Women of Will at Shakespeare & Company
LENOX, Mass. - For one night only, Tina Packer, Shakespeare & Company’s Founding Artistic Director, presents a very special sneak peek of her nearly completed opus, WOMEN OF WILL: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare’s Plays.Packer, who received a Guggenheim Fellowship to develop this signature work, has presented it in various workshop iterations over the past fifteen years. The completed version will include five parts. A one-part, Overview iteration will makes its world premiere with three performances at the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, England in March. Packer presents a special preview of WOMEN OF WILL at S&Co.’s Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre on February 28 at 7pm. All seating is by general admission, and tickets are $26 each.
S&Co.’s usual range of discounting options are available for this performance, including discounts for groups, students, Seniors, and the very popular 40% Berkshire Resident Discount. The Bernstein is wheelchair accessible and hearing aid assisted. Contact the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or boxoffice@shakespeare.org to order tickets or learn more about discount availability, or order tickets from www.shakespeare.org. The Bernstein Theatre is wheelchair-accessible.
Featuring Packer and S&Co. favorite Nigel Gore, Women of Will is directed by Eric Tucker (Pinter’s Mirror) and includes scenes from Henry VI, Richard III, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, As You Like It, Macbeth, Pericles and Henry VIII. The scenes provide insight into the chronological growth of Shakespeare’s portrayal not only of female characters but of the qualities traditionally considered feminine.
“The title itself has several meanings: obviously ‘Will’ in the sense of William Shakespeare. By looking at the women in the order in which Shakespeare wrote them, we can see how his attitude towards women changed over the years—and it did profoundly,” Packer says. “But ‘will’ also means will power or the will to power, and so we look at how women use power or how it is used against them. Finally, ‘will’ in Elizabethan English means sexual desire, or even the sexual parts. We will be examining how sexual desire is used in the plays. We’ll not be looking at the parts,”Packer adds with a laugh.
The performance presented February 28 is the comprehensive Overview version of the full, five-part program yet to be unveiled. The Overview encompasses Shakespeare’s whole canon, touching on the major points in each of the five acts. WOMEN OF WILL: Following the Feminine in Shakespeare’s Plays runs approximately three hours, with one intermission. Packer, Gore and Tucker will be available in the Bernstein lobby following the performance to meet patrons and continue the discussion.
“In many ways I’ve been working on this piece for the whole of my artistic life, and I have to ask the question: why should a 21st century feminist spend her time with a dead white male? Well the answer is because I grow, expand, understand myself better with every play in the canon I immerse myself in, and have from the time I was a young actor to becoming a director and teacher,” Packer says. “With each play, my awareness expands. He says things in such a way as allows me to understand the world—politically, psychologically, physically, poetically, philosophically—that change my personal and creative life.”
