When I was 22 I played Ophelia in an educational tour of Hamlet.  I was the biggest, loudest Ophelia ever.  I ate that doe-eyed Ophelia - the one with the wispy blond ringlets on the cover of your high school copy of Hamlet- for breakfast.  When this Ophelia went mad, she not only handed out flowers but grabbed Claudius and bawdily kissed the hell out of that traitor. 

But I couldn’t sing to save my life.  I still remember my Director’s note.  “You have three songs.  You think you could find a tune in one of them!” Of course this is the same man that use to sneak up behind me hitting me in the back of the legs with a wrapping paper tube because I habitually locked my knees.  The same man who in the middle of the Nunnery scene instructed Hamlet to shred his ‘love letters’ to me in such a malicious manner that to this day if you rip paper in front of my face, I will burst into tears. 

Hamlet and I did not get along. At all.  I thought he was a horrible scene partner.  And he thought that I was a big baby.  Looking back, he was a horrible scene partner.  And I was a big baby.

Our dress rehearsal was the day before Valentine’s day. I remember this because one song started off ‘Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s Day.’  That was also the day that I received from my college boyfriend, who I had left behind in FL, a five page letter written in a drunken rage that outlined every horrible thing I had ever done to him.  And because the passions of youth are inexplicable, said boy had also pre-ordered me flowers for Valentine’s Day &my opening. These flowers arrived the same day as the dress rehearsal.  Same day as the 5-page letter detailing all my flaws and sins. 

During that performance, I handed out those flowers in the madness scene.  And I truly went mad with hurt and rage as only a 22-year-old-overly-dramatic-baby can.  There was not a dry eye in the house when I was finished.  For the rest of the run, I couldn’t live up to that night.  My director would often note - Do you remember the dress rehearsal? Do the madness scene like that. I wanted to shout  “Don’t you understand, that would kill me!” 

It killed her didn’t it? Ophelia. Loving too much. Having too much taken away from her.  I still think of that song. That tune that I dutifully plunked out on the piano before every show, because to a 22-year-old-baby being off key was the end of the world. 

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day.
       All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
       To be your Valentine.

Then up he rose and donned his clothes
       And dupped the chamber door,
Let in the maid, that out a maid
       Never departed more.

Ophelia is now 30, and having been dupped a couple of times, this maid definitely never departed more. 

Ironically the other day, during my morning tradition of crying on the subway while listening to the Buffy&Angel theme song on my ipod shuffle, I look up to see Hamlet on the A train.   Turns out, we work quite close to each other.  We actually had a nice catch-up conversation.  Hamlet now works with troubled teens, as well as a homeless shelter.  And while I’m sure he still mispronounces Ducat, it seems he grew into good guy. 

However, that didn’t prevent me from pretending to be asleep this morning to avoid talking to him on the train.  Is being forced to ride the A train with Hamlet after all these years some sort of comic joke?  If Ophelia hadn’t descended into her watery grave would she have been doomed to commute to a mind numbing day job with Hamlet in the next seat? Pretending to be asleep, lest he of all people witness her current heartbroken tears.

Or does it speak to the cyclical and yet totally unpredictable nature of life? That things that were ‘the end of the world’ at 22, now are laughable?  That if Ophelia had made it to 30 maybe she would have recognized the strength and power in her madness.  I’m still leaning towards cosmic joke.   

But then I think about the boy who sent me that 5-page hate letter.  How he now also lives in the city, and through a minor mircle we became good friends.  And how in an even stranger twist of fate, his cousin just married my best friend.  So now I will never get rid of him.  But I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Who would have ever thought?

Ophelia’s tune still runs through my head and there are times when I envy her watery grave.  True my life is nothing like I thought it would be during those long ago days spent daydreaming in the back of a touring van, but I am beginning to accept life doesn’t always turn out like you thought.  And I am beginning to find my own madness. 

I still can’t carry a tune.  But why do mad girls need to sing on key anyway?