The Woman Problem?

Recently, The Guardian published a story by Vanessa Thorpe that revolved around a question that, in a way, affects my entire life: Did Shakespeare sell women short? Upon reading it, I had so much to say about the subject that I finally got this blog up and running.

I am a woman who has dedicated most of her adult life to the study and performance of Shakespeare’s plays. As such, I have been lucky enough to play some of the most incredible female roles ever written, including As You Like It‘s Rosalind, The Taming of the Shrew‘s Katherine, and the first tetralogy’s Queen Margaret in a brilliant conflation called Queen Margaret: Tiger’s Heart Wrapped in a Woman’s Hide. With such roles, I never once had to question whether I was playing a fully-formed character. And as a director of Shakespeare, I never once had to help one of my actresses invent some sort of internal life to make up for an underwritten role.

That’s one reason why putting Shakespeare’s plays on stage is among the greatest pleasures of my professional life.

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