Gender neutral?
I don't know if it is possible to achieve true neutrality when it comes to gender casting on the stage. Much like with race, righting the wrongs of the past requires conscious effort on the part of companies to achieve diversely gendered casting. I have no problem with reclamation projects of older works like the Oklahoma! production we discussed in class (except I hate that play in general), but when it comes to preserving tradition vs transcending it, I think it is more effective to generate new works. By creating, we set a new standard, a new tradition, and we reconstruct a society to fit new norms. Hamilton is a great example of this. And in general, I have watched this happen over the last 10 years (my conscious adulthood), and despite the rise of Trumpism, I do believe the broader population is more conscientious, more aware, than it was in 2010. Two step forwards, one step back. Fuckit, we solider on.
One of the ways I personally have watched new norms be recreated in theater in the last 10 years has been in Shakespeare. I feel like I grew up watching milk-toast vanilla productions of Shakespeare at the Joe Dowling Guthrie, and upon hiring Joseph Haj, they started to transition this Midwestern bastion of White Theater into something more diverse, more gender conscious, and just MORE. Now, I realize I may be projecting the biased memory of youth, so don't take that as fact, but just this last year I saw a totally gender bent version of As You Like It at the Guthrie, and it was FANTASTIC. I think the pretentious traditionalists were titillated, the younger generation felt like progress was being made, and it is paving the way for broad structural change. It feels like in saying what I just said, I made a case for slow gradual change rather than tearing the system down, which in turn makes me feel like I betrayed my progressive values (ugh, Joe Biden, really?). But at the same time, my mother (a former bra-burning feminist of the 1980s who wore black when Reagan was elected) and I had to carefully lay out what intersectionality was to my father (also a liberal democrat) the other day. As I write this, Google bloggy blogs doesn't even recognize it as a word. To me, these things indicate how far behind academia American society is, despite some of the major changes we are seeing.
This is why I think Shakespeare can be such a great ally and vehicle for structural change of societal perceptions. It is the ultimate cultural weight in theatre in the West, steeped in years of tradition, but also years of change. And as we return to what I consider "true" Shakespeare (popular entertainments that can be vehicles for whatever message we want rather than the royalty of literary traditionalists), it can be a bridge between that same tradition and progressive change. Hopefully, I am right about this. It certainly is how I plan to produce my own Shakespeare going forward.
Bonus question: I want to play any and everyone of Shakespeare's women. The bloke wrote so many wonderful female characters, while so many of the men are generic and boring. Viola would be great. Hermia (though I be not low and little), heck I would even love to play Juliet even though the end of that play is stupid. F Romeo! But also F Juliet! She is the richest girl in Verona! Take your asshole daddy's horse and ride the 3 hours to Mantua. UGH
One of the ways I personally have watched new norms be recreated in theater in the last 10 years has been in Shakespeare. I feel like I grew up watching milk-toast vanilla productions of Shakespeare at the Joe Dowling Guthrie, and upon hiring Joseph Haj, they started to transition this Midwestern bastion of White Theater into something more diverse, more gender conscious, and just MORE. Now, I realize I may be projecting the biased memory of youth, so don't take that as fact, but just this last year I saw a totally gender bent version of As You Like It at the Guthrie, and it was FANTASTIC. I think the pretentious traditionalists were titillated, the younger generation felt like progress was being made, and it is paving the way for broad structural change. It feels like in saying what I just said, I made a case for slow gradual change rather than tearing the system down, which in turn makes me feel like I betrayed my progressive values (ugh, Joe Biden, really?). But at the same time, my mother (a former bra-burning feminist of the 1980s who wore black when Reagan was elected) and I had to carefully lay out what intersectionality was to my father (also a liberal democrat) the other day. As I write this, Google bloggy blogs doesn't even recognize it as a word. To me, these things indicate how far behind academia American society is, despite some of the major changes we are seeing.
This is why I think Shakespeare can be such a great ally and vehicle for structural change of societal perceptions. It is the ultimate cultural weight in theatre in the West, steeped in years of tradition, but also years of change. And as we return to what I consider "true" Shakespeare (popular entertainments that can be vehicles for whatever message we want rather than the royalty of literary traditionalists), it can be a bridge between that same tradition and progressive change. Hopefully, I am right about this. It certainly is how I plan to produce my own Shakespeare going forward.
Bonus question: I want to play any and everyone of Shakespeare's women. The bloke wrote so many wonderful female characters, while so many of the men are generic and boring. Viola would be great. Hermia (though I be not low and little), heck I would even love to play Juliet even though the end of that play is stupid. F Romeo! But also F Juliet! She is the richest girl in Verona! Take your asshole daddy's horse and ride the 3 hours to Mantua. UGH
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