>>PREVIEW
GOODNIGHT DESDEMONA (GOOD MORNING JULIET)
Broad Minds Productions and
The Shakespeare Company
Written by Ann-Marie MacDonald
Directed by Iam Coulter
Runs until December 17
Pumphouse Theatres
For the hapless females of Othello and Romeo and Juliet, a few errors and deceptions ultimately prove fatal, turning what would otherwise be comedies into tragedies. In Shakespearean tragedy, when mistakes are made, it’s all over but the dying.
But in the hands of playwright and novelist Ann-Marie MacDonald, these dark tales are transformed with postmodern relish into the lighthearted Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), a comedy that asks what might have happened had calmer heads prevailed. It’s a question that Calgary’s Broad Minds Productions and The Shakespeare Company are set to answer with their co-produced revival of the popular Canadian play.
In terms of Shakespearean parody, MacDonald "absolutely nails it," says The Shakespeare Company’s artistic director, Iam Coulter. "Even from the point of the character names – Constance Leadbelly is a mousy professor and her supervisor, Prof. Knight, is her unrequited knight in shining armour – there are a lot of plays on words, puns and beautiful poetry." In fact, MacDonald’s play is largely written in the familiar iambic pentameter of the Bard.
Helming the co-production, Coulter sees it as a natural fit between The Shakespeare Company and Broad Minds, the latter devoted to producing theatre featuring female actors and addressing women’s issues. Goodnight Desdemona delivers a strong message of self-realization, as its initially timid protagonist finds her strength by asserting sense in often-ridiculous worlds. And Coulter is using her position as TSC’s artistic director to offer some substantial Shakespearean roles to female actors. She’s even played one or two herself.
"In my first year (with the company), I played Cassius in Julius Caesar," she says. "It was a perfect fit and a remarkable opportunity to play a part that wouldn’t traditionally be available to me."
MacDonald’s play, meanwhile, has fun with the Elizabethan practice of men playing women, taking a playful jab at theatre’s cornerstone – the suspension of disbelief. Coulter says that’s one aspect she’s been taking full advantage of in this show.
"In the 1600s, the audiences were more than happy to accept young men as beautiful women and heroines," she says. And MacDonald’s play asks for the same kind of indulgence. The playwright uses time and space travel to create a fantastic world where Shakespearean fiction and modern life can collide. "It’s a cue to the audience from (MacDonald) to go along and enjoy the freedom that theatre gives us – to role-play, to do the impossible, and to bend gender roles."
However, while MacDonald’s play often lampoons Shakespearean conventions, it’s done with a generous spirit. After all, in Desdemona and Juliet the Bard created enduring female characters with enough depth and resilience to be recast 400 years later in a 20th-century, feminist mould and portrayed by an all-female ensemble.
"I think artists are always borrowing from their inspirations – it’s the greatest form of flattery," says Coulter of MacDonald’s use of Shakespeare. "In parodying these plays, there are moments where she’s very much roasting these plays, and then there are moments when she’s definitely celebrating.
"If a play like this can open the world of Shakespeare (to audiences) in new ways, because they might have stereotypical ideas of what Shakespeare is, I think that’s a great thing. Shows like this will help make sure (his plays are) around for another 400 years." |
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