About two months ago I reviewed Lynne Rafter’s excellent reworking of Hamlet, featuring herself in the leading role – Hamlette. It remains among the top five most viewed posts on this blog.
Apparently Toronto Life saw it as well. Let’s compare the bolded sections my review:
Lynne Rafter thoroughly re-imagines the play but keeps it faithful to the original – Claudius becomes a soulless businessman in a three-piece suit, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern a pair of venal and lecherous punks, and Ophelia – brilliantly – a weedy hipster boy called Aphelio. And, instead of having the play-within-a-play, a different local band plays every week.
with their blurb on the production:
6. HAMLETTE THE DAME
This retelling of the Bard’s longest play shakes things up a little. For one thing, the main character is now a girl, Hamlette, played by Lynne Rafter. The play is billed as a punk rock tragedy in which Claudius is a slick businessman, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are sexed-up punks and Ophelia is a hipster boy named Aphelio. And forget Shakespeare’s original play-within-a-play. Hamlette features a rotating schedule of local bands to catch the conscience of the king.
That is sheer word-substitution plagiarism! Awesome!
Scintillator 