For every person who adores Shakespeare, there are probably a dozen more who wonder why.

We get it; his writings, composed in a past when the predominant worldview was built around beliefs and ideologies that now feel as antiquated as the blend of poetry and prose in which he wrote them, can easily feel tied to social mores that are in direct opposition to our own, often reflecting the classist, sexist, and racist patriarchal dogma that continues to plague our world today. Why, then, should we still be so enthralled with him?

The answer to that question might be more eloquently expressed by Chloe Zhao’s “Hamnet” – now in wide release and already a winner in this year’s barely begun awards season – than through any explanation we could offer.

Adapted from the novel by Maggie O’Farrell (who co-wrote the screenplay with Zhao), it focuses its narrative on the relationship between Will Shakespeare (Paul Mescal) and his wife Agnes Hathaway (Jessie Buckley), who meet when the future playwright – working to pay off a debt for his abusive father – is still just a tutor helping the children of well-to-do families learn Latin. Enamored from afar at first sight, he woos his way into her life, and, convincing both of their families to approve the match (after she becomes pregnant with their first child), becomes her husband. More children follow – including Hamnet (Jacobi Jupe), a “surprise” twin boy to their second daughter – but, recognizing Will’s passion for writing and his frustration at being unable to follow it, Agnes encourages him to travel to London in order to immerse himself in his ambitions.

As the years go by, Agnes – aided by her mother-in-law (Emily Watson) and guided by the nature-centric pagan wisdom of her own deceased mother – raises the children while her husband, miles away, builds a successful career as the city’s most popular playwright. But when an outbreak of bubonic plague results in the death of 11-year-old Hamnet in Will’s absence, an emotional wedge is driven between them – especially when Agnes receives word that her husband’s latest play, titled “Hamlet,” considered an interchangeable equivalent to the name of their dead son, is about to debut on the London stage.

There is nothing, save the bare details of circumstance around the Shakespeare family, that can be called factual about the narrative told in “Hamnet.” Records of Shakespeare’s private life are sparse and short on context, largely limited to civic notations of fact – birth, marriage, and death announcements, legal documents, and other general records – that leave plenty of blank spaces in which to speculate about the personal nuance that such mundane details might imply. What is known is that the Shakespeares lost their son, probably to the plague, and that “Hamlet” – a play dominated by expressions of grief and existential musings about life and death – was written over the course of the next five years. Shakespearean scholars have filled in the blanks, and it’s hard to argue with their assumptions about the influence young Hamnet’s tragic death likely had over the creation of his father’s masterwork. What human being would not be haunted by such an event, and how could it not impact every aspect of their experience in the world forever after?

In their screenplay, O’Farrell and Zhao imagine an Agnes Shakespeare (most records refer to her as “Anne” but her father’s will uses the name “Agnes”) who stands apart from the conventions of her town, born of a “wild woman” in the woods and raised in ancient traditions of mysticism and nature magic before being adopted into her well-off family, who presents a worthy match and an intellectual equal for the brilliantly passionate creator responsible for some of Western Civilization’s most iconic tales. They imagine a courtship that would have defied the customs of the time and a relationship that feels almost modern, grounded in a love and mutual respect that’s a far cry from most popular notions of what a 16th-century marriage might look like. More than that, they imagine that the devastating loss of a child – even in a time when the mortality rate for children was high – might create a rift between two parents who can only process their grief alone. And despite the fact that almost none of what they present to us can be seen, at best, as anything other than informed speculation, it all feels devastatingly true.

That’s the quality that “Hamnet” shares with the ever-popular Will Shakespeare; though it takes us into a past that feels almost as alien to us as if it took place upon a different planet, it evokes a connection to the simple experience of being human, which cuts through the differences in context. Just as the kings, heroes, and fools of Shakespeare’s plays express and embody the same emotional experiences that shape our own mundane modern lives, the film’s portrayal of these two real-life people torn apart by personal tragedy speaks directly to our own shared sense of loss – and it does so with an eloquence that, like Shakespeare’s, emerges from the story to make it feel as palpable as if their grief was our own.

Yes, the writing and direction – each bringing a powerfully feminine “voice” to the story – are key to the emotional impact of “Hamnet,” but it’s the performances of its stars that carry it to us. Mescal, once more proving himself a master at embodying the kind of heartfelt, masculine tenderness that’s capable of melting our hearts, gives us an accessible Shakespeare, driven perhaps by a spark of genius yet deeply grounded in a tangible humanity that underscores the “everyman” sensibility that informs the man’s plays. But it’s Buckley’s movie, by a wide margin, and her bold, fierce, and deeply affecting performance gives voice to a powerful grief, a cry against the injustice and cruelty of what we fumblingly call “fate” that resonates deep within us and carries our own grief, over losses we’ve had and losses we know are yet to come, along with her on the journey to catharsis.

That’s the word – “catharsis” – that defines why Shakespeare (and by extension, “Hamnet”) still holds such power over the imagination of our human race all these centuries later. The circumstantial details of his stories, wrapped up in ancient ideologies that still haunt our cultural imagination, fall away in the face of the raw expression of humanity to which his characters give voice. When Hamlet asks “to be or not to be?,” he is not an old-world Danish Prince contemplating revenge against a traitor who murdered his father; he is Shakespeare himself, pondering the essential mystery of life and death, and he is us, too.

Likewise, the Agnes Shakespeare of “Hamnet” (masterfully enacted by Buckley) embodies all our own sorrows – past and future, real and imagined – and connects them to the well of human emotion from which we all must drink; it’s more powerful than we expect, and more cleansing than we imagine, and it makes Zhao’s exquisitely devastating movie into a touchstone for the ages.

We can’t presume to speak for Shakespeare, but we are pretty sure he would be pleased.

Friday, January 9

Women in Their Twenties and Thirties will be at 8 p.m. on Zoom. This is a social discussion group for queer women in the Washington, D.C. area. For more details, visit Facebook. 

“Backbone Comedy” will be at 8 p.m. at As You Are. Backbone Comedy is a queer-run fundraiser comedy show at As You Are Bar DC, where comics stand up for a cause. Each show, a percentage of proceeds go to a local organization – Free Minds DC, a reentry organization for individuals impacted by incarceration. Tickets cost $19.98 and are available on Eventbrite.

Saturday, January 10

Go Gay DC will host “LGBTQ+ Community Brunch” at 11 a.m. at Freddie’s Beach Bar & Restaurant. This fun weekly event brings the DMV area LGBTQ+ community, including allies, together for delicious food and conversation.  Attendance is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.

Monday, January 12

“Center Aging: Monday Coffee Klatch” will be at 10 a.m. on Zoom. This is a social hour for older LGBTQ+ adults. Guests are encouraged to bring a beverage of choice. For more information, contact Adam ([email protected]).

Genderqueer DC will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a support group for people who identify outside of the gender binary, whether you’re bigender, agender, genderfluid, or just know that you’re not 100% cis. For more details, visit genderqueerdc.org or Facebook.

Tuesday, January 13

Coming Out Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This is a safe space to share experiences about coming out and discuss topics as it relates to doing so — by sharing struggles and victories the group allows those newly coming out and who have been out for a while to learn from others. For more details, visit the group’s Facebook. 

Trans Discussion Group will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This group is intended to provide an emotionally and physically safe space for trans people and those who may be questioning their gender identity/expression to join together in community and learn from one another. For more details, email [email protected]. 

Wednesday, January 14

Job Club will be at 6 p.m. on Zoom upon request. This is a weekly job support program to help job entrants and seekers, including the long-term unemployed, improve self-confidence, motivation, resilience and productivity for effective job searches and networking — allowing participants to move away from being merely “applicants” toward being “candidates.” For more information, email [email protected] or visit thedccenter.org/careers.

The DC Center for the LGBT Community will partner with House of Ruth to host “Art & Conversation” at 3 p.m. at 1827 Wiltberger St., N.W. This free workshop will involve two hours of art making, conversation, and community. Guests will explore elements of healthy relationships with a community-centered art activity.  This workshop involves paint, so please dress accordingly. All materials will be provided. For more details, email [email protected]. 

Thursday, January 15

The DC Center’s Fresh Produce Program will be held all day at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. People will be informed on Wednesday at 5 p.m. if they are picked to receive a produce box. No proof of residency or income is required. For more information, email [email protected] or call 202-682-2245. 

Virtual Yoga Class will be at 7 p.m. on Zoom. This free weekly class is a combination of yoga, breathwork and meditation that allows LGBTQ+ community members to continue their healing journey with somatic and mindfulness practices. For more details, visit the DC Center’s website.  

The 83rd annual Golden Globes awards are set for Sunday (CBS, 8 p.m. EST). One of the many bright spots this awards season is “Hedda,” a unique LGBTQ version of the classic Henrik Ibsen story, “Hedda Gabler,” starring powerhouses Nina Hoss, Tessa Thompson and Imogen Poots. A modern reinterpretation of a timeless story, the film and its cast have already received several nominations this awards season, including a Globes nod for Best Actress for Thompson.

Writer/director Nia DaCosta was fascinated by Ibsen’s play and the enigmatic character of the deeply complex Hedda, who in the original, is stuck in a marriage she doesn’t want, and still is drawn to her former lover, Eilert. 

But in DaCosta’s adaptation, there’s a fundamental difference: Eilert is being played by Hoss, and is now named Eileen.

“That name change adds this element of queerness to the story as well,” said DaCosta at a recent Golden Globes press event. “And although some people read the original play as Hedda being queer, which I find interesting, which I didn’t necessarily…it was a side effect in my movie that everyone was queer once I changed Eilert to a woman.”

She added: “But it still, for me, stayed true to the original because I was staying true to all the themes and the feelings and the sort of muckiness that I love so much about the original work.”

Thompson, who is bisexual, enjoyed playing this new version of Hedda, noting that the queer love storyline gave the film “a whole lot of knockoff effects.”

“But I think more than that, I think fundamentally something that it does is give Hedda a real foil. Another woman who’s in the world who’s making very different choices. And I think this is a film that wants to explore that piece more than Ibsen’s.”

DaCosta making it a queer story “made that kind of jump off the page and get under my skin in a way that felt really immediate,” Thompson acknowledged.

“It wants to explore sort of pathways to personhood and gaining sort of agency over one’s life. In the original piece, you have Hedda saying, ‘for once, I want to be in control of a man’s destiny,’” said Thompson.

“And I think in our piece, you see a woman struggling with trying to be in control of her own. And I thought that sort of mind, what is in the original material, but made it just, for me, make sense as a modern woman now.” 

It is because of Hedda’s jealousy and envy of Eileen and her new girlfriend (Poots) that we see the character make impulsive moves.

“I think to a modern sensibility, the idea of a woman being quite jealous of another woman and acting out on that is really something that there’s not a lot of patience or grace for that in the world that we live in now,” said Thompson.

“Which I appreciate. But I do think there is something really generative. What I discovered with playing Hedda is, if it’s not left unchecked, there’s something very generative about feelings like envy and jealousy, because they point us in the direction of self. They help us understand the kind of lives that we want to live.”

Hoss actually played Hedda on stage in Berlin for several years previously.

“When I read the script, I was so surprised and mesmerized by what this decision did that there’s an Eileen instead of an Ejlert Lovborg,” said Hoss. “I was so drawn to this woman immediately.”

The deep love that is still there between Hedda and Eileen was immediately evident, as soon as the characters meet onscreen.

“If she is able to have this emotion with Eileen’s eyes, I think she isn’t yet because she doesn’t want to be vulnerable,” said Hoss. “So she doesn’t allow herself to feel that because then she could get hurt. And that’s something Eileen never got through to. So that’s the deep sadness within Eileen that she couldn’t make her feel the love, but at least these two when they meet, you feel like, ‘Oh my God, it’s not yet done with those two.’’’

Onscreen and offscreen, Thompson and Hoss loved working with each other.

“She did such great, strong choices…I looked at her transforming, which was somewhat mesmerizing, and she was really dangerous,” Hoss enthused. “It’s like when she was Hedda, I was a little bit like, but on the other hand, of course, fascinated. And that’s the thing that these humans have that are slightly dangerous. They’re also very fascinating.”

Hoss said that’s what drew Eileen to Hedda.  

“I think both women want to change each other, but actually how they are is what attracts them to each other. And they’re very complimentary in that sense. So they would make up a great couple, I would believe. But the way they are right now, they’re just not good for each other. So in a way, that’s what we were talking about. I think we thought, ‘well, the background story must have been something like a chaotic, wonderful, just exploring for the first time, being in love, being out of society, doing something slightly dangerous, hidden, and then not so hidden because they would enter the Bohemian world where it was kind of okay to be queer and to celebrate yourself and to explore it.’”

But up to a certain point, because Eileen started working and was really after, ‘This is what I want to do. I want to publish, I want to become someone in the academic world,’” noted Hoss.

Poots has had her hands full playing Eileen’s love interest as she also starred in the complicated drama, “The Chronology of Water” (based on the memoir by Lydia Yuknavitch and directed by queer actress Kristen Stewart).

“Because the character in ‘Hedda’ is the only person in that triptych of women who’s acting on her impulses, despite the fact she’s incredibly, seemingly fragile, she’s the only one who has the ability to move through cowardice,” Poots acknowledged. “And that’s an interesting thing.”