Co-Op High School Presents “Capillary Waves”

April 12, 2018

Some high schools put on an abridged version of Romeo and Juliet. Cooperative Arts High School is staging an immersive, site-specific, feminist rewrite of Hamlet. Written by a drama teacher, Capillary Waves shoves Hamlet out of the spotlight and instead centers the story on Ophelia. In Shakespeare’s version, she’s the jilted lover who commits suicide. In Co-Op’s version, she’s the heroine who talks back to men, rescues Hamlet from his uncle’s plots and is ultimately murdered trying to save him. In its world premiere, Capillary Waves weaves throughout the downtown magnet school, turning locker-lined hallways into a castle’s chambers, an auditorium into a vast lake, a cafeteria into a pub, and a basketball court into purgatory — all leading up to a big reveal at the finale.

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