Not Hamlet by Janet Suzman
As her honour affirms, Dame Janet Suzman is one of the great stage actors of our time. She is also an acclaimed director. So her personal insight into some of the great female roles in Western classic theatre is a thoughtful and thought-provoking read.
In the first section, titled ‘A Rogue Prologue’, she dismisses the “Shakespeare didn’t write (all) the plays” conspiracy theory. She then turns to the matter of boy actors and argues that the great Shakespearian female roles are too complex and demanding to have always been played by such young people. They require in her view an emotional maturity which only an experienced adult woman could deliver.
She then analyses in turn the roles of Shakespeare’s Cleopatra, Joan of Arc (Shaw’s Saint Joan and Shakespeare’s la Pucelle in Henry VI pt 1), Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler, and Gertrude and Ophelia in Hamlet.
These chapters show the meticulous preparation Suzman put into the roles when she played or directed them. At times her reading of the text and researching of the background have led her to find meaning and depth in the characters that others have not; some may agree, others disagree with her interpretation but it is hard to fault her arguments.
This brief review is not the place to go into the detail of her analyses, but if I – or you after reading the book – see any of the plays it covers it will certainly give you a starting point from which to evaluate the performances you see.
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