Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)
University of Guelph Mainstage presents play by Ann Marie MacDonald
Last week, the School of English and Theatre Studies staged an existential crisis that changed the way I watch Shakespeare.
Students from production and performance classes brought to life the play Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)by Ann Marie MacDonald.
Although the title would imply that some knowledge of Shakespeare’s Othello and Romeo and Juliet would be necessary, that was not the case. Kennedy Thompson, who played the main character, Constance Ledbelly, and cast made the audience laugh until we had to squeeze our knees together.
The play snatches the protagonist, Constance, and places her in the world of Shakespeare. Before she was the protagonist, she was an assistant professor at Queens University. All the tri-colour in the world could not help her gain a better station in her career or within the heart of the professor she worked for. Very quickly, it’s made clear that this is not the world that the Bard of Avon created. For comparison, the play shows the same events multiple times, once through a traditional lens and then through the mind of Constance. With her interpretation comes the quirky and emotional projection of her own thoughts and feelings. Desdemona, who was brought to life by Gracie James, is suddenly more powerful and carries an air of dominance, while originally in Othello, these qualities are nonexistent.
Courtesy of MainStage.
Deftly directed and inspiringly acted, Anne Marie Macdonald’s Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) was brought to hilarious and subtext-heavy life by the University of Guelph’s Mainstage Productions.
Deftly directed and inspiringly acted, Anne Marie Macdonald’s Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) was brought to hilarious and subtext-heavy life by the University of Guelph’s Mainstage Productions.
This piece embraced the script, but directors Scott Duchesne and Sarah Bannister brought their own additions to the original.
“I think there is a tendency towards farce, we just amped it up,” said Duchesne, one of the co-directors. “My tendency is to… try and find every funny moment that you possibly can. If there is a moment that can be funnier that’s great [...].”
If you are a fan of Monty Python and farcical comedy, you could enjoy this play as a rowdy treat even without the humanist subtext. Akin to Shakespeare’s plays, you have the option to opt in to see the greater themes of feminism, sexuality, and duality, or take the laughs at face value and go with it. Unfortunately, this play, because of the added level of farce and antics, makes it less appealing to opt in. Themes are plenty and there is much to critically perceive, but trying to build an understanding of how the play is about personal liberation is difficult when you’re laughing through tears. Alexander Wight was just too funny. Wight should drop out, start his own Python-esque troupe, and call it a day.
Gordon Harper is the real one to worry about in this play. Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is famed for having only five cast members and 16 characters. Harper, who plays Romeo, Iago, Chorus, and Ghost, succeeds with great zeal by splitting his entirety and augmenting each character. He is practically the horcruxed Lord Voldemort of stage play, all the while balancing buckets of disgusting. Each character stands alone with their own personality and creepy motivations.
None of the antics or office awkwardness would have been possible if it wasn’t for the brilliant set design, props, and costumes. Nearly explosive turtles, accurate timepieces, and a head that appears from a garbage can, were a few effects that brought the show together.
Past all of the comedic fare offered by this production is a story of equality and liberation. In this world, Juliet is a personification of Constance’s own sexual frustration and needs. Juliet was expertly played by Elizabeth Richardson, who delivered the dirtiest jokes from the youngest character. She brought out the true spirit of an almost-14-year-old. Brace yourself, parents, but your young teens talk about sex all the time even if they have no idea what they are talking about. It is this same pent up and juvenile longing that resides inside of Constance. The 37-year-old relativist succumbed to the pressure and was about to hop in bed with Juliet. If that’s wild in Constance’s mind then look out for the continuing Juliet suicide joke. Alas, this was all (suicide jokes excluded) a step towards Constance’s own personal, sexual liberation.
“We started the play with the idea that the entirety of the show is like The Wizard of Oz. Even though it might have happened in my head, still the journey was real to me,” said Thompson, about her portrayal of the character Constance. “All of the characters represented different elements of my subconscious”.
Thompson was able to take Constance and imbue her with qualities of her own person. This equated to a very real and honest representation of Constance. Even when it felt like the comedy was impeding the undertones of play, Thompson shone through with her down to earth character portrayal and quirkiness. Constance is a relatable character; sometimes, all we want to do is finger eat Velveeta and live out our days with our cats, but we must find our own liberation.
Dave and I saw the show three times, and during the intermission on opening night, Canadian comedy icon Ron James (about as famous as a Canadian can get without hitting the big time outside Canada) was buying some concession snacks and then went to introduce himself to the play's director as "Gracie's father" (Gracie is on the right above). After the play, the director, Scott, went to the green room and said, "Um, Gracie, your Dad is Ron James."
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She replied, "Yeah, he is."
"And you never told us," said Scott.
"Well," said Gracie, "there's never really a good opportunity to blurt out 'By the way, guys, my Dad's kind of famous...'"
As the Bard might say: Touché.
And it also needs to be said that, although Gracie is a Psych major who took this course for fun, she has an amazing stage presence and a real gift for comedy. Dave declared she was "grounded" and had "chops".
Ken took his whole family to see the show one night, so beforehand, Ella had asked me what the play was about. I explained that Kennedy is a professor who is writing a paper on Shakespeare and wants to prove that Romeo and Juliet and Othello were stolen from earlier works, and by removing a Fool character, Shakespeare turned comedies into tragedies. Because they are kids and seeing their first adult-themed play (OK, Ella did go to Man of Mode last year; my concerns were really about Conor), I decided to warn them that the play is funny but don't be surprised when there are girls kissing girls and boys chasing boys.
Conor, 12, made a mock-horrified face, pointed at me and said, "G-g-g-g-gay...g-gay..."
I scowled at him (even though I knew he was teasing and trying to impress me with his street-savvy) and said, "Yeah. That's why I'm warning you. That would be inappropriate for you to do during the play."
And before Conor could protest, Ella, 10, piped up from behind us with, "And besides, Conor, when it's a girl and a girl it's called lesbian."
I don't know why I thought for a second that anything would go over their heads...
When Dave and I attended the final performance, we were sitting in the second row and before the play began, the director and his student assistant director, Sarah, sat in the row behind us. I would have thought that the backs of our heads were distinctive enough that anyone sitting behind us would recognise me and Dave as Kennedy's parents, but we overheard this conversation:
"I
looked over here before the play started last night and I saw this guy with his
arms crossed and he looked like nothing was going to amuse him. I think it was
Kennedy's Uncle Dan," said Sarah.
"Right,
Uncle Dan."
"So, I
was looking at him and I thought 'That's my metric for success tonight. If I
can make Uncle Dan laugh, then it's a good show'. And I'm watching and every
now and then I'd look at Uncle Dan and he did laugh, but he never
relaxed. He never uncrossed his arms."
"Uncle
Dan has pressures that you can't imagine," said Scott.
"Yeah,
Viet Nam."
"In
1968, in Khe Sanh, Uncle Dan saw things -- he did things -- that are
going to haunt him for the rest of his life."
"Yeah,"
said Sarah, "he goes to the theater to try to forget."
"And
sometimes he laughs."
"But
he'll never forget."
And then Sarah broke the running joke by remembering
some Family Guy episode, that I couldn't help but try to later identify (along with the proper spelling of Khe Sanh -- OK, I'm a nerd) as this one:
What's even stranger is that Dave and I had been at that performance the night before, sitting beside Uncle Dan (who laughed throughout the whole thing) and still Scott and Sarah didn't think to edit themselves around us (for which I'm glad because I found this whole story hilarious).
Too bad Kennedy will likely never have a role this big again at school -- there's a limit of 2 Main Stage performances with a possibility of a third only if she can make the case for a special project in a later year -- because, as I hope this post proves, it was kind of a big deal for her and for us. If it was up to me, I'd see Kennedy transfer to a proper theater school to concentrate on acting if that's her real passion, but in the end, I can't argue with Dave's advice for her to get her B.A.
Because Arts Degrees are gold, Baby!
And for my last observation, it's also too bad that it's Kennedy's last big performance because my parents have never seen her in anything significant. My mother was supposed to drive up, but the day before she was going to leave, a major snowstorm came through her area, leaving her home like this:
Yeah ^^ that's over the roof of her Honda Pilot, and there were more storms coming, so it's no wonder she had to bow out. Ken thought that was weasly of her, and even though Ma has developed a fear of flying, he thought that if she promised not just my kids but his -- Conor hurt his hand karate chopping his bedframe when he was told Nan couldn't come -- she should have gotten over herself and got on a plane. I shrugged it off -- what are you gonna do?
But had she gotten on a plane as soon as enough of that snow was cleared for her to get to the airport, she might very well have been on this flight home last night:
So, what are you gonna do? I can't imagine we'll see Nan on a plane anytime soon, and in the words of Alanis Morrisette...isn't it ironic?
