Verbal Magazine

Women On Top.

It seems extraordinary now, but there was a period of time pre-Restoration - when women were disallowed from performing on stage; the environment of the theatre being deemed too insalubrious for women of good character, who had a clear career path of wifedom. 

Shakespeare’s heroines were played by young boys; the playwright would never have seen a woman interpret Lady Macbeth, Cordelia or Juliet. The woman’s role would exist as much in the imagination of the audience, as in exact mimesis. The historical absence of a female body on stage, however, is arguably less of an experiential loss than the absence of the female mind. To give one amongst hundreds of possible examples; having seen Northern Irish actress Michelle Fairley’s devastating portrayal of Emilia in Michael Grandage’s recent Donmar production of Othello – a production which carefully detailed the exploration of misogyny embedded in the play’s narrative - the idea of a thirteen year old boy playing the part seems almost tragic in the face of Shakespeare’s language and the power a woman’s performance gives it.
The playwright and part-time spy Aphra Behn, one of the first female playwrights on the British stage, made her debut with The Forced Marriage in 1670 - many years after the successful careers of Shakespeare, Marlowe and Johnson. This was the year after she was released from prison, where she had been incarcerated for debt. She was by no means a conventional woman, whose work, particularly in the volume Poems upon Several Occasions explores notions of female sexual freedom. She lived in an age of libertines and rogues; but even so, she was much denigrated for her bold statements in support of lesbianism and an early idea of ‘women’s rights’. Sexual obsessive, Alexander Pope, whose works include the narrative poem The Rape of the Lock, was a particular detractor. It is partly due to the intensity of the criticism of Behn that her notoriety was established; her actual work receives rather less attention.

On Monday the fourteen of May 2007, Nicholas Hytner, Artistic director of the National Theatre of Great Britain made a comment in The Times which dragged the issue of women in theatre into a harsh spotlight. Referring to the critical response to the National’s production of Kneehigh Theatre company’s A Matter of Life and Death, Hytner said that he subsequently had no faith in theatre critics to review the work of female directors; ‘They would be horrified by the accusation, but I’m afraid I’m making it,’ he stated, ‘it’s fair enough to say that too many theatre critics are dead white men’. His statement sent a frisson through the theatre industry. Hytner claimed that these, male, critics - who included the Evening Standards’ Nicholas De Jongh, calling the piece ‘vacuous’ - would have reacted differently to the highly physical, irreverent piece of work had it been directed by a man. Director Emma Rice, he claimed, was being treated unfairly because of her gender; because she was taking risks theatrically and because she was putting her own vision of this adaptation at the forefront, without apology. As one may imagine, the response to Hytner’s comments was prolific. Many disagreed with him; some female directors, such as Thea Sharrock stated that things were ‘better’ now for women than they had been. Yes, indeed. But female theatre directors make up, at most, one quarter of the career demographic. The figure is even lower in film. That is simply not equitable - we seem to still be playing catch up. This marginalised position must surely create a dynamic whereby women writers and directors are seen as something of a novelty, and subsequently less than ‘serious’ by the establishment. In 2006 I myself was described (by De Jongh) in a negative review of a piece I directed at the Hampstead Theatre in London as ‘Miss O’Riordan’. The erroneous assumption that I was both unmarried and untitled was less infuriating than the fact that to use a gender specific term in a review is irrelevant- unless the reviewer is somehow affected by that gender. Hytner has a point.
Currently- under Hytner’s programming- the National has in its running repertory the first original play by a living female writer on the gargantuan Olivier stage. Yes, that’s right- the first play by a living female playwright on what is the largest platform in the most influential theatre in Europe. Her Naked Skin, by Rebecca Lenciewicz, explores, perhaps fittingly, given her assured role in theatre history, the suffragette movement and the lives of the women behind it. It has been largely well received, though some critics have taken issue with Lenciewicz’s inclusion of a lesbian sub plot, deeming it extraneous to the more political issues at play. There is the faintest whiff that such things are a little ‘silly’; The London Paper describes her grasp of politics as ‘fluffy’. This is decidedly not the case; Lenkiewicz is both smart and brilliantly read.  Michael Billington states in The Guardian that Lenkiewicz plants a ‘defiant Feminist flag’ on the Olivier stage; true, but the fact that she needs to, in 2008, is shocking in itself.
It is, of course, eminently possible to have a successful career in theatre as a woman; the industry is tough, but it’s tough on everyone- male or female. What perhaps needs to be addressed is the positioning of women in the business. As artistic director of Ransom Productions, a Belfast-based new writing theatre company, I run a programme designed to develop female writing for the stage in the North of Ireland. The programme is funded by the Arts Council of Northern Ireland and aims to place the female voice at the centre of theatre practice; in reference to the fact that a shift needs to happen, the project is called Write on the Edge. Women need to feel they can lead, not follow; instigate, not facilitate; make bold statements of artistic intent without apology or without the need for approbation. As much as anything, this is an issue of confidence; to put yourself out there requires nerve and a strong sense of self. Lenkiewicz says in The New Statesman, ‘Having a production on always feels as if you have been in a boxing match; no external wounds, but sharp internal hooks and punches. But I find I am beginning to care less about the jabs, which implies I am entering a state of either Zen, or monomania’. Perhaps female artists need a combination of the two.

Dr Rachel O’Riordan is Artistic Director of Ransom Productions, a freelance theatre director and part time lecturer in Drama at Queen’s University, Belfast. 
To find out more about Write on the Edge, or any of Ransom’s work go to ransomtheatrecompany.com or email
Ransom’s next production, The Gentlemen’s Tea-Drinking Society by Richard Dormer, opens at the Old Museum Arts Centre on Thursday the 5th February 2009 before an extensive tour. Contact the OMAC on 02890 233332

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