Are We Traumatizing People?

HowlRound Theatre Commons: Just yesterday, as part of my seminar here at the Shakespeare Association of America conference, I gave a paper on staging sexual assault in Hamlet’s nunnery scene. About how in recent productions there’s a tendency to stage this performance of madness as gendered violence. My paper stemmed out of my own disappointment, my own frustration. Because, despite myself, I really like Hamlet. And I go to productions of Hamlet sometimes. I’ll be in the audience and it’ll come up to the nunnery scene, and I’ll think to myself, Okay hopefully they won’t do it this time.