“Like a Rouged Corpse? Recycled, Revised, and Reused:The Selling of the Female Body on the Shakespearean Stage”

Abstract

The practice of adapting Shakespeare is something that theatre historians have historically viewed with horror and contempt. George C. D. Odell, author of Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving, described Restoration and eighteenth-century adaptations as “rouged corpses.” Hazelton Spencer, author of Shakespeare Improved, insisted that Shakespeare’s reputation was actually in jeopardy because of the ways in which Shakespeare’s works were being recycled, revised, and reused now that women were allowed to perform in professional theatres. Spencer would be disappointed if he knew the act of adapting Shakespeare – or giving some of the most iconic male roles to actresses – is something that is widely popular today. An example of a contemporary incarnation of this tradition is Helen Mirren’s Prospero in a film adaptation of The Tempest (2010) or Glenda Jackson’s controversial portrayal of King Lear on Broadway (2019). This trend, women playing male roles in Shakespearian tragedies, may seem like a product of the current political climate, a kind of cultural outgrowth of the #MeToo movement. But actually, there is a long history of such a practice, a fact that Teresa’s Rebeck’s 2018 play Bernhardt/Hamlet eloquently reminds us of. In this paper, I’d like to explore the question of how the influence of actresses, particularly celebrity actresses who opted to play traditionally male roles, impacts our reception and experience of Shakespeare and gender on the twenty-first century stage and screen. In what way do celebrity culture, political movements, and contemporary notions of gender, influence an audience’s experience of this most infamous Renaissance playwright: William Shakespeare?