Ms-Directing Shakespeare: Women Direct Shakespeare (review)

Ms-Directing Shakespeare: Women Direct Shakespeare by Elizabeth Schafer. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000, 274 pp., $24.95 hardcover.

In Ms-Directing Shakespeare, Elizabeth Schafer quickly acknowledges the explosive potentiality of the pun in her title:

In the context of this book, 'misdirecting' is often a positive term, as by 'misdirecting' or 'MsDirecting' and deviating from the norm, women directors are asserting their right to bring their own, very distinctive vision to the Shakespeare canon; a vision that is not only refreshing, but also reveals much about the social and political climates in which they work. (7)

Indeed, Schafer's book presents a collection of women directors who have asserted their right to direct Shakespeare despite the intimidation factor that often affects women working in classical drama. Opportunities to direct the high-status productions by the high-profile "Bard of Avon" have not always been forthcoming: only six women have ever directed Shakespeare on the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) mainstage at Stratford-upon-Avon. Nevertheless, the nine women directors interviewed by Elizabeth Schafer in Ms-Directing Shakespeare--Joan Littlewood, Jane Howell, Yvonne Brewster, Di Trevis, Jules Wright, Helena Kaut-Howson, Deborah Paige, Jude Kelly, and Gale Edwards--have substantial experience directing Shakespeare. Through their experience in sometimes controversial productions, in both prominent and obscure venues, including the RSC, these women have much to tell us about women directing Shakespeare today.

The interview as a format has a long history in theatrical writing; it seems to be the current practice in books on women directors. Both Helen Manfull's 1997 book, In Other Words: Women Directors Speak, and Rebecca Daniels's 1996, Women Stage Directors Speak, take this approach. While both include all types of plays, Manfull is concerned primarily with British directors and Daniels with American. Schafer, like Manfull, focuses on women directing on the British stage, with some forays into Australian productions. Unlike Manfull and Daniels, Schafer is interested only in the Shakespearean productions of her subjects. As Schafer says, because audiences are more familiar with Shakespeare's plays, "they will be more aware of directorial interventions in production than with new or lesser known works; this means that directorial function itself has a higher profile" (7). Thus the narrower range of production choices made by these women directors is illuminating in ways that might not be apparent in works with a wider focus.

Schafer divides her book into three parts. In part one, "The Ms-Directors," she asks the directors to discuss their Shakespeare productions in general, to comment on how they became directors (most were performers), to discuss gender stereotypes of female directors (more nurturing, less technically adept is most common), and to acknowledge female role models and mentors. Several of the younger directors cite Joan Littlewood, Schafer's first interviewee, as a significant mentor, though Littlewood herself barely mentions her productions of Shakespeare, and only one of her productions, Macbeth, is mentioned later in the book. One of the weaknesses of Ms-Directing Shakespeare is that Schafer never makes clear what her selection criteria are. Why these directors, rather than other women mentioned in Manfull who have been directing Shakespeare on the British stage? Schafer acknowledges that one prominent Shakespearean director, Deborah Warner, declined to be interviewed for the book. Some of her chosen directors are clearly feminists, but others seem to have scant interest in feminist issues.

Part two, "The Plays," is the strongest section of Schafer's book. Here she interviews the directors about specific plays, usually comparing three or four productions of the same play. Thus Di Trevis, Jude Kelly, and Gale Edwards have all directed feminist critiques of The Taming of the Shrew, each undercutting in various ways Katherine's submission to Petruchio, but the interviews make clear that each of these directors actually found the interpretative key to be the often-neglected Christopher Sly framework of the play. Di Trevis says, "With that very sadistic trick played on the poor...