I promised some columns on creative work and this is definitely one of them. So settle down with a good glass of mead and read on.
When I was a teenager, my father used to take his three kids, every summer, to Ashland, Oregon to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) to see four plays. He taught speech and drama, so we would spend the afternoon in the hotel while he went over the plot and action and the key speeches in the play for that night.
It was a highlight of my teen years, watching Shakespeare, understanding the play and the language, hanging out with the actors during the day. Cemented a lifetime of love for the Bard and performing his work. With much joy, I have done 13 plays of what is called the “canon,” from Egeus in Midsummer Night’s Dream (father of Hermia, in at the beginning; in at the end; playing solitaire backstage for everything in-between) to playing the summit - Lear, who has 750 lines and is onstage for much of the play.
So having moved near Ashland, I motored 300 miles down Oregon to see King John, a complicated and flawed play, not one of his best. And my mind was blown by the performance.
In his era, Shakespeare used all-male casting, playing both men and women. This production, directed and largely performed by actors from upstart crow collective from Seattle, did the opposite. The cast was entirely women and non-binary actors, which drew me to it even more strongly.
There are ways to get this wrong, or to miss an opportunity in such casting. The actors could “pretend” to be men, do what males might do. Reverse drag – full of swagger, pelvic thrusts, deeper voices. The way some actors like to play Rosalind in male dress as Ganymede in As You Like It. Or it can be played for laughs, stuffing crinkled paper down the front of your pants the way they did when I saw it in Seattle this year. Or the production could turn every character into a woman. Kings could become Queens; Princes turn into Princesses.
Not this one. upstart crow seized the opportunity. As Jessica Williams, who played “The Bastard” in Ashland has said, “We’re not changing gender, we’re not women trying to be men, you know, fake beards, we don’t try to artificially lower our voice….Hopefully gender doesn’t even cross their mind.”
It took me a while to realize how their approach had turned this King John into one of the most glorious, rich productions one could possible imagine. Shakespeare’s text and action were unchanged; no student of classical Shakespeare would be disappointed.
All-female and non-binary casting created something new, inside the text and action: a totally emotionally compelling show, a complete rendering of character in every part. Women and non-binary actors became alchemists, turning stilted text and challenging moments into the gold of a full range of all human emotions. It made the performance radiant, compelling, and moving.
Male actors, who dominate Shakespearian performance, strain for what this cast achieved – the full humanity and spirit of every character. This gender cast turned a confusing and complicated script into what Shakespeare would want: complete humanity.
Let me be specific. In one scene, the King’s world is collapsing on him – the war with France is going badly; the throne is threatened, a truly bad day. The King loses it, has a temper tantrum, curls up on the throne, rants and raves. Men can be good at this, if they reach very, very hard. But men don’t like to lose emotional control, let it all fly, except for violent anger.
Kate Wisniewski (pronouns she/her) as John goes deeper, gives the melt-down full range. Totally believable. Not a woman losing it; a king really losing it. Holds to the script; enriches the emotional experience. More than credible; it was real.
An even more compelling example. John captures Arthur, a young boy with a credible claim to the throne whom the French want to install in John’s place. Hubert, a functionary to the King, is given care of Arthur and orders from the king to kill him, eliminating the threat.
Hubert struggles with the challenge. He has his orders and owes the king loyalty. Yet, he should not kill an innocent young boy. In this scene, Hubert struggles visibly with the conflict and resolves it with his heart; Arthur lives (only to die later by accident.)
Here, too, a male actor can struggle to reach the humanity that would spare Arthur; it requires heart, mothering, empathy. Sheila Tousey (pronouns she/her) invests this struggle with the full range of the conflict between loyalty and empathy. It was real.
The experience walked me through the looking glass into a new, richer Shakespeare. He wrote in a male-dominant era. His characters are predominantly male. Men played all the women’s roles. There are only a few stand-out female characters leading in the canon – Rosalind, Beatrice, Juliet in a young and dreamy way.
Without doing any violence to the plot, action, characters, arc or text, upstart crow opened the depth of the characters and the story. They were neither stereotypically male nor female. They were rich, fully developed people, the whole range of human behavior and emotion in each of them. As Kate Wisniewski has put it: “These plays may have been originally written and performed by men, but when viewed through the lens of women’s voices and points of view their vast landscape can open even further."
I take an even bigger lesson from this, about the true fluidity of human nature. In a world that is stubbornly and culturally binary, despite the gender fluidity in all of us, including me, discovering our common humanity is a struggle. The battle lines are drawn, especially in America in this year of conflict. If only each of us could permit the full fluidity of character to emerge, give it respect, value it.
At the theatrical level upstart crow’sKing John was a revelation. At the cultural and societal level, it is a lesson to us all.
Terrific review. If I’d seen it, I would not have gotten out of it what you did. It’s a privilege to see this through your eyes
I recall learning of trips with your mother, but not of these with your father. Lucky you, and to have been so well prepared ....fits well with your subsequent interests.