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Son Charlie called last night to elucidate yesterday’s FaceBook news that he has been cast in yet another Shakespeare play! This time it’s “Romeo and Juliet” with gender reversed roles. Charlie will play Husband Capulet, father of Julian (as opposed to Lady Capulet, mother of Juliet.)  The play opens at Hollywood’s Theater of Note in November.

It’s an interesting concept – new to me, but apparently not new in the theatrical world. All the men’s parts become women’s parts – for instance, Romeo becomes Romea and is played by a woman. Some adjustments of the script are made in the matter of pronouns, but otherwise the words of the Bard remain the same.

As we all know, in Shakespeare’s time, women were not allowed on stage so all parts had to be played by men. For that reason, playwrights created few roles for women. In “Romeo and Juliet” there are only three female characters: Juliet, Lady Capulet, and Nurse. The problem in contemporary theater is that often more women show up for auditions than do men. Hence, the relatively recent experiments with gender reversing.

Charlie at Three – Claremont Day Nursery

A few years ago Nyel and I saw the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s production of “Julius Caesar” in which the title character was played by a woman. As far as I was concerned, it didn’t work at all. But, none of the other roles were gender reversed and having Julius played as a woman by a female actress surrounded by her senate of men, was a stretch. Also, although Caesar’s wife Calpurnia was given a rather small part by Shakespeare, she was written out of the OSF production entirely. I wonder if a total gender switch throughout the play would have worked any better.

Charlie is looking forward to this new opportunity. He has worked with the director, Abby Craden, before when they both had roles in “Merlin” at Theatricum Botanicum. He admires her work both onstage and behind the scenes. So, even though he had promised himself a few months off after “Oswald” closed last week, he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to audition for “Romeo and Juliet.”

Way to go, Charlie!