines (the second of four sections in this speech wherein Ophelia describes her heartbroken state), the hard consonant “k” and “d” sounds repeat themselves: “deject,” “wretched,” “sucked,” and “musicked.” Shakespeare has a way of painting an emotional picture with the sound of his words. If you utter these sounds with that awareness, your speech will resonate with color and emotional impact.
In the third section, Ophelia describes Hamlet’s present mental condition. She begins by referring again to one of Hamlet’s positive traits: “that noble and most sovereign reason.” Notice how every line in the speech except this one is written in iambic pentameter. “Now see that noble and most sovereign reason” has an extra syllable. Think of the iambic pentameter’s rhythm as a heartbeat. When the speaker is in a heightened emotional state, the heart skips a beat. Look at when the iambic pentameter loses its rhythm and see if that provides you with an opportunity
