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A Vindication too Late
Dec. 28th, 2020 10:49 amWay, way back in my last year of secondary school, P, the head of English, proposed staging As You Like It. I auditioned. I was offered Celia. The one and only time I've ever done this, I left the procution after one rehearsal. (No great problem, there was a far better substitute.) I couldn't play/be Celia: I wanted to be Jacques or Touchstone. But P wouldn't cast female for male. Period. (I did go to watch the production and lent costume (my little brother was in it) and it was lovely.
Around the same time I auditioned for the NYT and annoyed P by using, along with a soliloquy from A Phoenix Too Frequent, Edmund's "bastard" speech from King Lear. (Nope. I didn't get in. Really, I'm not good at acting: too self-conscious, too stiff. Nor did I ever wish to do it professionally.)
I've now watched (online obvs.) the NT Twelfth Night with a female Feste (somewaht of a letdown) and Debbie Aldridge as Antonia! I just wish P were around to see it--mostly because Antonia was a standout performance, but also because a little bit of I told you so. (And I know this is not by any means the first example of gender-blind casting, but somehow a pertinent one....)
Actually, this is also the first production Twelfth Night I've seen (and I've seen quite a few) where Antonio/Antonia's suffering (tragedy?) is proerly played out, foregrounded. And wehre the ending reminds us that with O/S, V/O, M/Sir T paired off, there is one prominent character who is not.
I've always wondered what A's revenge would be.
Around the same time I auditioned for the NYT and annoyed P by using, along with a soliloquy from A Phoenix Too Frequent, Edmund's "bastard" speech from King Lear. (Nope. I didn't get in. Really, I'm not good at acting: too self-conscious, too stiff. Nor did I ever wish to do it professionally.)
I've now watched (online obvs.) the NT Twelfth Night with a female Feste (somewaht of a letdown) and Debbie Aldridge as Antonia! I just wish P were around to see it--mostly because Antonia was a standout performance, but also because a little bit of I told you so. (And I know this is not by any means the first example of gender-blind casting, but somehow a pertinent one....)
Actually, this is also the first production Twelfth Night I've seen (and I've seen quite a few) where Antonio/Antonia's suffering (tragedy?) is proerly played out, foregrounded. And wehre the ending reminds us that with O/S, V/O, M/Sir T paired off, there is one prominent character who is not.
I've always wondered what A's revenge would be.
