What do you think of all-male/all-female productions of Shakespeare?

To me, it's just a little too quirky. It seems like something done just to be doing it (unless there was some legitimate reason to use one gender casts, such as the play being put on by all-girl and all-boy schools).

A somewhat interesting sidebar: In my city, a semi-professional group was going to put on Waiting for Godot a few years ago using female leads. I kind of thought that could be interesting (and really, what real difference did it make to that play whether the actors were male or female). The play was all ready to go, scheduled, and playbills printed. However, the Beckett estate took issue with using a female cast and threaten to sue. Their rationale was that Beckett was extremely particular about how his plays were staged and using female actors was not being true to the script. The end result was the play was canceled.

Well, Shakespeare's plays were originally all-male.

I suppose it depends on why the cast is all one gender - what the director is trying to achieve.

The plays really transcend gender and are about the story imo. The themes of love, redemption, vengence and forgiveness are universal.

misaditas said:

Well, Shakespeare's plays were originally all-male.

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Good point.

I still think it's a bit on the quirky side to do it that way these days. I don't think it would be terrible to do Shakespeare with a one-gender cast, but I don't really see the point except as an theater experiment. If they wanted to experiment, I'm prefer they experimented in some other ways; the theater could certainly use some new approaches.

If I remember correctly, the reason for all-male casts was that acting for women was seen to be on a par with prostitution. Actresses, and artists' models, were seen to have a 'reputation' and not something that a lady would do.

Shakespeare broke convention by writing parts with women in. So yes, I believe had attitudes to actresses been different, he would have certainly have done that.

Why not? A few years ago they had an all African-American cast on Broadway for Carousel. As someone else said, in Shakespeare's time it used to be all-male cast anyway. The all-female cast is a bit different.

But you know what, theater is art, and sometimes you experiment with art. It may be quirky but that's the beauty of theater.

I think is more to be quirky or perhaps how the theatrical company is set rather than innovated, a distaff counterpart would be more interesting (Patrick Stewart presented an all-black version of Othello, except him, who was playing the part of Othello). I don't see much of the sense of all-female or all-male more than a a whim.

But again, I know next to nil about theater.

I saw a play in which four actors played about 16 different characters. And how about the world-famous all-male production of Swan Lakes? If those worked, I don't see how an all-male or all-female cast wouldn't. Theater is an interesting thing... it transcends the physical limitations of the production and cast.

The female parts were played by pre-pubescent boys in Shakespeare's day, and quite well by all accounts. One of the reasons to play with gender in casting the plays by using same sex/different sex/ etc is that Shakespeare is playing with gender all the time in his plays--and not just in As You Like It and Twelfth Night, either.

I note that there were female parts before during and after Shakepeare's day.

Lady Ice said:

I think it would really stretch a male actor to play a female part believably; vice versa, I don't think it would be too hard.

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Dame Edna. Kids in the Hall. Cate Blanchett (as Bob Dylan). Tyler Perry... the list goes on and on and on...

I see nothing wrong with same sex plays...no matter what the originals were suppose to be. Acting is an art and as others have said...it could be very interesting.

Centuries before Shakespeare's time the plays in China and Japan were played by all males. I might draw the line with something like a Lethal Weapon type of work...lol. IMHO

I've no objection. One of the best productions of Merchant of Venice I've ever seen was all-male.

That's pretty much the way it works in single-sex high schools. My daughter's school did a production of Guys and Dolls with only 2 actual guys in it (a teacher and a boy from another school.)

As far as seeing a professional same-gender production--I'd be up for that, sure.

One of the things that is missed when Shakespeare's plays are acted by men and women is the way that Shakespeare reminds the audience that the females are/were played by men. The texts are littered with reminders and these greatly enhance an audiences understanding of the plays. One example is in As You Like It - Celia would have been a boy dressed up as a girls says to Rosaline - a boy dressed up as a girl who then dresses up as a boy "You have simply misused our sex in your love-prate." (Act 4 sc 1)

I have seen all the plays on stage either played by the Royal Shakespeare Company or the Royal National Theatre and really think that sometimes contemporary audiences lose out to modern staging.

The best all male production that I have seen was the 1968 (?) of As You Like It. You can see a picture here http://www.geocities.com/TelevisionCity/Stage/4593/PicsBrett/JBbkAsYouLikeIt3.jpg of Ronald Pickup as Rosaline and Jeremy Brett as Orlando.

I have no objections - it would probably be fun/funny to watch. When I went to an all-girl's school, the Drama department did 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', and it really didn't make much difference. Shakespeare tends to be awesome, so long as it's acted well.

For me...if it wasn't put on by a single-sex school, I would have to wonder why they would choose to purposely ignore one sex. It would be the same as having an all white cast or an all black cast, etc, etc.


And NO...I really don't think it would 'really stretch' a male to play a female, or vice versa. Not at all. It would be like any other role.

KTC said:

And NO...I really don't think it would 'really stretch' a male to play a female, or vice versa. Not at all. It would be like any other role.

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It's probably just me being amateurish, but I find it VERY difficult to play male roles - more so than any female role. It's the male physicality that gets me... it feels totally unnatural. (Yeah, definitely amateurish).

I don't think there needs to be a specific reason for a play to be all-male or all-female - sometimes it's just interesting to watch and doesn't need an underlying message/meaning.

Well I have seen many versions of Shakespeare done with all male casts and one version with an all female cast. And they both worked very well. Lady Ice you are wrong that it stretches imagination to have a man play a coy female, I have seen it done and seen it done very well. In fact I've never seen a male actor play a female in a "butch" way. Probably because they are so focused on being female that they don't want to risk coming across as anything but. More impressively was watching the all female cast and forgetting at times that some of the performers were women. I even developed a little crush on the girl who played Don Pedro (it was a production of Much Ado About Nothing done at The Globe theatre in London UK).

Those of you who think it'd be funny to watch, I will say that at first it is odd, it takes some getting used to, but eventually (and especially if the actors aren't playing the all the same gender thing for laughs, but treating their roles with the seriousness any role deserves) you find yourself actually forgetting about the gender thing. A perfect example of this was an all male production of Twelfth Night. At the end, after all has been resolved and the couples paired off, Orsino went to kiss his bride, except he mistakenly goes to kiss Sebastian thinking it's Viola. I remember thinking at the moment, "Ah no! That's a boy!" But of course Viola was also being played by a boy. I was so in the play that I'd totally forgotten.

It can be done, I've seen it done, and it works. My only gripe with it, is that people tend to do all male Shakespeare more than all female, and with so few female roles in Shakespeare to begin with, us actresses kind of need the parts. So I resent all male productions simply because it takes roles away from women that are sorely needed.

Hands down, best production of any play, ever, that I have ever seen, was an all-male production of Twelfth Night at the Globe. Mark Rylance as Olivia was just... like... I can't even describe it. So fantastic as to be beyond belief. He had the entire audience in his hand.

JoNightshade said:

Hands down, best production of any play, ever, that I have ever seen, was an all-male production of Twelfth Night at the Globe. Mark Rylance as Olivia was just... like... I can't even describe it. So fantastic as to be beyond belief. He had the entire audience in his hand.

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It does help that his performance style in general has a soft feminine quality to it, even when he's playing a male character, but yes it was brilliant (and that was the one I was talking about, where I forgot Viola was a man).

Lady Ice said:

Recently there were two productions of Romeo and Juliet in America- one with an all male cast, the other with an all-female cast.

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Well, all-male was the standard in Shakespeare's time, wasn't it?