CMU School of Drama


Friday, February 26, 2010

"Peace, Ho!" Julius Caesar Goes To A Girls' School

Jezebel: "Why yes, I did see an all-female production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar last night. And yes, it was awesome.
The Bushwick Shakespeare Repertory, which will be performing Julius Caesar at 8pm every night this weekend, bills itself as 'a female-driven collaborative [...] committed to casting women in roles not traditionally available to them in Classical Theatre.'"

5 comments:

mrstein said...

I do love to see opportunities like this for women in theatre. I think it's definitely easy to say there are so many more women than men in theatre, and yet most leading roles go to men. This is becoming less frequent with more modern plays, but so many plays basically 20th century and under really mainly focus on men. I hope more and more opportunities like this exist to expand theatre to have equal opportunities for both men and women.

Sylvianne said...

Although I like the idea of changing the sex of characters in order to incorporate more women into theater (especially Shakespeare). However, it has a lot of risks, because all too often, unless the shows are extremely well directed and executed, the parts often fall flat. Although this may have been a fantastic performance, the idea of a show with nail files as swords starts to make me wonder if they can actually pull it off.
Nevertheless, it is still a great opportunity for these actors, it seems like quite the show to work on.

Katherine! said...

This seems like a great opportunity for these girls. Taking a classic, predominately male play, such as Julius Caesar and switching it to an all female cast seems like quite the undertaking. If directed well, I'm sure it was wonderful to see. As mrstein points out, it is great seeing more and more females having leading roles. It is important for females to be as represented in the theatre as men, and converting plays or writing ones that focus on the female is a great way to accomplish this.

Allegra Scheinblum said...

This sounds like an extremely interesting production of Julius Caesar. I think it's great that there is an all female production, and it's really ironic considering that all the characters are men. I think that it's great that these girls have this opportunity, and I'm sure that it made Julius Caesar even more interesting to change the sex of all the characters. I hope that more opportunities like this one come up for women, because I think that it's important for the continuing women's movement to give women chances like this one.

S. Kael said...

Changing up the stakes in theatre, especially in something as tried and true as Shakespeare pieces, is always interesting to me. The whole dynamic of theatre at this time had to do with male steroetypes, the way they interacted with one another, their responibilities of state and the class they so strictly adhered to. But taking that out of context, by putting schoolgirls into Rome and asking them to betray one another for the good of the Republic is fascinating, albeit a bit silly.

A director would have to tread lightly on the lines that the playwright obviously created while composing the work, and through this not turn the whole production into a sort of farce. Girls running about in checkered skirts betraying their tyrant? A very fine line indeed.