First I want to say I’m a major fan of same-gender casting. I think it’s a great tool to explore how we view and perform gender. It’s a framework I continue to explore and want to see more of. In many ways it can be a gift to the performer, a challenge to explore a role they may never have had the chance to play before. The audience gets to see gender performed and hopefully thinks about what that actually means.
Men playing women onstage can be more than drag and the traditional images of dames in Pantos. Too often the idea turns into a joke but more and more live theatre is challenging tradition. Ashland Oregon Shakespeare Festival is producing Oklahoma with same-gender romantic leads, they are presenting as same-sex love interests. Here we see a classic American musical through a lens of inclusion and queerness. The RSC production and new adaptation of Salome cast Salome as a young man whose gender expression is fluid.
As to the arguments concerning traditional casting in all male Shakespeare productions, not even the Globe in the UK is doing traditional casting. If they were, we would have 13 to 14 year old boys playing the women of Shakespeare, so the traditional argument is moot. I think modern audiences seeing a 12 year-old Kate in Taming of the Shrew would be very uncomfortable and maybe that would be a good thing. You have to be clear about what you are trying to say and how you are saying it. We are an art form that is built on communication and expression of ideas.
The Globe in the UK has given us some amazing performances some all same-gender some reversed gender, and everything in-between. The Pop-up Globe in Auckland gave us an amazing season last year: an all male cast, an all female cast for Julius Caesar, and also incorporated Te Reo Maori into its production of Midsummer.
So what in the hell happened to the season this year? Miles Gregory is an intelligent man. I cannot believe he is that obtuse. To not see hitching your cart to the #MeToo movement without any real substance would make him the pariah of the New Zealand theatre world, and put the future of the Pop-up Globe in jeopardy.
Let’s break down the basics. You are producing Taming of the Shrew, an already tricky work for the 21st century audience. You make a statement that it’s going to reflect the current culture of the #MeToo movement and the abuses exposed by the Weinstein case, but no women are involved in this project not the cast or the director. So basically you will have a group of men telling/explaining male oppression of women to women.
So what we will get is a production that will be a massive exercise in mansplaining.
And then the shit hit the fan, and justly so with threatened boycotts and calls for backers to pull out of the Globe.
I don’t disagree that the idea of looking at Taming of the Shrew from this point of reference is a good one, if thought through. An all female cast doing Shrew through this lens would be an amazing production. There are several directors in New Zealand now who could tackle this: Jo Randerson, Nina Nawalowalo, and Robin Payne are three women off the top of my head who have the directorial chops to tackle such a project.
What does this entire exercise demonstrate to all of us in the theatre?
We have a great deal of work to do. I am still hard pressed to understand such a misstep by Gregory. The idea that none of this was part of his thinking is deeply disturbing. Was last season just a fluke? I can’t think so. I have no working knowledge of the man only his work and his choices. To not build on the momentum created last season and continue to expand the possibilities of how we perform the cannon is shortsighted. Look to your mother ship in the UK see how they continue to broaden the discussion.
It’s 2018. Theatre cannot be a men’s club. New Zealand has some brilliant women actors and directors. Use them.
Below are a series of links to articles written a few years ago and as recently as last year addressing the issue of gender inequality.
#MeToo-themed, but all-male? NZ Pop-up Globe’s Shakespeare play …
https://www.newshub.co.nz/…/metoo-themed-but-all-male-nz-pop-up-globe-s-shakesp…
Theatres must act now about gender inequality | Stage | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/…/theatreblog/…/theatres-must-act-now-about-gender-in…
Gender in Theatre – Purple Seven
purpleseven.com/media.ashx/gender-thought-leadership.pdf
Women Continue Being Underrepresented In Theater Despite Being …
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/league-of-professional-theater-women-study_us_5…
The Sexism in our Non-Sexist Industry | Bitter Gertrude
The Sexism in our Non-Sexist Industry