‘Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia’

And now for some video. Rehaan Engineer’s The Secret Love Life of Ophelia will use Japanese Noh theatre and video images, and play in an art gallery, writes Scherazade Kaikobad. 

One of the great things about great texts is their silences, the questions they leave unanswered, allowing generation after generation to fill in the gaps with their own interpretations. That’s possibly one of the reasons Shakespeare’s Hamlet has held such fascination for theatre practitioners down the ages.

The sheer ambivalence in the relationships between the play’s characters is tantalising, providing fodder for many theatrical experiments. One such experiment is Steven Berkoff’s The Secret Love Life of Ophelia, which will be put up by the Industrial Theatre Company in a production directed by Rehaan Engineer. The play runs at the  Project 88 art gallery in Colaba from June 29 - July 2.

Unfolding in the form of a series of love letters between Hamlet and Ophelia, Berkoff’s The Secret Love Life of Ophelia explores the possible relationship between the two that Shakespeare’s text only hints at, charting its course through the tumultuous times at Elsinore when Hamlet’s father has been killed and his uncle has usurped the latter’s throne and bed.

Although it is written in pseudo-Shakespearean blank verse, the play is nonetheless informed by Berkoff’s trademark visceral use of language, and is imbued with the explicitness of the 21st century sensibility.

Experimenting further with Berkoff’s adaptation, Rehaan Engineer’s production of The Secret Love Life of Ophelia weaves in portions from Shakespeare’s original play as well, and also promises a melange of aesthetic styles, forms and media.

Rather than use Berkoff’s exaggerated style of physical theatre, Engineer has opted to borrow from the more minimalist,  stylised  Japanese Noh theatre form, and will also employ video projections. Moreover, the play will be done as promenade theatre, where the actors remain stationary and the audience moves around them.

Given the Industrial Theatre Company’s track record and Engineer’s  penchant for unusual scripts and performance styles, it should come as little surprise that the play will be staged not in a regular theatre, but in an art gallery. 

And it will be interesting to see how the choice of venue influences the production. In fact, British actress Imogen Butler Cole, who plays Ophelia opposite Danish actor Jens Bo Jorgensen as Hamlet, says, “The mode of performance and the use of video elements are appropriate for the space, given that it’s an art gallery. The production seems more like an installation or performance art, rather than a regular play.”

When Shakespeare meets Steven Berkoff meets Rehaan Engineer, the outcome is bound to be interesting. Butler Cole and Jorgensen  trained in theatre in London. Butler Cole acted in numerous Shakespearean plays in England, did a series on Shakespeare’s heroines at Prithvi, and directed Much Ado About Nothing   this year. Jorgensen, who was here as a tourist when he was offered Hamlet, says, “I’m exploring what Hamlet was like on the inside. This is my journey, my Hamlet.”

The Secret Love Life of Ophelia, Project 88 gallery, BMP Building, N.A.Sawant Marg,  Colaba. June 29 - July 2, 8pm-9.30pm. Entry free; for registration 9820172798. dnasalon@gmail.com