Gender identities in contemporary Shakespearean performance

Abstract

As Shakespeare is rediscovered with each new generation, new meanings are generated that serve new audiences within a new context. Shakespearean performance has a long history with gender; inherently from its conception with all male casts to the changing of gender identities within the text itself, which is underlined by our constantly evolving understanding of the gender spectrum. While, in his comedies, Shakespeare uses gender and mistaken identities as a plot device, in his tragedies, the text is defined by its gendered language which in turn define character relationships. The emergence of female performers, replacing the boy actors, reveals the resultant lack of older and powerful female characters in Shakespeare’s plays which led to the practice of female performers portraying male characters, later developing into a practice of swapping the written gender of a character from male to female. This change may carry some effects on the plot. Through an analysis of contemporary productions, this dissertation will explore the implications of the transformation of the gender of identities of characters within the plot, the necessity of representation and relevance, the different effects of gender between comedies and tragedies, queer identities in contemporary Shakespearean performance, and the significance of textual history.