Toneelschuur Haarlem
2023
Hamlet and Ophelia is a performance that reads Heiner Müller‘s The Hamletmachine through the history of punk rock. The world premiere of The Hamletmachine took place in the same year that Sid Vicious died. The starting point for the script is an imagined story in which Sid and his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, take part in an experimental film-performance based on Heiner Müller’s text.
The Shakespearean characters in The Hamletmachine rebel against and reject their own story in much the same way that punk rejected the status quo. The performance explores a weary, nihilistic world in a state of decay, as well as the ways in which such a world can nevertheless be exploited and commodified. Just as punk was ridiculed and absorbed by the machinery of commerce, Sex Pistols T-shirts can now be bought in mainstream retail chains, Sid and Nancy sell their intimacy within a project resembling a reality show that feeds on their mutual dependency and drug addiction.
Although the biographies of Sid and Hamlet are not directly comparable, the performance uncovers striking parallels between Nancy Spungen and Ophelia. The circumstances surrounding the deaths of both figures remain unclear. It is unknown whether Sid, or perhaps someone else, killed Nancy at the Chelsea Hotel, or whether she stabbed herself in an attempt to attract attention and accidentally bled to death. Ophelia’s apparent suicide is similarly open to interpretation.
Both characters are depicted as mentally unstable, reproducing a historical tendency to associate femininity with madness. In this reading of Shakespeare, Hamlet’s rejection of Ophelia marks the moment when he makes a decisive choice: he rejects his future and chooses instead to remain faithful to his not-quite-yet-dead father, whom he is compelled to avenge.
The deaths of Nancy and Ophelia constitute turning points in both narratives, serving as catalysts for the stories of their male protagonists. Their deaths propel the action forward, while their lives and subjectivities are ultimately subordinated to the journeys of the men at the center of each story.
SCRIPT FRAGMENT:
NANCY
to the audience
I am Ophelia and I am going to die! I am going to die! I am going to die! I am going to die! And now! Everybody sing with me! I am going to die!
MALCOLM
Nancy…
NANCY
I am going to die!
MALCOLM
Nancy, can you please shut up?
NANCY
to Malcolm
You don’t like me. Not because I am a junkie but because I admit I am a junkie.
to the audience
Yes I am a junkie!
MALCOM
Don’t you understand that we are buys with the shoot? It’s not your scene.
NANCY
Fuck off!
to Sid
Are you hungry? I want to cook for you. I want to be a good wife and make a chicken casserole for you. With vegetables and herbs. You need to stuff it and put in the oven. But… we have no oven.
CREDITS
Director: Mateusz Staniak
text De Hamletmachine by Heiner Müller and other texts
Performance: Laura de Geest, Pepijn Korfage, Robin Zaza Launspach, Arne Luiting
Dramaturgy: Debbie Oskam
Set and light design: Zaza Dupont
Video design: Jordi Wolswijk
Music and sound design: George Dhauw
Costume design: Wojciech Dziedzic
Costume studio: Leanne Vandenbussche
Hair and make-up: Demi van Rooijen
Dresser: Hendrik Nieuwerf
Photos: Sanne Peper