Bernhardt/ Hamlet – A WTF! Play Reading

By Theresa Rebeck

Directed by Heather O’Carroll with Lara Macgregor as Sarah Bernhardt

In 1899 Sarah Bernhardt decides she will play Hamlet – not the first time she has sought gender equality.

Louis: Someone needs to talk her out of it. She’s a great actress, but Hamlet? It’s grotesque.

If Shakespeare meant for Hamlet to be a woman, he would have named the play “Hamlet Princess of Denmark”. That’s not what he wrote... men playing women, that’s all right. Women playing men. It doesn’t work... it’s a disgusting idea and you know it.

CAST:

Sarah Bernhardt – Lara Macgregor

Edmond – Simon Leary

Alphonse – Alex Greig

Lysette/ Rosamund – Neenah Dekkers-Reihana

Maurice / Francois / Worker – Paul Waggott

Louis / Raoul – Ralph McCubbin Howell

Constant – Nathaniel Lees