Ann-Marie MacDonald's Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet is a lighthearted little romp that sends up both Shakespeare and the academic ivory tower with a mischievous feminist sense of humor
Our heroine Constance Ledbelly is an undistinguished worker bee in the literature department of an unidentified university, where she has worked ably without recognition for her pompous supervisor Professor Claude Night. Her devotion to him is absolute but irrational, for he's a caricature of self-centered male vanity, interested principally in attractive female undergraduates and in getting his full professorship.
Connie has her own wild thesis about Shakespeare, one that will make or more likely break her already flattened career. She thinks that someone, somewhere, rewrote Romeo and Juliet and Othello to turn them into tragedies. All those deaths could have been avoided, if only there had been a truth-telling Fool to clear up the misunderstandings. She is toting around a copy of an undeciphered 300-year-old manuscript that she hopes will confirm her hypothesis.
That is, until the good Prof. Night dumps her and heads off to a well-paid post at Oxford with one of his bimbos. At that point either Connie has a serious psychotic episode or else she really does travel to the mystical worlds of Othello in Cyprus and then to the Capulets and Montagues in Verona. Plopped down into each intrigue at the crucial moment, Connie promptly clears up the misunderstandings, putting Iago into the doghouse and forestalling the duel in the piazza that triggers tragedy in Verona.
Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones Theater, Sarofim School of Fine Arts
Imagine a collaboration between Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Woody Allen, and you have the essence of Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), a wild and fantastical farce that includes cross-dressing, swordplay, mistaken identities, and playful tomfoolery.
What would happen if Juliet's and Desdemona's death sentences were reprieved? Constance Ledbelly, a dusty and plucky academic, deciphers a cryptic manuscript she believes to be the original source for Romeo and Juliet and Othello, and is magically transported into the plays themselves. She visits Juliet and Desdemona, has a hand in saving them from death and finds out what they are all about, all the while engaging in a personal voyage of self.
The Weird Sisters Theatre Collective's Goodnight Desdemona, Good Morning Juliet was a very Austin event. The Sisters performed Anne-Marie MacDonald's broad feminist satire of Shakespeare and stuffy scholars in the backyard at the one and only Cathedral of Junk in South Austin, just a few blocks south of 290W/Ben White Boulevard.
Closing night last Saturday was full, as a wide mix of folks filled up the very miscellaneous and inventive collection of chairs. Proprietor Vince Hannemann was rustling up seats right up till the opening, and he received a special ovation from the Sisters and the audience afterward, for his broad-spirited hosting.
This was theatre, but it was also a party and a celebration.
The fun-loving feminist group was doing its fifth summer production. Their lengthy 2004 manifesto remains very in effect. It begins, "WEIRD: We mean WEIRD in its original sense: wayward . We challenge the status quo, for we know that most theater drifts and defaults to old, hegemonic ways of interpreting, casting, directing, and producing."
This is a loopy "what-if?" story about a woman academic, much neglected, misled and patronized by her thoughtlessly arrogant male supervisor. Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .
The Weird Sisters Women’s Theater Collective performs
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
a play by Ann-Marie MacDonald, directed by Susan Gayle Todd beginning July 23 at Austin’s own Cathedral of Junk. The play will run through Saturday, August 1.
Austin’s favorite all-woman troupe’s fifth annual production features veteran actress Chris Humphrey as Constance Ledbelly, a quivering academic with heretical ideas about Shakespeare’s revered Othello and Romeo and Juliet. When she finds herself warped into the worlds of the plays, Constance must gird her trembling loins—with a little help from Desdemona and Juliet.
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is a Velveeta-nibbling, Coors-beer-swilling, hilariously irreverent look at Shakespeare’s classics.
Tickets will be sold on a sliding scale (pay what you can) of $5 to $20 (cash and checks at the door).
The Weird Sisters Women’s Theater Collective is a group of women in Austin, Texas dedicated to promoting women in the arts. The Collective embraces the feminist ideology of collaboration; each participant is encouraged to use her voice. The collaborative approach, in an all-female and so more risk-free setting, empowers women.
Even women with strong personalities and opinions have felt claustrophobic in male-dominated settings; women often default to taking a backseat in leadership roles in a mixed-sex group. The Weirds explore feminism and theater through more than official productions. We also hold readings, lectures, salons, and parties throughout the year.
Our process has been one of continual exploration. Come explore with us!
