Cross-Gender Shakespeare and English National Identity Wearing the Codpiece [Paperback]

This book examines contemporary female portrayals of male Shakespearean roles and shows how these performances invite audiences to think differently about Shakespeare, the English nation, and themselves.Introduction: Wearing the Codpiece The King's Many Bodies: Fiona Shaw's Richard II (1995-96) Playing With Contradictions: Kathryn Hunter's King Lear (1997) Gender in Exile: Vanessa Redgrave's Prospero in The Tempest (2000) Staging and Subverting Nostalgia: Dawn French's Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream (2001) Vice-Versa: All-Female Shakespeare at the Globe Theatre (2003-04)

Klett's timely, intelligent study addresses a decided gap in Shakespearean performance scholarship and identifies a new avenue of exploration in contemporary performance practices. - Cambridge University Press

Klett offers an accessible and engaging assessment of female-to-male cross-gender casting practices and English national identity in several contemporary performances of Shakespeare. Her discussion is admirable in its clarity and detailed attention to a range of performances and the discourses in which they participate. This book is a valuable resource for students interested in cross-gender casting practices and Shakespeare. - Catherine Silverstone, Lecturer in Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies, Queen Mary University of London

While much has been written about a resurgence of all-male productions of Shakespeare in the past two decades, scant attention has been paid to a parallel phenomenon, the casting of women in roles written for men and boys. In this volume Klett redresses that imbalance quite brilliantly. Surveying a number of important British productions during a crucial decade, from Deborah Warner's Richard II in 1995-96 to all-female stagings at the Globe in 2003-04, she explores the aesthetic and cultural work done by such cross-gendering of roles: how it disrupts conventional assumptions about theatrical mimesis and the perfl3x