VILLEINS dish out “Sliced Hamlet” for UVA OLLI in 2024
Thanks to a kind referral made by Live Arts Artistic Director Susan E. Evans, the Queen Charlotte’s Villeins were invited to participate in the University of Virginia’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) class entitled “Interpreting and Participating in Shakespeare’s Plays,” moderated by Dr. Henry McHenry, Jr.
Over the course of four classes, Villeins Jackson Davis, Ben Atkinson, Laura Heck, John Rabasa, Benedict Burgess, Franny Rabasa, Ben Lohr, and Jane McDonald presented scenes and analyses of Hamlet for the class attendees, supplementing Dr. McHenry’s presentations.
We encouraged the class to look at the plays as theatre first, rather than as much-pored-over literature; emphasizing an interpretation that begins and ends with the experience a live audience might have when experiencing the story for the first time. We mined the text for clues to that experience which, when assembled, present a vibrant, vital glimpse into what we believe must have been the original intent.
In other words, we did what we Villeins do.
Dr. McHenry had chosen to focus on HAMLET for this particular series of sessions, and it just so happened that not only had the Villeins spent a year studying the play during the pandemic, we were already preparing for a full production in 2025.
Several weeks prior to the classes, Dr. McHenry joined our weekly workshop and, we are proud to say, he seemed truly taken aback by the work we were doing, the approach we take, and the insights we were unearthing (some of which he had never considered before, but which he found he agreed with, entirely).
He continued to return to the weekly workshops as often as he could.
Meanwhile, Arch Villein Ben developed a four-phase syllabus that presented and analyzed Hamlet’s changing relationship to death throughout the play, while also analyzing the arcs of both Ophelia and Gertrude, in detail, as they both parallel and impact the protagonist’s evolution.
Of one of these interpretations, involving Gertrude’s final act of sacrifice (and we see it very much as a conscious act on her part), Dr. McHenry said, “As far as I know, we are the only people to have identified” that particular moment’s meaning in that, now seemingly obvious, way. Whether that’s true or not is a question for the scholars, but we made a solid case for it.
If you’re interested in what that, or any other of our interpretations, might be, we invite you to come see our HAMLET, beginning in May 2025, or join us the next time we hold our “Sliced Hamlet” workshop (which we intend to do on our own again soon).
Meanwhile, we’re proud to say that Dr. McHenry has invited the Villeins to return for his workshop in the Spring 2025, where we expect to tackle elements of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING and THE TEMPEST.
