Dominance and desperation
Plus: Frida Kahlo at Tate and a bunch of other stuff
I remember when Phyllida Lloyd did her first all-female Shakespeare at the Donmar Warehouse in 2012 (Julius Caesar, with the peerless Harriet Walter as Brutus), it was such a Thing. Political correctness gone mad, etc, even if the majority of the reviewers actually really liked the collaboration with Clean Break – a charity that uses theatre to transform the lives of women who have experienced the criminal justice system, or who are at risk of entering it due to the challenges they are facing.
It framed this drama of power and politics as a production being put on within a women’s prison, and broke the drama’s walls occasionally to reflect the conflict within the story among the relationships between the incarcerated women. It was one of the most thrilling things I’ve ever seen, but at the time it was still quite radical, weirdly.
Now all-female productions are, if not commonplace, then not something that gets the male critics clutching their pearls in quite the same way. People recognise that shifting the gender of certain shows can shed new light on whatever the subject might be, especially if it’s something that has historically been considered a masculine preserve (war, the pursuit of power etc).
Which is one reason I was very much looking forward to the Old Vic’s all-female production of David Mamet’s 1983 play Glengarry Glen Ross, led by Indira Varma and Rosa Salazar and running to July 18.
