I will admit, there is one thing that has always bothered me about most productions of Hamlet: Ophelia. I have never really understood her character, her purpose. We first see her as her brother and then her father tell her that she cannot love Hamlet. Then we see her as she tells her father of Hamlet's antic behaviour. Then there is the strange scene between Hamlet and Ophelia after the "to be, or not to be" speech, which concludes with Hamlet telling her, essentially, to buzz off. But despite this, Hamlet makes some pretty suggestive comments as he flirts with her while watching the play-within-the-play. We next see Ophelia after Hamlet has killed her father, and she is completely mad, child-like and nonsensical.
It wasn't until I watched Slings and Arrows, the Canadian television show based around a Shakespearean festival where they perform Hamlet, that I began to get a deeper insight into her character. In the show there is a terrible actress who has been cast as Ophelia, who also does not fully understand her character, which leads to the following scene where the director, who has had a history with madness, tries to explain things. I love the way he describes her.
