REVIEW: THE LOVES OF SHAKESPEARE'S WOMEN

Susannah York clearly loves Shakespeare. The care she takes with the language, the emotion, the details can only come from a deep reverence for the beautiful poetry he created. And in The Loves of Shakespeare's Women, she gets to indulge in fourteen monologues and soliloquies and three sonnets, letting us see a true master of the form at work.

There are two fatal flaws in the show's concept, however. For one, Ms. York limits herself to monologues and scenes about love in its many forms: romantic, parental, patriotic, selfish, &c. The other problem is that Shakespeare did not write very many monologues and soliloquies for women– at least, not enough for a full-length play, and not very many that are exclusively about love. To get around this problem, York has edited multi-charactered scenes into monologues, which often weakens the moment depicted. A scene takes its energy from each character involved, and when the other characters are cut away, the moment is so much less for it. For example, Lady Macbeth is a wonderfully written character, and I would dearly love to see Ms. York play her in a full production of the play. But seeing her perform only half of Lady M's first scene with Macbeth does not fill us with the proper horror the moment needs to convey. With no Macbeth there to react to his wife's murderous ideas, the intensity is diluted, and such is the fate of many of adapted scenes. They aren't exactly bad, especially not with someone as gifted as Ms. York performing them, but they don't have the strength they could.

The monologues and soliloquies, on the other hand– the true ones, performed as written– are, for the most part, magnificent. The limitation on only using moments dealing with love makes for some odd choices, but Ms. York is makes them work. Particularly breathtaking is her performance as the heartbroken Constance from King John– full of rage, grief, and passion, Ms. York gives us the very essence of this crushed woman, and the moment is horrifying and chilling.

Ms. York intersperses stories of her own career with the excerpts, sharing humourous anecdotes and explaining what each piece means to her both personally and professionally. Her love affair with Shakespeare goes back to childhood, but is only coming to its full fruition now. And we are the luckier for it. It is a true treat to hear such an accomplished performer take such joy in her work, and if the play is uneven, the moments that work are stronger than those that don't.

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