Ophelia, Shakespeare’s tragic archetype of female passivity and captivity, is resurrected from her suicide in McCarren Park Pool this summer in “12 Ophelias,” a play written by Caridad Svich and presented by Woodshed Collective.
The significance of the venue – at which the play will run, free of charge, through August – should not be overlooked: In “Hamlet,” Ophelia commits suicide by drowning herself in a pool. Here, in a waterless pool, she has come back to life “to see if things could have gone a little better with Hamlet and a little differently for herself,” according to director Teddy Bergman.
The titular “12 Ophelias” represent stages of maturation the reincarnated Ophelia goes through as she seeks fulfillment, one for each scene in the 80-minute play.
But, as in “Hamlet,” she faces long odds because of her surroundings. The play takes place in a seedy Appalachian version of Hamlet’s Elsinore. In this contemporary version, Gertrude runs a brothel, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are gender-ambiguous town gossips, and Hamlet and Horatio come to “slum it” as part of an ironic lark.
Bergman said the Appalachian setting lends a touch of American mountain mythology to the Hamlet tale. He also noted a theory saying the contemporary Appalachian accent is the dialect that most resembles the Elizabethan accent of Shakespeare’s time, even more so than the contemporary British accent.
Like the original Elsinore, the Appalachian version it is a landscape rife with shady dealings and mistrust where the economy is one of sex. In “Hamlet,” Gertrude perpetuates her status as Queen by sleeping with her husband’s murderous brother, in effect using sex to gain power. In “12 Ophelias,” Gertrude’s use of sex as a means to an end is more spelled out.
It is against these stacked odds that Ophelia must come of age. To do so, she must discover a self that she has allowed to be trampled on by the men around her, namely her father Polonius, her brother Laertes, and Hamlet himself. “12 Ophelias” follows Ophelia from self-abnegation to selfhood.
Original music by the Jones Street Boys, a Brooklyn-based bluegrass-infused rock band, provides a musical backdrop to the play. The band infuses the scenes with mood, and at certain points, the distinction between band and the scene blurs when the actors sing with the band.
So as not to detract from its unique venue, the play’s set is relatively barebones. This makes it easier to strike every night, which the Woodshed team does as park staff prepares for the next night of entertainment.
Since opening on July 24, the production has drawn approximately 150 people per show.
“A lot of the people don’t know about it ahead of time – they just kind of hear something happening and wander in,” said Bergman, a Carroll Gardens resident. “Given the nature of the neighborhood, there’s such a diverse range of people seeing the show.”
“12 Ophelias,” which began showing on July 24, will run on August 8, 11, 14, 16, 20, 21, and 22 at McCarren Park Pool. All shows are at 8 p.m., and free.
For more information, go to www.mccarrenpark.com.
