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Essay On The 2023 Guthrie Theater Adaptation Of Hamlet

993 Words4 Pages

The 2023 Guthrie Theater adaptation of Hamlet by director Joseph Haj proved to be an artful adaptation of the Shakespearean classic. Despite being set in an indistinguishable time period, the play continued to convey the majority of the traditional themes present in the original.
However, the specific choice to portray Ophelia as pregnant ultimately undermines the gravity of her madness and shifts the focus away from her internal struggles. Additionally, this choice causes more blame to be placed on Ophelia for her condition, while Hamlet does not receive any criticism regarding the situation. Ophelia being pregnant is not something that is directly in the text, and adding it in alters the tone and overall meaning of certain scenes regarding …show more content…

A straightforward reading of this scene would reveal that this outburst is due to Hamlet’s pent up anger at his mother’s relationship with his uncle, and he is expressing this anger at an inopportune moment towards Ophelia. Even though some of his anger in this moment is truly directed towards Ophelia, the notion that she is pregnant in this scene makes his words more abrasive and misogynistic. As he says “Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?” (3.1.122-123), he takes on an accusatory tone. He places blame solely on Ophelia, even though if she is pregnant, he would also be at fault. This scene in the live performance matched the harsh tone conveyed in the text, as Micheal Braugher’s Hamlet broke his previous pattern of sulking to loudly and …show more content…

In this, she sings of Hamlet and how she feels betrayed by him. She hints at their intimacy, and how he promised to marry her, quoting “‘Before you tumbled me, / You promised me to wed.’” (4.5.63-64). In the adaptation, she is saying this while climbing a staircase on the side of the stage. She is halfway up when she finishes the previous line, and at that moment she takes off a coat she is wearing, revealing her pregnancy. When she does this, all of the characters gasp, and Gertrude commands one of the servants to closely follow Ophelia when she leaves the scene. It is not until she reveals her pregnancy that any of the characters seem to be worried about her mental state. Gertrude’s command for someone to follow her out shows that she is worried for the baby, rather than Ophelia herself, as she hasn’t paid much attention to Ophelia’s outbursts prior to this moment. The reveal, and more specifically the pregnancy itself, take away from the seriousness of Ophelia’s mental issues in this moment, and shift the focus to Hamlet getting Ophelia pregnant. In doing so, Ophelia’s internal struggles are diminished to what the other characters can see: her

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