Ophelia

ACT 1, SCENE 1 Opening night of a new West End Production called ‘Shakespeare: Ode to a Character’ Curtain rises Enter BENEDICK (in full costume as Ophelia from Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’) BENEDICK: ‘An Ode to Ophelia’ I have a heart, Which is bound in its own chains, Arteries crystallised in bleak light. I want to love, I want to be loved in return – More than anything, I feel. Walking alone, The ache of an empty life can crash in, Breaking your tongue, Cracking like frozen words. All I want, Is to hear once the songs you sing, To think you could love me, Or even know who I am. I would wrap my hands In feathered garlands, Flowered rings That may decay with my dying heart. But, oh god, I know, How you drowned in your elemental beauty, How you collapsed beneath the patriarch. In your sunken deathbed, Hair betrothed without such wedded bliss, Voice silenced in unspoken vows, You shone like an icon and deity. Goddess, Diana, One soliloquy, one heartbreak, one funeral. Lunar. But how dare I, Ophelia, Ever compare myself to you. (Exit)