Word: drabek
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...production's first big surprise comes with its Ophelia (Ursula Drabek), whom Cain sees not as a shrinking victim of cruelty and circumstance--the usual interpretation--but as a strong and independent woman. Creating this Ophelia takes imaginative line-reading, a good deal of un-Shakespearean byplay that never made it into a script, and some outright cheating--for instance, an extra exchange of "Ophelia!" and "NO!" as Polonius tries to force his daughter to tell the King about Hamlet's visit to her chamber...
...repudiates Ophelia and insults her. Cain relocates the first crucial Hamlet-Ophelia scene to the middle of the night, reckless of chronology--putting both players in nightclothes, reducing the acerbic dialogue to lovers' quips, and smothering unambiguous lines, such as "I loved you not," in amorous play and Drabek's long hair. Another scene, set during the play-within-a-play, is intentionally drowned out in the players' general clamor...