Not Like ‘Night’ in Days of the Bard

In Shakespeare’s day, women were not allowed on stage; men played all roles, male and female. Since 1993, the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company has turned the tables with all-female productions, earning critical praise for many of its gutsy, true-to-the-Bard stagings of the classics.

The company’s family-friendly “Twelfth Night,” beginning tonight, marks the revival of free al fresco Shakespeare at the John Anson Ford Amphitheater.

The comic island idyll about shipwrecked Viola, who enters an enemy duke’s service disguised as a man, falls for him and in turn is pursued as a man by an amorous countess, already mixes gender identification. With women in every role, it gets an added tweak.

The performance also is the company’s first full Equity production and a first for artistic director Lisa Wolpe, who takes on the part of Viola after winning high praise for her portrayals of Richard III, Romeo, Hamlet and other male roles.

“It’s a personal challenge,” she says, laughing. “I’ve never played a woman for my company.”

Question: Why did you choose to do “Twelfth Night”?

Answer: I think that a comedy is really appealing to audiences. And it’s a real gem. It’s beautifully crafted, one of his best plays. And it has in it some interesting gender-bending that I think makes sense for an all-female company.

Q: What if people come expecting gimmick theater?

A: They’ll be disappointed, I think. What we have is a gorgeous telling of Shakespeare’s play with a high degree of spectacle. We have puppets, live musicians, a huge cast, a lavish set and gorgeous costumes. It’s absolutely great entertainment for kids and for families, for people of every age.

But I think you do get a subtle message of empowerment when you see that the whole story is being told by women. That’s important to note. And that it’s not an all-white cast. As usual, we have a nice representation of the community that we live in.

Q: You work to ensure that the male characters are straightforward, not campy. Now you’re playing a woman who’s pretending to be a man. Will you play the masquerade as you ordinarily would play a male role?

A: It’s tricky. I feel more vulnerable than I ever have, because I have to let everyone else be stronger than I am. At the same time, I’m producing, directing and playing the lead, so it’s an interesting way to be a woman in the world.

Q: How do you inhabit a male character?

A: We do physical and emotional explorations. We re-imagine our hands, our body hair, our genitals, our posture, our sociopolitical import, the amount of space we take up. How we focus directly like a hunter on prey, or with the more diffuse focus, which is more [a caregiver’s] awareness.

Q: What do you try to avoid?

A: We don’t ask them to substantially change the placement of their voices. We ask them not to do broad-stroke, stereotypical caricature but to find the soul of a character and how it resonates with their own life experience.

Q: There are women in your company with very female figures . . .

A: That’s true [she laughs].

Q: . . . and they’re wearing a beard or a mustache and. . . .

A: And you still see their breasts. Well, I think that’s partly the fun of theater. We do costuming that’s transformative, cross-gender, but we don’t take it to the nth degree. Subtlety is what we’re after, subtlety and truthfulness.

Q: Do you find that the plays change with all-women casts?

A: I hope they do. I think that the audience listens with a keener ear, because they don’t expect stereotypical behavior when a woman is in that position. For instance, when Fran Bennett was playing Othello [in a previous women’s company production] and she raised her hand to hit Desdemona, the audience was leaning forward in their seats. When a man slaps a woman as part of the story of Othello, it’s [less surprising].

But I don’t ever take the position of, “Let me have a strong feminist hammer so that I can show you how glib and unseeing men are,” because I don’t think that’s interesting or true.

Q: It wouldn’t be true to the characters.

A: No, and it wouldn’t be true to men--when you start walking a mile in their shoes, you start to see how vulnerable they are, how complex their choices are.

Q: Are love scenes problematic in maintaining the illusion?

A: I don’t think so. In “Romeo and Juliet,” their hottest language is when she’s on a balcony 15 feet above his head. For me that’s key: The language carries the intimacy and the passion. It’s always the geography of the soul, rather than a kitchen-sink drama about bodies and this moment in time.

Maybe that’s why people are coming back to Shakespeare, because there’s so little poetry of that depth available in the culture.

Q: What does it mean as an artist to be able to play these roles?

A: I can’t tell you how it’s changed my life. Before I had this 10 years of experience, I didn’t know where I could go. Women’s roles were victim, wife, lover--there was no real story or revelation of self. Now I feel that I’ve had a chance to really grow, and all the other women with me too.

BE THERE

“Twelfth Night,” John Anson Ford Amphitheater, 2580 Cahuenga Blvd. E., Hollywood. Thursdays-Sundays, 8 p.m. Ends June 25. Free; reservations advised. (323) 461-3673.