I have mentioned it before, but the craziest Shakespeare production I have ever seen was a production of HAMLET by the Seattle Rep in the early 70's. The title character was played by an young Christopher Walkin in a gold lame jumpsuit. In my memory, Hamlet made his first entrance of a real motorcycle; although a fellow actor who claimed to have worked on the show denies that. The production was most famous for the scene with a totally nude Ophelia, who basically sleep-walked her way along the top of the scaffolding that made up the set. Once word of the nudity got out, the theater was packed to the rafters at every single performance.
There is a story that I have heard on a number of occasions over the years (but cannot verify) that the actress playing Ophelia began rubbing down her body before the nude scene with baby oil. Since she liked the glistening effect so much, she began using more and more of the oil at each performance. One night, she supposedly used so much oil that she slipped and fell down the stage left staircase, and landed spread-eagle at the front of the stage.
