I’m not exactly a theater person, but I’ve been thinking about staging for Hamlet.
My favorite relationship is the one between Ophelia and Laertes because of how much they care for each other. I’ve thought about their first scene together and how Laertes advises Ophelia to not fall in love with Hamlet and not have sex with him and whatnot. Sometimes I look through productions of Hamlet to see how the actors do this scene, some of them play it seriously and another one I saw had it shown as playful sibling jests--it’s just two siblings being dramatic with each other. This was my preferred interpretation because tbh I think it’s super cute and makes what happens to her later even more painful. Then when Polonius comes in to deliver his speech to Laertes they can have another fun sibling moment where they’re laughing at Polonius behind his back and try to look all serious when he looks at them.
Laertes and Ophelia’s next scene together is after Polonius has been killed and Ophelia’s had her breakdown. I’ve seen a few different ways that Laertes reacts to her that are all equally effective. One staging I’ve seen is having Laertes go up to Ophelia and hugging her while she’s crying about Polonius’ death. I feel like it’s a communion of their grief, he’s trying to hold her together and is too afraid to let her go. Others had Laertes standing close to her, but rarely or never touching her, even as he holds his hand out like he wants to, but he’s too stunned to fully comprehend what’s going on.
The way Laertes reacts to learning Ophelia’s drowned, especially during Gertrude’s speech can say a lot about how the production is presenting his transition from overwhelming grief to overwhelming rage. One production I looked at showed Gertrude and Laertes sitting on the floor and she’s hugging him as he cries while she’s telling him about how Ophelia died. Other versions have Laertes staring out while Gertrude speaks and he’s more clenched, practically shaking with rage, and then when Laertes says “Too much of water hast, poor Ophelia...But that this folly drowns it” he moves away from Gertrude and Claudius, isolating himself from them. The production where Laertes and Gertrude are sitting down together keeps in the ‘O’ in “Drowned! O, where?” there are some productions that cut the ‘O’ out because of how it might sound ridiculous to the audience, but the soft and broken way that the actor delivers it crushed my heart.
Ophelia’s funeral is also a testament to how much he loves her. His increasing anger at the priest who basically says Ophelia shouldn’t be buried in hallowed ground, and Laertes bites back with “I tell thee, churlish priest / A minist’ring angel shall my sister be / When thou liest howling!” is just heartbreaking.
