Cross-Dressing and Gender-Bending

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What happens when you throw three of Shakespeare's cross-dressing female leads into a boat upon a stormy sea?

The resulting conversation that delves into the issues of language, identity and gender is both dramatic and full of humor, said director Sara Catheryn Wolf. After all, you can't put Portia, Rosalind and Viola in a room without sparking a tempest of some kind.

Wolf, a seasoned Shakespearean actress, said "Good Men and True" is an ideal play for every kind of Shakespeare fan. If you're an iambic-pentameter aficionado, you'll love the mashup of three beloved plays. If you're a Bard beginner, you'll gravitate to the relatable storylines and modern language. Win-win, she noted.

Reference: 'Good Men': Shakespeare's cross-dressers facing fate. 

It sounds like a thought-provoking yet thoroughly enjoyable re-visioning of Shakespeare.  Portia, Rosalind and Viola are among the most intriguing characters in drama, precisely because they break gender barriers without, for the most part, revealing that they have done so.  What writer Karen Dybis may not have known is that in Shakespeare's time, young men often played the role of women, who in these particular plays then disguised themselves as men.  More the cross-dressing, this is gender bending at its finest.