Images of Ophelia

Here is a scene from the great Canadian television series Slings and Arrows. The company of actors is rehearsing Hamlet, and it is not going well. The actress playing Ophelia, Claire, is terrible and nobody knows what to do about it. She is a niece of a board member and nobody can get rid of her. She makes a mockery of Ophelia’s mad scene, dancing around, letting daisies drop, singing in a fluttery voice, as though she actually believes this is American Idol. Jeffrey, the loose cannon director, fresh out of a mental institution, stops her during rehearsal.

CLAIRE [as Ophelia]
And will not come again
No no he is dead
Go to thy death bed …

JEFFREY
Stop. For God’s sake, stop.

CLAIRE
What?

JEFFREY
Where is this coming from?

CLAIRE
What?

JEFFREY
This staggering about with your mouth open.

CLAIRE
You’re being sarcastic again with me. Please don’t be sarcastic with me.

JEFFREY
Actually, I’m not. Sorry.

CLAIRE
Ophelia’s mad.

JEFFREY
Right.

CLAIRE
I’m playing her madness.

JEFFREY
And how does staggering about with your mouth open suggest madness?

CLAIRE
I’m not mad.

JEFFREY
Right.

CLAIRE
And I never have been, so I have to simulate it.

JEFFREY
Right.

CLAIRE
I’m using sense memory. I’m remembering what it was like being stoned and I’m using that. I’m disoriented, my head is spinning, I think that’s what it’s probably like when you’re insane.

JEFFREY
Right. Well. It’s not. Trust me. That’s what it’s like when you’re stoned.

CLAIRE
Oh, forgive me, I mean no disrespect, but I don’t have your experience with insanity.

JEFFREY
Right.

CLAIRE
And this is hard, anyway, because I can’t take any meaning from the text. Ophelia’s just singing nonsense songs.

JEFFREY
Right. Claire. Claire, Claire, Claire with the hair. Ophelia is a child. She has been dominated by powerful men all of her life and suddenly they all disappear. Her brother goes to France, her father is murdered by her boyfriend and he is shipped off to England. She is alone for the first time, grieving and heartbroken and guilty – because, as far as she is concerned, it is all her fault. She ignored her brother’s advice and fell in love with Hamlet and now her father is dead – all because of her – and the pain and the loss and the shame and the guilt, all of this, is gnawing away inside this little child’s mind and it comes out as ‘little songs’. ‘And will he not come again? And will he not come again? No. No. He is dead. My father is dead and I killed him.’ ‘Kay? Now, let’s try it again … without the Vietnam flashback.

And now: the scene itself:

Hamlet, Act IV, scene 5

LAERTES
How now! what noise is that?
Re-enter OPHELIA

O heat, dry up my brains! tears seven times salt,
Burn out the sense and virtue of mine eye!
By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,
Till our scale turn the beam. O rose of May!
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!
O heavens! is’t possible, a young maid’s wits
Should be as moral as an old man’s life?
Nature is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,
It sends some precious instance of itself
After the thing it loves.

OPHELIA
[Sings]
They bore him barefaced on the bier;
Hey non nonny, nonny, hey nonny;
And in his grave rain’d many a tear:–
Fare you well, my dove!

LAERTES
Hadst thou thy wits, and didst persuade revenge,
It could not move thus.

OPHELIA
[Sings]
You must sing a-down a-down,
An you call him a-down-a.
O, how the wheel becomes it! It is the false
steward, that stole his master’s daughter.

LAERTES
This nothing’s more than matter.

OPHELIA
There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance; pray,
love, remember: and there is pansies. that’s for thoughts.

LAERTES
A document in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIA
There’s fennel for you, and columbines: there’s rue
for you; and here’s some for me: we may call it
herb-grace o’ Sundays: O you must wear your rue with
a difference. There’s a daisy: I would give you
some violets, but they withered all when my father
died: they say he made a good end,–
Sings
For bonny sweet Robin is all my joy.

LAERTES
Thought and affliction, passion, hell itself,
She turns to favour and to prettiness.

OPHELIA
[Sings]
And will he not come again?
And will he not come again?
No, no, he is dead:
Go to thy death-bed:
He never will come again.
His beard was as white as snow,
All flaxen was his poll:
He is gone, he is gone,
And we cast away moan:
God ha’ mercy on his soul!
And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God be wi’ ye.
Exit

LAERTES
Do you see this, O God?

I went a little “insane” myself below. Images of Ophelia through the centuries: actresses who have played her, painters who have painted her … the erotic ones, the violent ones, the pre-Raphaelite ones, the art Deco ones … I couldn’t stop gathering images. Once I decided to do this post (I’ve been reading a biography of Oscar Wilde, and most of his painter friends – the pre-Raphaelites and decadent aesthetes all did paintings of Ophelia, so I decided to look some of the paintings up – and as I started digging, I found myself getting further and further into the world and moved out of that late 19th century era and into other eras, until finally I was totally and utterly lost (in the best way) – and figured I would do kind of in imitation of this one I did about images of Moby Dick. I very quickly realized that I, to put it mildly, was NOT the first one with this idea. BOOKS have been written about portrayals of Ophelia in paintings and etchings! I also found many old photographs of actresses who have played the role (including one of Ellen Terry – see if you can pick her out!) – not to mention some more modern 20th century ladies.

I love to see all of the different sensibilities of the artists, and how they see it, how they enter in, what it is that calls to them about this particular character, especially her mad scene and her drowning scene.