Ella Loudon performs an array of Shakespearean women in Tina Packer's Women of Will.
Tina Packer’s Women of Will is meant to be an educational performance piece that explores Shakespeare’s trajectory as a writer through the lens of his female characters, diving into issues of gender and power. The piece has had various productions over the years and was published as a book in 2015 (subtitled Understanding Shakespeare’s Female Characters). Eric Tucker, the artistic director of Bedlam, who has directed the show before, now directs what he has referred to as Women of Will 2.0, for a limited engagement at the West End Theatre.
Packer is the founding artistic director of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., and was an associate artist with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has directed or acted in most of Shakespeare’s plays and taught them at universities. The show features two actors, formerly Packer herself and Nigel Gore; in this version, Gore returns, with Ella Loudon tasked with bringing to life an array of Shakespeare’s most enduring female characters, some universally known, others much less so: Lady Macbeth and Viola, on the one hand, and Elizabeth Woodville and Marina, on the other. The show is divided into five “chapters,” each meant to represent a new phase in Shakespeare’s career embodied by the women he wrote.
Loudon performs with Nigel Gore. Director Eric Tucker's conceit is that all the scenes should seem as though "spoken by one single couple."
Earlier productions included scenes from Shakespeare interspersed with analysis. In his New York Times review from 2013, Ben Brantley wrote, “The explanatory and expository sections between scenes—while packed with insight—are often stiff and windy, with lots of academic catchphrases. … And sometimes the scene-setting plot summary seems to go on for so long that you may [feel] like reversing Gertrude’s admonition to Polonius and calling out, ‘More art, with less matter.’”
This criticism may have led to the new and ultimately problematic choice to remove any analysis, context, or even basic set-up, and simply plow straight through the Shakespearean texts. The actors do not so much as pause while transitioning between scenes, moving, for example, straight into Viola’s “What country, friend, is this?” from Twelfth Night just as Romeo and Juliet finish their kiss; and while the transitions are meant to be accompanied by projections of the chapter titles, which include the play and character, the titles were partially illegible and also appeared well after the new scene had begun. In the press materials Tucker says the conceit is that scenes are “being spoken by one single couple,” but this doesn’t come through.
Anyone without a deep familiarity with the full Shakespeare canon is likely to struggle because of the breakneck speed, rapid shifting between characters and scenarios, textual mishmash, and the occasional obscurity of the material. Normally it would be a strength to highlight scenes from lesser-known plays, such as the Henry VI trilogy or the late co-authored romance Pericles. But if one doesn’t know Pericles, and suddenly Loudon and Gore are doing a snippet of the recognition scene from Act V, when Pericles realizes that he is speaking with his supposedly long-dead daughter Marina, what power will this have if the situation is opaque or nearly incomprehensible?
Gore was Packer's collaborator and co-star in the original show. Photographs by Ashley Garrett.
This show comes on the heels of Patrick Page’s 2023 one-man show on Shakespeare’s villains, All the Devils Are Here, which was rich with clarity and accessibility. Rather than simply performing Malvolio’s speech reacting to a forged love letter, for example, Page explained the background so the audience could understand the character’s reaction and its significance in the play.
Like Page, Loudon and Gore are experts at speaking Shakespeare’s language and toggle skillfully between characters and emotional states. But certain directorial choices serve more to muddle than clarify—such as rendering much of Macbeth in overlapping dialogue. Tucker’s style is bare-bones—he makes great use of two chairs to stage the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet (set design by Ashley Basile); but sometimes nonsensical flourishes seem to be injected to compensate for the sparse staging.
After the final scene has been performed, Tucker comes onstage to inform the audience that he and the actors will discuss the material in the show. Unfortunately, this explanation comes too late, and also is unscripted, so Tucker, Loudon, Gore, and musician Ari Livine chat about Shakespeare without any structure. Some of this is insightful, some of the claims dubious, some just off-the-cuff summaries. An attempt at analysis and context would be much more useful if scripted and woven into the show.
Packer’s original conceit is fascinating, and it’s always a pleasure to hear Shakespeare’s language spoken by proficient classical actors. Some of the individual scenes taken on their own are engagingly done. But without any signposts or moments to pause and reflect, this production comes across as “sound and fury” with little else.
Women of Will runs through Oct. 20 at West End Theatre (263 W 86th St.). Performance days and times vary. For tickets and more information, visit bedlam.org.
Creators: Tina Packer & Nigel Gore
Director: Eric Tucker
Accompaniment: Ari Livine
Lighting: Michael Palumbo
Sets: Ashley Basile
Costumes: Arthur Oliver
Projections & Sound Design: Eric Tucker
