Female Direction of Shakespeares As You Like It Essay

Female Direction of As You Like It In As You Like It, Jaques states that All the worlds a stage,/ And all the men and women in it merely players./ They have theyre exits and their entrances,/ And one man in his time plays many parts (II, vii, 138-141). That very well might be true. But if life is a stage traditionally controlled by a man, what parts does that leave for the women of the world? The female answer to this question is that if you dont like your part, change it, and if you dont like the direction, follow someone else. And that is exactly what all-female Shakespeare does. It explores roles for women, roles that women dont traditionally get to play. All-female productions of Shakespeare, as well as†¦show more content†¦Usually, a woman could not play Prospero, or Bottom, or any other of the male parts. However, that is not all an all-female production does with characters. Sarah Werner writes that while a non-threatening girly production would create opportunities for women to work, it would fail to challenge.... preconceptions (Werner 62). Because of this, female directors try ways to question interpretation. In one all-female and female-directed version of The Tempest, Prospero was obviously played by a woman. The difference in gender added to the disinheritance plotline. However, the woman Prospero remained a Duke, not a Duchess, and still carrie[d] an aura of power (McKanic 1). This shows that Prospero did not need to be a man to get his character across. In this way, relationships and characterization are more important than gender alone. It is written of director Joanne Zipay, that she manages to be radical even as she is completely loyal to the text she is working on (McKanic 2). Instead of gender-based power dynamics, Zipay prefers to focus on the intricacies and nuances (McKanic 2). Actors in the company that produced this version are written to be comfortable in the text and roles, thus making it easy to forget the gender of the characters and pay attention to the tex t and the story (McKanic 3). And yet, in a different female production ofShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of Shakespeares Play Julius Caesar By William Shakespeare1667 Words   |  7 Pagesin theatre practise since Shakespeare’s time. This essay will consider how William Shakespeare’s play ‘Julius Caesar’ may have been performed during the Elizabethan era and how the differences in process, scriptwriting, space and more may vary from today’s recreations of his work. This should help to better understand and analyse the play itself and may even influence how we interpret it ourselves both in text and onstage. 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