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In Hawke\u2019s \u201cHamlet\u201d and Mel Gibson\u2019s visceral, sensually charged 1990 \u201cHamlet\u201d<\/a> I first realized how often directors use the female characters as stand-ins for fatalistic, taboo love. (Which is why I also savor gender-crossed Hamlets, whether in the form of the theater pioneer Sarah Bernhardt in 1899 or Ruth Negga in 2020<\/a>.) Queen Gertrude is either stupid, selfish or promiscuous, blinded by her untamed lust. Many productions opt for a physical staging of Act III, Scene 4, when Hamlet accosts his mother in her bedchamber. Hawke\u2019s Hamlet grabs his mother in a black robe, then presses her against a set of closet doors. Gibson\u2019s deranged Hamlet also fights and clutches at Gertrude, as did Andrew Scott\u2019s in the 2017 London production by Robert Icke.<\/a> Thomas Ostermeier\u2019s wild \u201cHamlet\u201d at the Brooklyn Academy of Music last year<\/a> emphasized Gertrude\u2019s sexuality to an extreme, having her slink and shimmy as though overwhelmed with sexual energy. The text implies that a woman too free with her affections digs her own grave.<\/p>\n That includes, of course, Hamlet\u2019s eternally damned love interest, Ophelia (memorialized on my right forearm with a skull and pansy). I used to dismiss her as a frail female stereotype, and have craved a production or adaptation that could give this character agency \u2014 any kind of agency \u2014 within the space of her grieving, her madness and her death.<\/p>\n Kenny Leon\u2019s otherwise underwhelming \u201cHamlet\u201d<\/a> at the Delacorte this summer did just that. Solea Pfeiffer played an Ophelia who matched Hamlet in wit and sass, who spoke with a knowingness and rage that lifted the character from her 17th-century home into the present.<\/p>\n This duality in Ophelia \u2014 between sincerity and performance, raving madness and clear, articulated rage \u2014 is welcome. It\u2019s a duality that many directors literalize in their productions overall, some using mirrors as nods to Hamlet\u2019s constant reflections at the expense of action, others turning to hint at the divide between presentation and truth.<\/p>\n But as much as \u201cHamlet\u201d can serve as a character study, for me the story extends far beyond a production\u2019s conceptualization of a lost prince with a splintered ego. This is a story that begins and ends with grief.<\/p>\n I have a tattoo for Hamlet and his dear, departed father \u2014 a jeweled sword piercing a cracked skull in a crown. Having lost my dad almost a decade ago, I\u2019m familiar with the feeling of being haunted by a father who may not be a literal king but perhaps just a patriarch taking the same cheap shots from the afterlife, like Pap in James Ijames\u2019s \u201cFat Ham.<\/a>\u201d In the play, a Black, queer take on \u201cHamlet\u201d in conversation with Shakespeare\u2019s original text, Hamlet is not just tied to his father through a sense of filial obligation but also through guilt, regret, shame. In Pap I saw my own father\u2019s flaws \u2014 the spite, the prejudice, the toxic masculinity. It made me wonder how much of Hamlet\u2019s grief is for his father, and how much for the stability his father symbolized.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n