SAN DIEGO — Last Friday, I popped into the office of San Diego Junior Theatre (based in Casa del Prado in Balboa Park) to say hello to their Artistic Director, Desha Crownover. She was both excited and exhausted about opening night of their “gender fluid” production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. Having written about issues related to gender identity before, I smelled a story.
I’m not going to critique their performance as I would seasoned professionals. These are kids. They’re works in progress. But with their progress, I was impressed. These young performers displayed a poise, maturity, articulation, and emotional intelligence beyond their years while retaining the bright-eyed vivacity, silliness, and thirst for fun that are the hallmarks of youth.
Gender-bending is nothing new in Shakespeare. Twelfth Night features Viola, a young woman who is rescued from a shipwreck. Lost and alone in a strange land, she feels vulnerable. For protection, she disguises herself as a boy, Cesario and gains employment from the local Duke, Orsino. Orsino sends “Cesario” with love poems to woo Lady Olivia, who is just not into him. Then Viola falls in love with Orsino and Olivia falls in love with Viola, but neither of these loves can be expressed or returned because “Cesario” is not really who he appears to be.
In Shakespeare’s day, Puritans found it unseemly to have a woman appear onstage. So the Bard kept female roles to a minimum. Romantic roles like Juliet and Ophelia were played by teenage boys whose beards had not yet sprouted. So back in the day, Viola was played by a boy portraying a girl who was disguised as a boy.
In later generations, many strong female actors were not satisfied with the female roles Shakespeare’s Folio had to offer. In the 19th century, Sarah Bernhardt played the title role of Hamlet. While one female critic praised her “mystical androgyny” a male critic was scandalized.
“One never ceased to forget –even for a moment- that this She-Hamlet was a woman, and this woman a Jewess and this Jewess a French Jewess.”
Today, most drama clubs and junior theatres have far more girls than boys. So many roles are cross cast. But what’s new today is the conversation surrounding gender identity. To facilitate this conversation, they brought in Cris Sotomayor as a consultant from The Center in Hillcrest.
Gaia was surprised to be cast as Sir Toby Belch. She asked the director, Justin Lang, “What’s going on? Am I playing a man or a woman?” He left it up to her and she found it very freeing to play the role not as a binary gender but as something in between.
Seth, who played Duke Orsino, said, “I don’t want to sound like a jerk, but I didn’t know anything about [gender identity issues] before we started.” Well, I would say to him that he’s not a jerk. He’s a kid navigating his way through a complex world. A jerk says, “All that I think I know is all that I need to know.” But Seth came in with an attitude that said, “Teach me. Help me to grow.” And that is the attitude of a bright young person full of promise.
Sotomayor said of these kids, “Y’all give me hope for the future.” Amen.
G-d knows we could all use more of that.
San Diego Junior Theatre’s production of Twelfth Night plays through Sunday, Jan. 19, at the Casa del Prado in Balboa Park.
*
Eric George Tauber is a freelance writer specializing in coverage of the arts. He may be contacted via eric.tauber@sdjewishworld.com