Mapping feminism in Shakespeare's Hamlet: 'I Hamlet'

Abstract

In this dissertation I have endeavoured through words and figures to 'map' my performance of Hamlet from a feminist perspective. Assuming that both the audience and the reader are familiar with Shakespeare's text, I have centred my project around an adaptation and performance of Hamlet called 'I, Hamlet'. 'I, Hamlet' is a perspective of the play, scripted for three actors, that focuses on the performance of gender and identity. The resultant map, this dissertation, is constructed out of several different 'mappings' that intersect and inform one another. These mappings include: 1. A critical and narrative mapping that is word-and image-based. 2. The performance text: 'I, Hamlet'. 3. A video documenting the performance 'I, Hamlet'. 4. A video journal mapping experiences of the 'I, Hamlet' tour across Europe. I am as central to this project as Hamlet is central to Hamlet. I have situated myself both inside and outside my discourse: inside, because I am embodying the text in performance; and outside, because I am analysing my process from a distance. My mappings therefore attempt to reflect this inside/outside, theory/practice, praxis. Although I observe a fairly traditional written layout and offer the work in sequential Chapters, I have adopted strategies of performative writing in order to "deterritorialize" this linear mode. To do this, I have ventured on a "line of flight," living 'in-between' texts as performer, narrator and critic.2 As an investigative work it is open to multiplicities of meaning: it seeks to be open-ended and generative, rather than closed and conclusive.