When Hamlet puts on an “antic disposition,” pretending to be mad, Ophelia is the first person to deliver that news to Claudius and Polonius. In Murdock’s mind, Ophelia is more accomplice than ex. But that wasn’t what he encountered in productions he saw. One puzzle stood out to Murdock as he first read Hamlet: What’s up with Hamlet and Ophelia? Why does he treat her this way? Why is he in love with a woman who, on the page, seems weak and passive? For Murdock, the play didn’t make any sense unless Ophelia was Hamlet’s equal. Quinn Mattfeld (Hamlet) and Emma Geer (Ophelia) in “Hamlet” at the Utah Shakespeare Festival. It’s also made me dive into the play with a new perspective… It’s been very collaborative.”
For Vaughn, connecting Murdock’s insights into the play with the requirements of staging a production has been one of the process’s joys. Murdock would end up joining the production as Artistic Collaborator, accompanying Vaughn in auditions in New York and London and in some of the play’s rehearsals. He has some thoughts on it and would love to share them.’ We met and we started diving into these ideas in the play.” Utah Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Brian Vaughn remembers, “Ken Adelman called me and said, ‘Hey, I know this guy who is a lover of Shakespeare, and especially Hamlet. Being a venture capitalist requires, among other things, intuition and an eye for patterns, two qualities Murdock brings to bear when he reads Shakespeare. He’s a founding partner of Insight Venture Partners, and was an early investor in Twitter, Snapchat, and other big tech companies. But Murdock is in the tech scene, not the theater world. Murdock asked, “Do you know anything about Hamlet?”Įver since Murdock first read Hamlet at 19, he had been developing a theory of how to answer the play’s many questions and how it should be staged. That neighbor turned out to be Kenneth Adelman, the diplomat, writer, Shakespeare scholar, and Utah Shakespeare Festival board member. It all started when Jerry Murdock went to talk with his neighbor about a hedge between their properties.
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