The actress who plays Ophelia is a little person

In this National Theatre version of Hamlet, the character of Ophelia is played by Francesca Mills, who has a form of dwarfism known as achondroplasia.

Personally, I’m aware of how common it is for people to patronise and infantilise adults with dwarfism, simply for having different bodies. So, every time another character says or does something that implies that she is a child, it makes me deeply uncomfortable. Watching this performance of Hamlet, I found that I was uncomfortable way more than expected, which made me starkly aware of how much Ophelia is belittled throughout the play.

Sometimes, it was the creative decisions that the National Theatre made, such as when someone picks up Ophelia like she’s a child. But most of the time, it came from her discussion with Polonius when Laertes is leaving home. It made me aware of how both her brother and her father treat her like a child who is being manipulated by Hamlet.

Mills’s acting choices heighten this massively. She plays Ophelia so differently from the versions I’ve seen in other performances and adaptations – especially Kenneth Branagh’s 1996 film. In this National Theatre version, Ophelia is a witty, sharp party animal, which creates an interesting contrast with Abeysekara’s quieter, more sensitive and misanthropic Hamlet. She talks with confidence and her tone is often dripping with innuendo.

There’s a really interesting part where she’s rushing off to a party with her friends that make it seem like she’s a lot more aware of sex than Polonius gives her credit for. Her friend mimes lassoing her and she plays along provocatively. So when Polonius treats her like she’s naive, it makes me wonder, ‘Are you sure you’re talking about the Ophelia in front of you?’

In the 1996 Kenneth Branagh film adaptation, Ophelia seems sensitive and innocent. Francesca Mills seems more like your average 21st-century university student. So when people act like she’d be a victim in a relationship with Hamlet, it makes you really wonder. Do they treat her like this because she’s a woman? Because she’s a little person? Maybe both? That forces you to confront and really focus on the contrast between how Polonius talks about his son Laertes (actively wanting to encourage rumours of his sexual promiscuity) versus his daughter.

Combine that with what I said earlier about how the power imbalance between Claudius and Hamlet is more obvious in this version because of the casting choices. After all, Ophelia is a white woman who is marginalised for her gender and her disability, but this Hamlet is also marginalised for his race in ways others aren’t. This Hamlet seems sensitive and his emasculation at the hands of Claudius is more obvious.

That makes the power dynamics between Ophelia and Hamlet more complicated, thanks to intersectionality. In most other versions of Hamlet that I’ve seen so far, there is no racial aspect of the play. So, you have an educated white man possibly manipulating a more demure, innocent white woman. In this version, there are so many more intersectional aspects to take into account.

Not only is Abeysekara’s Hamlet a South Asian man, but he’s also one of the few people of colour in the court and he’s constantly being emasculated, controlled and surveilled by the people around him. His power is extremely low. By contrast, Ophelia is much more confident in the court. She is clearly popular, likeable and well-connected. People don’t regard her with the same level of suspicion as they regard him. And her madness is seen as a tragedy while his possible madness is seen as an inconvenience or a threat.

And then there’s the added aspect of how people with physical disabilities and impairments are treated in Shakespeare’s work, as well as in theatre more broadly. I think Richard III is a useful example of this, where Queen Margaret describes the titular King Richard III as a ‘poisonous bunch-backed toad’.

Often, texts will draw on physiognomy by using a character’s outward appearance to communicate their personality and characteristics. It often leads to people with physical disabilities and impairments associated with negative behaviour and often evil.

In this performance of Hamlet, though, Ophelia being a little person is not in any way associated with evil or any other negative traits. In fact, I would argue that Ophelia doesn’t really display any negative traits at all! She’s bubbly, funny and confident, and her interactions with her father and her brother early on garner laughter from the audience. And these likeable qualities are endearing in their own right. She has funny banter with the other couriers and battles with her brother to finish her father’s platitudes. This makes her endearing in her own right – in a way that is not associated with her dwarfism.

So when people belittle and underestimate her, it’s even more uncomfortable for the audience due to the fact that she’s already gained the audience’s endearment on her own terms. The audience knows that she’s not naive and childlike; they know that she is an independent, funny and witty woman who has a clear understanding of the world around her – more so than her brother, Laertes, who is allowed to go to Paris on his own.

That draws even more attention to how differently she is treated compared to the other characters. It really makes you wonder, ‘Would this Ophelia really be so easily manipulated by this Hamlet? Do people simply underestimate her because she’s a little person and a woman?’

Therefore, this casting decision brings up themes of appearance vs reality as well as mistreatment, hypocrisy and marginalisation. We’re challenged to think about what makes everyone treat Ophelia so differently to someone like Hamlet, as well as the true cause of what leads to her eventual madness.