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Queer production of As You Like It at Shakespeare’s Globe

113 replies

PotteringPondering · 27/08/2023 23:50

Spent the evening at Shakespeare’s Globe, at what turned out to be a queer production of As You Like It.

Almost all the actors were cast as characters of the opposite sex, and several appeared to be trans actors. In the play, some characters have to disguise themselves as the opposite sex, so it was impossible to follow who’s who (‘Hang on, so that woman with a beard is meant to be a male character, who then is disguised as a woman; no, wait a minute…’). There were a few good individual performances, but artistically it was a complete dog’s dinner.

It was shot through with sexualised queer stylings and dances, and ended with a speech (that definitely wasn’t written by Shakespeare) about how we’re all part of a big queer family, whether or not we wear nail varnish.

Lots of kids were in the audience.

It felt a little like finding yourself in a recruitment party for a transgressive sex cult, when what you really wanted was Shakespeare.

OP posts:
TheDogthatDug · 28/08/2023 06:04

Why does everything have to be "queered"? I would love to know what normal everyday gay people* think of this.

  • people who crack on with their lives and don't make their sexuality the only facet of their personality.
LemonadeSunshine · 28/08/2023 05:33

Sounds tedious, will give this a miss!

GreeboIsMySpiritAnimal · 28/08/2023 03:39

The Northern Broadsides did almost exactly the same thing about 18 months ago, so it's not even an original take.

PatatiPatatras · 28/08/2023 01:35

All the world is a... cult recruitment ground?

MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving · 28/08/2023 01:33

i can’t deny the misogyny in the plays is frustrating however much I try and accept the context of the time they were written. Fiesty women like Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing or Katherine in Taming of the Shrew become doe eyed, silent and compliant at the end of the plays when they “get their man”. Setting the archetype for books and movies and TV programs for hundreds of years.

so yes, enough misogyny in Shakespeare as it is without adding in any more thank you very much.

Maddy70 · 28/08/2023 01:24

MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving · 28/08/2023 01:23

Yes because it was illegal for women to act on the stage. So there’s always a context of misogyny going on right from the start.

Show quote history

Yes I agree. The plays were written with this in mind too

MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving · 28/08/2023 01:23

Maddy70 · 28/08/2023 01:19

All female parts were played by men in Shakespeare originally

Yes because it was illegal for women to act on the stage. So there’s always a context of misogyny going on right from the start.

Maddy70 · 28/08/2023 01:19

All female parts were played by men in Shakespeare originally

Mummy08m · 28/08/2023 01:16

Yanbu.

He wrote so many plays, many of which I've never seen produced ever, like some of the historical ones and some of the nicher tragedies. Why take a famous one and make it fresh and different when you could just take one of the lesser-known ones and that'll be super fresh as it is?

MyLadyDisdainlsYetLiving · 28/08/2023 01:08

Plays like As You Like It and Twelfth Night are already full of nods and winks about boys playing girls playing boys and the ridiculousness of gender stuff (from a 16th century perspective). As it’s written. Nothing else is needed text wise.

I really don’t mind different settings of the plays as there’s always a new perspective that I get from them. Plus it emphasises the universality of the human experience in that you can get them to work either via the original practices that The Globe did in Mark Rylance’s early days as AD, or by modern settings (the Adrian Lester Henry V was set in modern times and coincided with the invasion of Iraq and was very thought provoking). I can happily tolerate a bit of editing of the text to chop out some of the more problematic parts that modern audiences wouldn’t find acceptable (bits of anti semitism for example). I’ve enjoyed gender blind casting at The Globe eg Kathryn Hunter as Richard III or Vanessa Redgrave as Prospero. But when you start writing new speeches or messing around with casting decisions just to be edgy or different, it takes away from the integrity of the play and it just becomes a production “based on” Shakespeare.

And now I sound like one of those pretentious wanker groundlings in hats who laugh at jokes no one else does because they only work in Elizabethan English. Sorry, I’m not that precious about Shakespeare, but after all he did say “the play’s the thing”.

Apollo441 · 28/08/2023 00:14

Thanks for the heads up. I was going to go but I'll give it a swerve now. Shame I was looking forward to going back to the Globe.

MrsBennetsPoorNerves · 28/08/2023 00:11

It sounds very confusing!

To be fair, the actors in Shakespeare's day would have been male, so Rosalind and Celia would have been played by men, pretending to be women, pretending to be men etc...so it is not without precedent I suppose!

It seems to be the done thing for people to feel the need to shake things up a bit with Shakespeare these days...

RhannionKPSS · 28/08/2023 00:06

FFS!! So we had a non binary Joan of Arc and now this shit. How much more ridiculous can The Globe become…?