Who the F–k is Shakespeare? – Bernie Grant Arts Centre, London

Writer and Director: Ameera Conrad

Shakespeare’s women have often drawn the short straw in the fortune stakes. In Ameera Conrad’s delightful exploration of the canon, four of them get together to discuss their fates, recreate some of their most famous moments and break out of the pigeonholes to which literary history has consigned them. And yet they have persisted in the public consciousness to the extent that most have also had modern-day teen movie adaptations.

From Harriett O’Grady’s Cleopatra – a queen in her own right, yet forever one half of “Antony and…” – to Mary Savage pointing out that her character, Lady Macbeth, is never afforded a name of her own, the references to the sexism and misogyny endured by their characters are ever present, but lightly borne. The lot of these women is something to induce eye-rolling and wry laughter rather than a serious dissection of 17th-century attitudes.

Beside these two powerful women, Jada-Li Warrican’s Ophelia initially seems much less powerful. Presented as a simplistic, if troubled, ray of sunshine, the way that her character is essentially a vehicle for her brother Laertes and ex-boyfriend Hamlet to moan about their own fates. Yet she and Cleopatra bond over how each of their character’s deaths is an opportunity for the men to soliloquise.

Contrasting with all of them is Beca Barton’s Viola, whose Twelfth Night character breaks all sorts of gender boundaries, especially when posing as the male Cesario, which they do for seven of the eight scenes in which the character appears. There’s an exploration of what gender might have meant in Shakespeare’s time, with men playing women who are pretending to be men. Some of the love conversations in Twelfth Night “feel very queer coded,” Viola acknowledges. However, that does not necessarily mean their character was progressive – art, as life, is messier than that.

Ameera Conrad’s script switches seamlessly between extracts from each character’s play, the women’s commentary (often delivered in verse, but in contemporary language) and some carefully structured meta-commentary delivered as ad-libs. It all builds nicely, with the characters poking fun at the use of poetry with an affection that allows the audience in nicely.

The conclusion of the piece is handed to Ophelia, who, even by the end, is seen by the others as a weaker character. She’s not, though; she wants autonomy, for sure, but not at the expense of being soft and gentle, which is okay too. It is this last statement which reveals a deeper understanding of the need for gender equity than many theatre pieces on the topic provide. If women and non-binary characters have to change to be seen as equal to men, that’s not equality at all.

With the characters questioning their own and each other’s roles in their respective plays, it’s an opportunity to reflect upon how the manner in which modern society treats women is based upon centuries of misogyny. But it’s also a chance to reread Shakespeare’s works and imbue his women with more intelligence and self-awareness than conventional portrayals might allow.

Reviewed on 18 October 2024