The State of Play

THIS HAPPY BREED by Noel Coward. MAN IN THE MOON

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

JULIA MUNROW ( Ethel Gibbons) JAN SHEPHERD (Sylvia Gibbons) Both actors are members of Effemera’s Core Company.

‘Helen Alexander has worked wonders with a cast of eleven, and a budget of next to nothing’ SHERIDAN MORLEY

‘This revival does its author’s reputation proud. Creative direction by Helen Alexander… spot on costumes and set design… superbly cast & talented group of professionals.’

ALEXIA LOUNDRAS – TIME OUT

Women performers, of all orientations, ethnic & cultural backgrounds, including those with disabilities, the post-menopausal, and those who multitask career with parenthood; still hover below the glass ceiling when it comes to employment in the dramatic arts.

Just as significantly, or perhaps even more importantly, FEMALE CHARACTERS; their relationships with each other, and their function and value to society; are still under-represented in drama. This is particularly significant in theatre, where the classics are most performed. Viewing gender through a Tudor, Stuart, Georgian, Victorian, or Edwardian dramatic lens, presents audiences with prejudicial and mathematical distortions.

Even in the most inspired and literary masterpieces, scenarios are being played out, where women make up one quarter (or less) of the populace. Groups of more than three are rare; and many female classical roles are entirely made up of interactions with male characters, ergo – little or no dialogue with other women!

This may appear insignificant, but it feeds an insidious message to audiences, that women’s relationships with each other have no collective function, and that all important matters have always been dealt with only by men. It’s easy to believe that this was actually the case in centuries gone by, but there is more and more historical and archaeological evidence that women throughout history have had significant influence, for better or worse, in social cohesion, language, literature, art, crafts, agriculture, industry, sport, politics, medicine, crime & justice, war and peace. And more! Love, hate, jealousy, spite, compassion & cruelty, intellect & stupidity – and on, and on…

MAN OF MODE George Etheredge – The Academy

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

Several roles regendered or cross-cast

EMILY ALLEN (Emelia)

I wonder if anyone has ever assessed what proportion of the regular revivals we see on UK stages are led from the perspective of a dominant male character? With a rival? – and a trusted best friend? Oh - and of course, a gorgeous love interest.

Most leading ladies seem to be required to have sexual or romantic allure as one of their most significant characteristics, leading, all too frequently, to picture-perfect casting, in sometimes one-dimensional roles, and so, feeding the subconscious notion that, for women, and girls, beauty genes are the only, absolute gateway to success, sometimes via ‘the casting couch’. This has the effect of subtly rubber-stamping the audience’s objectification of the character, and by extension, the actor too. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with beauty per se: it’s an interesting subject in itself. All animals, including the human genus, are biologically programmed to be attracted to healthy (beautiful) mates. It’s hardly surprising then, that classically ‘desirable’ alpha females, feature so predominantly in leading roles, or that, all too often, their primary objective is the seduction of a spouse; but these criteria don’t necessarily apply to leading male characters! This is particularly worrying when it applies to dramas, films and animations targeted at child audience members. Surely, it's just a chauvinistic convention, waiting to be challenged?

It shouldn’t be ignored either, that a large proportion of female roles; viewed through that ever-popular classical lens; encapsulate servitude, or victimhood at the mercy of the men they’re closest to, the property of men, with little or no rights, means, independence – stage presence - or lines! Sure, that fiction is based on social history, but in reality, did women always take it, lying down? Were not the roots of feminism germinating well before the Suffrage movement took to the stage? Were not individual women as full of desires, ambition and purpose as we are today? Even though they sometimes must have failed, are not their perspectives to be shared?

And what about the dramas of working class women? - the peasants, the labourers, the slaves, the uneducated – the majority? Where are they in the annals of dramatic history? The numbers simply don’t stack up - particularly not in theatre.

It can’t be denied that in many cultures, even now, women are only just gaining permission to climb out of the mire, and in some parts of the world, women are still suffocating within it. In the UK, the school history syllabus ignores slavery, in favour of the conquests of ancient Kings. If humanity is ever to escape the deep-rooted prejudices of our ancestors, drama itself needs to become one of the major tools for re-examination of our gender-discrepant values.

Contemporary writing is, of course, redrawing the numbers ratio to some extent. But the majority of new plays cover contemporary stories/issues. How many set out to make visible, the women of history? Given the size, and quality, of the extant canon of male-dominated dramaturgy; it could take centuries to redress the balance, even if every single new ‘period’ style script has a majority of female characters, and all are linguistically phenomenal enough to rival Shakespeare in rep-season planning by the time they classify as ‘vintage’. So, if new scripts are only part of the solution, what are the options for rapid, wholesale change?

JULIA CAESAR William Shakespeare – Actors’ Institute

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

All female production - male roles regendered.

JANE DUKE, CLARE PETRE, CATHERINE EAGLESTONE, ADEOLA AGBEBIYI, VICKIE HOLDEN

While Cassandra plots to murder Caesar, her exploited factory-workers wring necks, behead, pluck feathers, gut & stuff chickens, to a clucking soundtrack.

Tightening Up the Nuts and Bolts

Two major surveys were undertaken in 2021, by a collection of feminist organisations (including Sphinx Theatre and Equity) - ‘The Women in Theatre Survey’ and ‘Women in Theatre Forum Report’. (Full transcripts of these reports are available to read @ sphinxtheatre.co.uk) Their conclusions are depressingly similar to those reported by Professor Helen Thomas of Goldsmiths University around 1990/95?, with women making up on average, approximately 30% of the theatre workforce. Both these new surveys have summed up with a plan of action, including recommendations for The Arts Council. It remains to be seen whether they will be acted upon. These valuable reports focus primarily on the present, and the employment of women throughout the industry in the future.

But what about female and male role-ratios in the recent past? Although accurate statistics are hard to come by, it’s hard to imagine that even one of the major production companies (excluding the odd musical producer) has EVER presented more than 50% female characters, in ANY season since their inception. Indeed, it wouldn’t be unrealistic to speculate that some have never exceeded 30 percent. And how does that divide up in terms of ‘leading’, ‘supporting’ and ‘walk-on’ roles?? Unmonitored!

Even given that some new plays are more representative, it can’t be ignored that employment of actors is a theatre company’s major expense, and that plays that require only small casts are more cost effective to produce. It stands to reason then, that an Artistic Director, having to stretch a tight budget across a mixed classical/modern season, is inclined to opt for smaller cast numbers in their contemporary productions, and cut (irrelevant?) characters from classical pieces. Another factor to take into consideration is the value of ‘through-casting’ one company of actors, in that season. This policy does have many practical advantages, to directors, actors and budgets alike. But since the starting point for assembling that company, is likely to be a large-cast classical piece with a disproportionate gender-ratio; the selection of the accompanying modern plays, to fit those same actors, would be gender-restricted too – unless a very pro-active gender balance policy is implemented by the production company, or imposed upon them by funding bodies, or by statutory legislation.

MY SISTER IN THIS HOUSE Wendy Kesselman

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

Based on a true crime committed in 1933 by sisters Christine & Lea Pepin

MY SISTER IN THIS HOUSE (Strangling).jpg

LIZ FENTON (Mme Danzard)

PETRINA BLACKBURN (Christine Lutton)

“the production is full of surprises: charming, romantic and enticingly funny, yet laden with fascinating emotional cruelty” GAZETTE

A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS Alan Ayckbourn – Academy Drama School Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

A SMALL FAMILY BUSINESS (Detective ambus

PHILLIPA HULL (Tina) BASSI NUSHIMBA (Detective)

JULIA DAMASSA (Poppy)

It may be an uncomfortable truth, but if it weren’t for THE EQUALITIES COMMISSION, steadfastly placing those formerly under-represented people, classified as minorities (BAME, LGBT, disabled) front and centre in the media, & arts employment law, for the past couple of decades; maybe we’d all still be watching stages filled with, white, able-bodied, heterosexual, male characters. We’re not. Things have been changing, but not so much for those at the female end of the spectrum – women, of all hues and cultures, orientations, able-bodied & disabled, and those at various stages of transition. The Equalities Commission really ought to be redrawing their policy and living up to their name over this. Stage and screen alike, must, urgently begin to reflect a gender-ratio reality, as well as continuing to improve the balance of representation for minorities.

To date, ARTS COUNCIL ENGLAND appear to have no policy for monitoring how many male and female performers (including musicians) have been employed by the grants they have distributed, or how many female CHARACTERS have been portrayed - (by women). Nor have they introduced compulsory pro-active-policy criteria for new applicants, or ongoing support. There is no arts funding ring-fenced for those organisations aiming to redress this indisputable imbalance. The status quo perpetuates the problem. (I’ve no current information regarding AC Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland).

I wonder what the herstorian feminists of the future will make of early 21st century theatre’s turgid lack of engagement with this issue?

In fact, my own tiny survey in 2007, which involved sending forms to about 60 of the funded repertory companies in the UK and ROI, in order to identify the ratio of f/m characters they had presented in the previous three years; (30% respondents) revealed a problematic oversight in how those theatres gathered their data. It appeared that the statutory requirements for monitoring (BAME, LGBT, disability, age groups etc) allowed for it to be conducted collecting statistics only from their all-department employment records, with no regard for the gender ratio of the characters they present on stage. When you take into consideration that these statistics include stage-management departments, wardrobe, hair & make-up, along with front-of-house, box-office and bar staff (many of whom are day-jobbing actors) it’s pretty obvious how misrepresentative this process of monitoring is; and how unconcerned their artistic programming was, with the presentation of female characters, or women’s stories.

Theatre producers really should be required to monitor the numbers of female, male & ‘minority’ - lead, supporting, and walk-on roles, represented in every production. This would cost next to nothing, be only a few minutes work, ticking boxes in a uniform e-document (provided by the Arts Council?) who, (along with the Equalities Commission?) could collate copies; and this would provide a key reference for future planning meetings, and funding applications.

The real trick is to make the ACE & EC decision-makers, listen! To persuade the unfunded, unregulated West-End production companies. But if you’re a mouse, squeaking in the woodwork, its likely you’ll be regarded as nothing more than a minor nuisance. Celebrity campaigners would be noticeable, and respected, a gift to the media! – but honestly – not really the voice of the under-represented. It’s the mouse who should be heard. We need to squeak louder! Roar, like lionesses! We need visibility, tactical strategies, emails and blogging and podcasts, The One Show, Loose Women, new scripts and classical adaptations, profit-share productions with microscopic budgets; and in another 30 years, when the next industry survey is published, maybe, just maybe, one or two of the big producers just might do the odd season with 70% women on the stage.

THIS HAPPY BREED Noel Coward – Man in the Moon Theatre

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

Based on Coward’s memories of his own family’s struggles, post-WWI.

CHARLIE HAYDN (Sam)

JAN SHEPHERD (Sylvia Gibbons)

‘Helen A has worked wonders with a cast of eleven on a budget of less than nothing’ SHERIDAN MORLEY

‘This revival does its author’s reputation proud. Creative direction from Helen Alexander …spot on costumes & set design …superbly cast & talented group of professionals’ ALEXIA LOUNDRAS, TIME OUT

LOVE’S LADIES LOST Shakespeare - Academy Drama School

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

100% regendered

LOVE'S LADIES LOST (Lavinia & Dumaine).jpg

ELIZABETH ELSTUB (Lavinia – formerly Longaville)

MELANIE GOVIA (Dumaine formerly Dumain)

Regendering the Bard

I’ve spent much of my career, teaching and directing adult students in Drama Schools, where the gender balance is the reverse of the industry. While casting them for Shakespeare productions, I made a point of addressing the standard gender imbalance that female actors, students and professionals, avid devotees of The Bard, have to face, have had to face, and will continue to face, as long as casting and adaptation of his eternally beautiful work, is restricted by a safety net of convention.

Years ago, I opted, as many of my teaching peers have done, for ‘cross-casting’ some roles in these productions, but this in itself, still presents women actors as male characters, which requires ‘suspension of disbelief’ from the audience, and does nothing to level the playing field. Although this approach can prove an interesting acting challenge to individual students, it might also be regarded as patronising; so I opted more and more for ‘regendering’, (A term I invented, to define the process of rewriting the gender of characters at script level, so as not to be confused with the term cross-casting). I’d spend my unpaid holiday time, adapting scripts; tweaking names and titles, reversing pronouns and adjectives – she for he, my lord for lady, wench for fellow, bodice for doublet, and vice versa; in order to best represent the cross section of students in any given group.

I produced LOVE’S LADIES LOST, a one hundred percent regendered version of Love’s Labours, a play in in which gender prejudice plays a major part. Four women students, their teachers and staff, share a feminist commune, opting to avoid men, and study for three years. Of course, this all goes tits up when a famous hippie rock band turn up to discuss a concert!

JULIA CAESAR, was an all female production, set in contemporary Rome, where rival Mafia families are, actually now run by the widows and sisters of murdered and imprisoned gangster ‘Dons’.

Also, ROMEA AND JULIUS, which features Romea gatecrashing her Aunt’s party, with her best friends, Benvolia & Mercutia, before wistfully flirting with the apron-stringed youth, Julius at his balcony. It added a wry level of humour to the romance, particularly when poor teenage, Julius is forced to listen to his drunken Nurse discussing his breast-feeding regimen (Nursie was conventionally cast).

A Japanese couple, who came to see ROMEA AND JULIUS told me after the show that R&J was their favourite play, that they’d seen many productions, and they loved our version! So much so, that they bought tickets to re-watch it again the following night!

I’ve directed one third of the Shakespeare canon, and not one of those productions was conventionally cast. I’ve come to the conclusion that regendering would provide an almost infinite portfolio of possibilities, just in Shakespeare’s great works alone, and for any play now out of copyright.

Cross-casting too, can be used as an illustrative medium, to draw attention to misogyny.

JULIA CAESAR William Shakespeare – Actors’ Institute

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

All female production - male roles regendered female.

LISA RATNER (Casandra formerly Casius)

VICKIE HOLDEN (Casca)

SAINT JOAN Bernard Shaw – CHELSEA CENTRE THEATRE

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

100% cross-cast production

With a professional profit-share Company, I negotiated the right to do a 100% cross-cast production of Shaw’s SAINT JOAN, with Joan being played by a male actor, and all those men she fought alongside, and who tried her for heresy, played by women. It was warmly received by members of The Shaw Society, who invited me to make a presentation to them. I was interviewed about it on BBC World Service Radio, also by Gavin Esler on Newsnight, and by Jenni Murray, on ‘Women’s Hour’. When Jenni’s secretary called to invite me on, she asked who I’d suggest to be a counterpoint in the debate. At that stage, Mark Rylance was AD of Shakespeare’s Globe, overseeing an authentic artistic programme of all male productions. I didn’t really imagine he’d turn up to discuss gender balance – but he did, and both he and Jenni came to watch Saint Joan. Her response was ‘The cross-casting really drew attention to the gender issues within the play’. Mark commented ‘You’ve given me something to think about’, and the next season, The Women’s Company was introduced at The Globe. None of the Saint Joan cast were offered auditions.

Three years later, the Women’s Company was disbanded by the next Artistic Director, Dominic Dromgoole, who opted for standard three or four-to-one conventional casting of productions. When I confronted him about this choice, he cited the Globe’s reliance on international tourism, and the ticket-buyers’ expectation of ‘authenticity’.

VIVIEN J GREGORY (Bertrand De Poulangey)

“You’ve given me something to think about” MARK RYLANCE

The Authenticity Trap

Classical drama (particularly Shakespeare) is, of course, and always will be, glorious entertainment and of enormous literary and sociological value. The artisans of today though, should be aware of, and beware of, Queen Mary the first’s anti-actress law, and her potent influence on the crucible of dramatic output, even today.

All Tudor and Jacobean women characters were originally cross-cast, written for, and played by the limited number of high-voiced, stubble-free, apprentice boys available to the company playwright; some of whom would have lacked the experience and skill to play large or leading roles. Even today there’s a fashion for ‘authentic’ all-male productions, but it was prejudice then, and its prejudice now.

My article ‘The Authenticity Trap’ was published in the Guardian newspaper and the Equity Journal, in 1995, the same year that Complicite cast the remarkable Kathryn Hunter as King Lear at The Young Vic, and Deborah Warner presented Fiona Shaw as King Richard II, at The National. Two exceptional productions, both, otherwise conventionally cast. But at last, it seemed, the first cracks had been opened in the glass ceiling! Those unwritten ‘authenticity’ laws, based on an almost biblical reverence for the Bard, were being broken. Tudor ‘norms’ were going to become a thing of the past!

Or were they? I’d imagined a rapid momentum, towards a future, where the biggest, best funded theatres, risk flying in the face of convention, with a Queen Lear, and a girl-Fool, wandering the gale-tormented heath; rival sisters, Edwina & Edna, Goneril married to a wife. A time when theatre programmers no longer bow their collective heads in supplication to the ‘authenticity’ of fictional royal histories; and games of Amazon thrones are played out in parallel universes. Nearly three decades on… ‘And hey ho, the wind and the rain…, For the rain it raineth every day’.

LOVE’S LADIES LOST Shakespeare – Upstart Crows

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

Regendered

REBECCA WIELAND (Antonia Dull, formerly Anthony)

STEPHANIE TOGHILL (Costard)

JULIA CAESAR Shakespeare - Actors’ Institute

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

All female cast – men’s roles regendered

VICKIE HOLDEN (Casca, a journalist)

KATE MAGOWAN (Beatrice, formerly Brutus)

Set in contemporary Rome, where rival Mafia families are actually now run by the wives, widows & sisters of murdered & imprisoned ‘Dons’

Its true, there’ve been a few all-female productions in mainstream theatre since then, and no doubt many profit-sharing fringe versions, but as far as I know, regendering is just a distant fantasy. Could that be because, going the ‘whole hog’ would be seen as non-authentic, and counterproductive in terms of popularity?

Not if it’s a brilliantly directed production, full of brilliant ideas, with brilliant performers, presenting brilliantly imaginative, three-dimensional characters… and isn’t that, after-all, what we’re all striving for?

What ‘authenticity’ would have been handed down through time to us, had Mary Tudor herself been keen to tread the boards? If The Chamberlain’s Men had included women? If Shakespeare had also been able to write for, and at the behest of - Mistress Lumley, Mistress Okonedo, Mistrss Greig, Mistrss Syal, Mistrss Unknown, Mistrss Overlooked, Mistrss Newcomer, Madame La Difference, Signoria Songstress, Jo Soap and three or four apprentice girls? The possibilities are endless!

As I recollect, an old statistic, given to me by Muriel Romanes, former AD of Stellar Quines Theatre Co, Edinburgh; nearly 80% of theatre tickets are purchased by women. Oh sure, they bring along their male friends and family members, but one doesn’t need to do a head count if one looks around the average auditorium, just before the lights go down, to see that women audience members predominate, and particularly, shall I call them, ‘women of maturity’ - a proportion of whom, no doubt, are ‘also-rans’ - professional actors who never managed to climb out of the fringe, now retired from their ‘money’ jobs, still hankering after their swan-song; who by now, have watched any number of “As You’re Expected To Like Its” and “Domesticating The Shrews” I suspect that collectively they might revel in much more dynamic risk taking!

I believe the answer to equitable involvement for women actors, and balanced, de-stereotyping of female characters in classical productions, is to throw the rule-book of convention to the winds, and get regendering!

LOVE’S LADIES LOST Shakespeare – Academy Drama School

Directed by Helen Alexander

100% regendered

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

What about those hidden women? Throughout history. The ones who were unpenned, un-recognised, undervalued, disrespected – ignored? The ones that couldn’t be written about by women themselves, because of prejudice, and because their education, such that it was, was almost invariably interrupted, or even terminated, at the onset of messy, ‘period-style’ menstruation. A situation that sadly exists even today in schools in ‘the developing world’. There’s a vast wealth of herstorian material out there, both factual and fictional just waiting to be written – including sequels, prequels, parallels and adaptations.

CELINE PAPILLON (Prof Holofernesse portraying Judith of Bethulia)

EMMA LEWIS (Moth portraying Cleopatra)

The ‘play within the play’ was a portrayal of the regendered ‘Worthies’ including a sword fight between JOAN LA PUCELLE (formerly Hector of Troy) and BOUDICCA THE BOLD (formerly Pompey the Great) also HIPPOLYTA (Alexander) JUDITH OF BETHULIA (Judas Maccabeus) & CLEOPATRA (Hercules)

THE NEXT STAGE

I believe that our collective quest for gequality, both in the theatre industry, and in the society it serves and influences, would be best actuated by a double-pronged approach. Yes, of course, to advocate for a gender-balanced future, in respect of women’s employment, but also for Funders and Artistic Directors alike to acknowledge their responsibility to audiences and society, in programming projects and seasons which include herstory.

LOVE’S LADIES LOST Shakespeare – Academy Drama School

Directed by HELEN ALEXANDER

100% regendered - Male to Female & Female to Male

CLAIRE MECZES (Boyette, formerly Boyet – the roadie) GARY AULT (Prince of France, formerly Princess) ANTHONY OXFORD (Roussillon, formerly Rosaline) LOUIS BRETT (Mario, formerly Maria) ELLIOT JAMES (Kasparin, formerly Katharine)

Post Script

To be fair to the men, students and professionals, who’ve been cross-cast or regendered in my productions, they’ve been universally supportive of the feminist principles I’ve applied in casting them. None more so than Gary Ault, Anthony Oxford, Louis Brett & Elliot James, who played The Band in Love’s Ladies Lost at The Academy.

Set in 1970, at the height of the Women’s Liberation Movement, I decided to set each of the three women’s love-letter sonnets to music (The Carnival is Over, Honkey Tonk Woman & Windmills of Your Mind). I spent a whole Sunday, singing Shakespeare’s ‘lyrics’ to track after track, to find music that worked for each character and verse metre.

When I revealed this to the cast, the women were delighted. The men – really disappointed! ‘We’re the band – we should have a song!’ Well, I had to agree, but there was a problem. All their dialogue, originally written for female characters, was single-line interactive, with their (originally male) counterparts. Nothing which could be used as song lyrics. So we reached a compromise. I asked them to look through the Shakespeare song book and find a song from one of his other plays, expecting to then spend several hours tracking down music for whatever they’d chosen.

But I didn’t need to – a few days later, they turned up to rehearsal with guitars and bongos, saying ‘We’ve got something for you to listen to’, I was blown away! They’d chosen ‘Take Oh Take Those Lips Away’, from Measure for Measure, and set it to ‘Come Up and See Me, Make Me Smile’ by Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. It was brilliant! And they got well deserved standing ovations for each of the three performances they did.