Sometimes Weight is Freedom

I usually don't like to weigh a show down with a cumbersome concept. I read the script over and over. The show will start to demand a certain physical reality to tell the story well. We embellish as much or as little as that show's reality requires.

Doing anything else can have the opposite of the intended effect. Concept plays were invented because the directors were moved to tell the story in a stronger way but, a lot of the time, director's concepts (metaphorically often strong and often very clever) actually compete with the piece for the audience's attention, thereby weakening both. Very rarely, an overlaid external concept breeds strength but, usually (sadly), external concepts forced on a piece are rather like placing a lightly frosted window between the audience and the play. It might be prettier but you can't see as well.

So, I worry. I have encumbered my upcoming production of Taming of the Shrew with the initial artistic decision that it will be played by all women. The rest of the process will have to accommodate that decision - from basic movement and vocal work, to blocking to costumes to....  Consequently, this play will be a little more challenging to get up than other productions. It'll be a little more difficult to get that story told well.

But I'm wondering: could this 'all-female' concept actually offer me some freedom?

For example, I have long been a proponent of blind casting but have been criticized and even ostracized for having the temerity to walk the walk on this issue. And, yet, if our default is always white and male, fairly soon the number of artists who can tell a lot of these stories will dwindle to a very small sampling of the overall population. Crazy. We need to find ways of opening stuff up.

And in this show I can. Why? If I've already blown the lid off of one pot, no one is really going to peek in the other. Honestly, if the person playing a male role is a woman, are people going to further question race? Why would they?

The construct is already sexless. We can make it raceless, too. Sometimes weight is freedom.


Jacqui Burke is a freelance director, writer, and theatrical teacher living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  She is currently directing Lend Me A Tenor for Scarborough Theatre Guild, directing The Wild Life (a Kidsplay production), and prepping for the all female version of Taming of the Shrew for Jaybird Productions going up in the fall of this year. She is, also, serializing The Pretender, her first novel, online at http://thepretender-amarcienoelnovel.blogspot.ca/.  


Jacqui Burke
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