The Soundscape of Ophelias Zimmer / Ophelia’s Room

• Main Author: Maria Elisa Montironi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: LED - Edizioni Universitarie di Lettere Economia Diritto 2020-07-01
• Series: Linguae &. Rivista di Lingue e Culture Moderne
• Subjects: ophelia; shakespeare; feminist criticism; hamlet’s afterlife; reception; soundscape; noise; silence; sound; theatre.
• Online Access: https://www.ledonline.it/index.php/linguae/article/view/1918

Ophelias Zimmer / Ophelia’s Room is a feminist spin-off of Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It retells the famous story of the Prince of Denmark from Ophelia’s perspective and questions issues about the plot that are taken for granted – first and foremost, the reasons that led to the girl’s death. As it will be shown in this paper, the play tells the story of Hamlet not only from Ophelia’s viewpoint, but also from her ‘earpoint’ and thus defies ocularcentric theatre semiosis and builds a soundscape capable of denouncing the patriarchy even more effectively than both visual and linguistic elements. In this paper, Ophelias Zimmer / Ophelia’s Room will be analysed using emerging theories on ‘theatre noise’ to demonstrate the dramatic and semiotic value of the play’s silences, sounds, noises, embodied sounds, and musicality.