Ophelia is a comedy about a hot male movie star who gets cast as Ophelia in an all-male production of Hamlet on Broadway but unfortunately, he knows as much about women as he does about acting. Ophelia is part love letter to the entertainment industry and part vicious indictment of traditional gender roles.
The cast is adorable and 
create some genuinely good energy together despite some awkward moments and bits of stiffness. Highlights include a confident and ferocious Vanilla Latte played by Marc Andrew Nuñez, as was the hilarious linguist Alessio Franko who played Sir David, Polonius and Claudius and Frankie Sullivan played by Ohio-born Clay Von Carlowitz who are both worth the price of admission. Nearing the end the play there’s a clever scene where the stage manager and director talk over the actors on stage was really risky move and it paid off for them. Damn funny.
The music was consistently too loud and overpowered the scenes but not nearly as loud as the audience member who we christened ”drunk girl who thinks no one can tell she’s doing drugs”. She was upstaging the actors and using the room to showcase her latent homophobia by shouting ‘work that shit bitch!” to Vanilla Latte at semi-random intervals. Like a fag hag without her fag ‘drunk girl who thinks no one can tell she’s doing drugs’ had no one to tell her that she was being a cracker-boob so she just kept cat-calling and doing everything she could to draw the attention onto her. Go see Ophelia, it’s an entertaining script with engaging stage direction so you’re guaranteed a good time, just ask ‘drunk girl who thinks no one can tell she’s doing drugs’. Overall Ophelia is saucy, smart, funny and explores some complex gender issues in a lighthearted but meaningful way and just like a Swarovski crystal which is not quite a diamond but it sure glitters like it.
Ophelia
The Tank @ Standard Toykraft
Brooklyn, NY Standard ToyKraft Gotham Dance Theatre
December 14-17 at 8pm
Tickets: $15 online/$18 at the door
Written and originally Directed by Mitchell Van Landingham (June 2015) and re-staged by Marc Andrew Nunez with Malia Abayon, Tyler Crozier, Andrea Edgerson, Marc Andrew Nuñez, Justin M. Schlabach, Kevin Tydlaska, Clay von Carlowitz, Stefin Woolever.