Ophelia - Episode 8

The most recognizable image of perhaps any Shakespeare heroine is Ophelia drowning — Gertrude’s description of Ophelia “mermaid-like” in the brook has inspired numerous painters. But her untimely death is not her full story. In this episode, we discuss the young woman tangled up in Hamlet’s drama with guests Deanne Williams, an English professor at York University in Toronto; Jennie Greenberry, who played Ophelia last year at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and Mariah Gale, who took on the role in the Bard’s hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon, co-starring opposite David Tennant in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2008 “Hamlet” production. Their recollections of performing and teaching “Hamlet” reveal far more than the languid victim seen in those iconic paintings and illuminate a woman of courage, compassion, and perhaps more ingenuity than first meets the eye.