Shakespeare's Virgin Mary Allegories
“This work opens new and breathtaking
performance avenues for professional companies and a multitude of possibilities
for researchers” (Professor Kelly Morgan, Chair, American College
Theater Festival)
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photo by Jonathan Slaf |
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The Dark Lady Players continued our re-thinking and re-inventing of Shakespeare’s plays in 2009—with Othello, Romeo & Juliet, and Hamlet . Once more we identified ‘unthinkable’ innovative solutions that others had missed. We took the academic research that had shown these plays contain allegories of the Virgin Mary, and demonstrated that they are comic parodies, as described in ‘Shakespeare’s Virgin Mary Spoofs.’
We worked out how to perform them—by over-turning traditional dramaturgy and assumptions. The photograph illustrates how the nunnery and sewing scenes from Hamlet, together with the references to maggots in a dead dog, imply that Ophelia gets pregnant as the Virgin Mary got pregnant by the Holy Ghost. For more information read The Virgin Mary Parodies and Shakespeare’s Virgin Marys or watch slides of the show.
This show is designed to stimulate new insights into Shakespeare and to help teams rethink existing assumptions. To arrange a performance for your organization or community contact us at darkladyplayers@aol.com.
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