Word: kingly
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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There's a new King and Queen in town, check...
...Richard, second year Harvard Law School student Nicole Kinsley is remarkably successful in uncovering unexplored depths of her character. Her performance as the king is the undoubted triumph of the production and lends some justification to the use of an all-female cast. Initially, she seems uncertain in the role; it is very apparent that she is a woman trying rather unsuccessfully to play a man. As the play progresses, it becomes evident that this characterization is deliberate: Kinsley’s struggles with masculinity mirror those of Richard’s with kingship. Eventually, Kinsley blossoms, becoming a fascinatingly...
...performance as a whole. Whereas the early contrast between the two rivals for the throne is enlivened by the use of actresses, a feminine portrayal does nothing for Bolingbroke as the play goes on. In Shakespeare’s original, Bolingbroke becomes a less assured character after becoming King Henry IV, but Federman’s mission to explore femininity in politics leaves Hecht with nowhere to progress. She can’t revert to femininity, because Henry simply becomes less confident rather than more womanly. This plot progression allows her no other option but to simply retreat into...
...decline in Henry’s character exposes the essential flaw in Federman’s scheme. Having a woman play the king is fascinating, but having women play all of the other roles too is essentially meaningless. Exactly the same effect, or an even stronger one, could have been created with Kinsley as Richard and more conventional casting. Almost all of the supporting performances are strong, particularly that of second year HLS student Mary R. Plante as Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt. However, these depictions don’t tell us anything new about the characters...
...core, “Semele” is a familiar story—men will say anything for sex. In this case, the man (or god) is Jupiter (Joshua Taylor), the king of the gods, and the focus is on his affair with Semele (Kathy D. Gerlach ’07, GSAS ’13), a mortal. At the guileful behest of Jupiter’s divine consort, Juno (Stephanie Kacoyanis), Semele withholds intimacy until Jupiter promises to give her immortality and show her his true form, a move which ultimately kills...