Women Cast as Male Characters

Harriett Walter, as Brutus in "Julius Caesar" 

Cush Jumbo, as Mark Antony in "Julius Caesar"

In Once More into the Breeches, Alexis Soloski writes that women playing male characters in Shakespeare isn't anything new.  The Bard's plays offered up more plum roles for men than for women, and so enterprising productions going back to the 17th century broke boundaries and let women have at it.  Why not?

Rachel Gluck and Isa St. Clair, as Romeo and Juliet

Besides Harriet Walter and Cush Jumbo in male roles in "Julius Caesar," Rachel Gluck takes on Romeo in a lesbian-themed production about the star-crossed lovers.  Again I ask Why not?

William Shakespeare was not only a paradigm of creativity, but also wrote plays that in and of themselves are a springboard for creativity for scores of directors, scriptwriters and actors.  So Romeo and Juliet can be female lovers and certainly male lovers, too.  Prospero in "The Tempest" can be Prospera, as Helen Mirren was in a recent film adaptation.  

But actors being actors in a fantasy world really can play any role that their talent and creativity will allow.  So we don't necessarily have to change the gender of the character.  A male character can remain male, but perhaps played by a woman.

Soloski points out, however, not all critics and aficionados are going to like these gender-bending productions.  But if the troupe can pull off a truly deft, unique production, and market it well, then it should draw enough of an audience to hit the troupe's and producer's financial targets.

If it works, it works.  For me, I simply marvel at the talent of people in theater, and this talent may involve bending gender.