Hamlet is often considered Shakespeare’s greatest play. From 1601, it’s the story of a young Danish prince struggling with avenging his royal father’s murder by his uncle, who has married Queen Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother. The melancholic, conflicted prince is deemed mad by many around him, exemplified by his on-again, off-again relationship with sweet Ophelia, daughter of the king’s chief counselor. The tragedy, which ends with most characters dead, has been a theatrical staple for years, including for Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, which has staged it numerous times during its three-decade history. Last summer it toured an abridged version to an array of Greater Cincinnati parks.
Hamlet has been a catalyst for derivative works, including Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) and the recent Fat Ham by James Ijames, which Cincy Shakes produced in September. The company adds to that category with a newly commissioned work, Lauren Gunderson’s A Room in the Castle, getting its world premiere this month in a co-production with Washington, D.C.’s venerable Folger Shakespeare Library Theater. A prolific playwright, Gunderson is no stranger to Cincinnati theatergoers who have seen a half-dozen of her scripts. The Revolutionists premiered at the Cincinnati Playhouse back in 2016 and has been frequently produced elsewhere. Other local productions of Gunderson’s plays include Silent Sky, Ada and the Engine, and Toil and Trouble.
In 2020, Cincy Shakes planned to stage Gunderson’s The Book of Will. It was a pandemic victim, but it led to a conversation between her and the company’s artistic director, Brian Isaac Phillips. In a recent phone conversation with CityBeat, she recalled, “Brian and I had a great conversation about looking at Hamlet’s women characters, which is always my wont on whatever project I’m doing.”
Gunderson saw Ophelia as a remarkable character, but one that felt unfinished. She also saw the story’s “inherent violence in the pursuit of justice” as a feature that did not feel feminist, “not safe in this world to be around a character like Hamlet. … When you look at the story through the lens of Ophelia, who has no power, at all and from Gertrude, who, I think, is way smarter than we give her credit for … well, that’s what I wanted to explore in the play.”
Gunderson’s three-character play — including Queen Gertrude, Ophelia and Anna, Ophelia’s lady-in-waiting and confidante — is set in “a room in the castle,” surrounded by the swirling political intrigue of Shakespeare’s tragedy. “I started to write about Ophelia,” the playwright said, “and ended up discovering Gertrude and finding a woman of great power and savvy, who also needs to learn a lesson about taking care of the women around her. So it is a conversation about intergenerational sisterhood, a kind of wholesome humanity that has to fight for its life at a time of great moral question and great chaos in a nation.”
Gunderson concludes her version of the story with a surprisingly hopeful ending. She calls her new script “sort of a jubilant rebellion against the plot of Shakespeare. But that comes from a place of reverence for Shakespeare.” The tension between rebellion and reverence, she explained, “makes the play so sparkly, so funny, so feisty. It’s designed to be both a gut punch and a celebration.”
Gunderson’s script was refined via a new play development program at the Folger. Now it’s a co-production first onstage here in Cincinnati, then returning to the nation’s capital in February. It’s being staged by Kaja Dunn, a theater professor at Carnegie Mellon University who works frequently at the Folger. She served on a panel with Gunderson when the script was previewed there.
In an interview with CityBeat, Dunn described her attraction to the play. “It was about mentoring children, about women taking back their grace and their autonomy, about an older generation fostering a younger generation of women, helping them navigate the treacherous patriarchy. Those are all things that are deeply close to my heart.”
Dunn’s production features an actor from New York City, another from Washington, and Burgess Byrd, a veteran of Cincinnati stages. Dunn has assembled a creative time composed largely of women, many of whom are mothers. “It’s always my intent when I direct to sort of push people to think about diversity onstage, but rarely offstage.” This time, she says, “We have a really great team with several mothers, people who are excelling at their jobs, but not always seen.” That includes Cincy Shakes’ scenic designer Samantha Reno and costumer Rainy Edwards.
Dunn likes the script’s swift pace. “People think because it’s Hamlet it’s going to be a very serious show, but there’s actually a ton of fun. It’s funny, it’s quick. … Lauren has such a deep knowledge of Shakespeare, so she does it without thumbing her nose. It’s a deep respect. But I also felt a huge justification when I encountered this script. I thought, ‘Oh, that’s how it could be done.’”
Asked if her script is a tragedy or a comedy, Gunderson said her plays often have elements of both. A Room in the Castle starts with humor and a song by Ophelia but as darkness descends, it turns in a new direction. “Then there is a reckoning. Hope comes for every character in the play. Each one finds her own agency, her own reason to live, and frankly her own choice.” It’s a surprising take on a familiar tale.
A Room in the Castle, presented by Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, opens on Jan. 24 and continues through Feb. 9. More info: cincyshakes.com.
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This article appears in Jan 8-21, 2025.