The Representations of Gertrude in Two Contemporary Adaptations of Hamlet

Abstract

The elusive character of Gertrude in Hamlet has raised a range of conflicting issues among theatre critics and performers, and has been continuously interpreted as either ‘a whore’ guilty of incestuous sin or a nurturing, caring mother and wife. Although the contemporary representations of Gertrude have relied on the ‘avowal or disavowal of oedipal subtext,’ they have not swerved from this dominant good/evil dichotomy. Distinguished from other revisionist re-writings of Hamlet over the last couple of decades, Margaret Clarke's Gertrude and Ophelia (1987) and Howard Barker's Gertrude-The Cry (2002) break away from the stereotypical representations of Gertrude. Above all, in these adaptations, Gertrude is treated as a complex and coherent ‘central’ character while Hamlet is eliminated or reduced to a petty moralist. Clarke transforms Hamlet into the tragedy of Ophelia, describing Gertrude as an astute, even unscrupulous political manipulator, who struggles with the patriarchal social structures. Barker's Gertrude is reinterpreted as a symbol of transgressive female desire, which is embodied in her ‘cry’ from sexual fulfillment. These adaptations attempt to write back to Shakespeare's Gertrude, re-positioning her as an ideological product of male fantasies. However, their main concerns move beyond a simple revision or modernization of the canonical text. They are established as highly original works in their own rights, as Clarke and Barker use the canon as a springboard for investigating a series of critical contradictions embedded in contemporary theatre and society. The meta-theatrical frame in Gertrude and Ophelia engages with the politics of staging as well as a critical dilemma of the repression of women by women in recent feminist thinking. Focusing on the erotic nature of Gertrude's relationship with Claudius, Gertrude-The Cry explores the relationship between individual morality and eroticism. Upending Shakespeare's humanistic tragedy, Barker suggests his ‘theatre of Catastrophe’ as a remedy for the ‘age of social hygiene’ devoid of genuine tragic experience.