The world premiere of Twelve Ophelias from Mason's School of Theater and the Mason Players is being performed in TheatreSpace on Mason's Fairfax campus from February 22-25, 2024.
The play by Caridad Svich is about Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Here is how Director and Composer Brett Womack brought the script to life:
"As theatre-goers, you likely have some familiarity with Hamlet and its characters. Hamlet was haunted, Polonius was stabbed, Gertrude was poisoned, Claudius was stabbed and poisoned, and Ophelia was driven mad and drowned. Spoilers, sorry. Despite every character meeting a cruel fate, Ophelia’s is easily the most tragic of them all, while simultaneously being the least deserving. Enter Caridad Svich, who pens this wonderfully absurdist and fresh take on the characters, where Ophelia is given a second chance at finding herself, no longer defined by the men in her life, but on her own merit. By shifting the story to be told from her perspective, Svich is able to craft a pseudo-afterlife where Ophelia finds her way into her own identity. While this story is odd and particular and intimate, its universality shines through the experiences of Ophelia and her recovering mindscape in this half-deconstruction, half-homage to the original play.
Svich’s obtuse means of storytelling (and I in no way mean that as an insult) really spoke to me when I first read the play. The uptight eloquence of Shakespeare is inverted as characters speak in contemporary poetry and modern dialects. The opportunity to engage with this story through a musical and movement-focused medium was also one I simply could not pass up. In composing the score, I sought to fill this story of identity, individuality, and white noise with music that delves into the dissociative and distant, while still remaining wholly distinct and memorable. I enjoyed tackling the entire show with that same philosophy of the purposeful fuzz and noise found within a crowded mind, which makes the moments of brevity and serenity that much nicer.
People dance joyfully, wail with grief, zone out entirely, love, hate, live, and die- often at the same time. I made it weird. But a good weird. I want to take the rest of this page to thank you for being here. Yes, you specifically. It means the world to myself and this whole company that you came out to support us. This show has been my passion project for the better part of two years, and I’m beyond grateful to be sharing not only my art, but the art of so many student performers and designers coming together as one. I hope you can leave this room today with a newfound appreciation for Shakespeare’s original, a sense of retribution for the wronged women in his works, and a love for young and new artists making their art together. I can no other answer make but thanks, and thanks, and ever thanks."