Leaving Helsinor

Play #22 of '28Plays28Days' is in on time. Three hours ahead of the deadline. I love this writing challenge, simply love it. And - much to my amazement - I'm hanging in there and have twenty-two short plays to show for it. 

Today's challenge was presented in these terms:

Fan fiction is all the rage now...

Oh, boy!

So write something about your favourite characters doing something else. Or use their world to create new characters... Or something like that. (I'm not 100% sure I understand what fan fiction is... Would Rosencrantz and Guildenstern count?) Anyway, I trust you all to know better than me!

Who knows?! Maybe the next 50 Shades will come out of this challenge! (that was fan fiction, wasn't it?!)

Bonus points if you write your fan fiction on something theatrical, so no Harry Potter, please!

Ophelia
by John William Waterhouse, 1894

So I chose William Shakespeare's Hamlet as my starting point; giving it a near-contemporary setting: 1978 (which is contemporary for an old fart like me).

We reach Act III, Scene 2 - the play within a play part - and Hamlet is being a sexist boor with Ophelia. Rather than just sitting there deflecting the Prince, Ophelia tells Hamlet she's tired of his  incessant whining, like some kind of pseudo-adolescent brat (the Bard's original text tells us, after all, he's at least 30). Ophelia has had enough. She leaves Denmark to live as a single mum in a squat in Vauxhall, finding solace and inspiration in the inestimable musical talents of Gloria Gaynor. Some time later, when young Ham is about three, Ophelia is arrested for blocking the entrance to the Cruise missile base at Greenham Common alongside 30,000 other women peace campaigners.








Works for me.

Did I say? I love this writing challenge. Thank you East London's The Space.