About The Five-Parts of Women of Will: The Complete Journey

PART I: The Warrior Women, from Violence to Negotiation
Performance: Friday, November 4, 8PM

Part One examines the early writings of William Shakespeare, his journey to becoming a playwright and actor, and the role of theatre in Elizabethan England. We also examine the first plays Shakespeare wrote, such as his early comedies (Comedy of Errors, The Taming of the Shrew, Two Gentlemen of Verona and Love's Labor's Lost) and early histories (Henry VI: Parts 1, 2, 3, and Richard III). The performance ends with the first big change in Shakespeare's attitude and portrayal of women: Juliet. How, Packer asks, is Shakespeare’s writing impacted when he portrays a young girl as intelligent, poetic and courageous as her Romeo?

Part I asks fundamental questions about the politics, sexuality, and actions of the women in these plays, especially in regards to the expectations put upon them. Although it is the foundation of all the subsequent parts, Part One also stands by itself as a performance, and is a terrific place to start if you’re new to Shakespeare.

PART II: The Sexual Merges with the Spiritual: New Knowledge
Performance: Saturday, November 5, 3PM

By writing about Juliet, Shakespeare gains a deeper understanding of the relationship between men and women. He perceives that sexuality can be an intensely spiritual journey, just as spirituality can be expressed in sensual terms. Using Romeo and Juliet as a foundation, Part Two looks at the continuation of this sexual/spiritual story, first with A Midsummer Night’s Dream, then The Merchant of Venice, followed by Much Ado About Nothing and Troilus and Cressida. Finally, the journey takes a different turn in Measure for Measure, and finds its supreme illumination in Antony and Cleopatra.

Much of Shakespeare's creative life was consumed with the relationship between men and women, and we examine whether it was his worldly actions or his imagination that served as his chief artistic inspiration. Part II asks whether this relationship between the sexes can lead to a more fair, just, and impassioned way of living.

PART III: Living Underground or Dying to Tell the Truth
Performance: Saturday, November 5, 8PM

Part III wrestles with the middle period of Shakespeare's writing life. Through the women in these plays, Shakespeare gives us a clearer picture of the constraints put upon them, where the power lies, and whether we are living in a monarchy, a republic, or in nature. Increasingly, Shakespeare’s female characters articulate the truth about what they are seeing and feeling. If these women stay dressed as women, they run mad or die (either by murder or suicide). If, however, they disguise themselves as men, they’re able to find their voices, organize those around them, and enact a story that ends happily.

We begin with Constance in King John, and then jump between As You Like It and Othello. By switching between these two plays, the audience can see the different outcomes that befall a woman who remains a woman, and a woman who disguises herself as a man. We then touch on Twelfth Night, refer back to The Merchant of Venice, and end with Hamlet.

PART IV: Chaos is Come Again, the Lion eats the Wolf
Performance: Sunday, November 6, 3PM

As Shakespeare enters a period of despair, he asks: what happens when women do not desire a different voice in society? What happens when they want the same power and goals as men? The answer is clearly illuminated in Macbeth, Coriolanus and King Lear, which Gore and Packer examine in Part Four.

Part IV then moves on to Timon of Athens, in which women are represented as whores who bring disease to mankind. Yet, in this dark picture, where the world is dominated by fascism, Shakespeare writes his most sublime verse. While the art form is at its height, the subject matter at its most dense and unforgiving. At the end, Shakespeare asks: is there no way out of this killing picture?

PART V: The Maiden Phoenix: the Daughter Redeems the Father
Performance: Sunday, November 6 7PM

In Part V, Shakespeare changes the story. His plays stop following the exact psychological development of the protagonists, turning instead to myths and fairy tales. In these late plays ─ Pericles, Cymbeline, A Winter's Tale, The Tempest, and finally, Henry VIII ─ Shakespeare finds a way to make tragic events right again. And it's the daughters who discover the way.

Taking the tale of the bird that immolates itself and is then born anew from its own ashes, Shakespeare names this progression the “maiden phoenix.” Led by Cordelia in King Lear, these young women find ways to redeem the past and allow the future to unfold without a story of revenge dominating the stage. Shakespeare had returned to Stratford by this time and was living amongst his own daughters, whom he had left behind 20 years earlier when he went to London to seek his fortune.

The last lines written by Shakespeare about a woman from Cranmer's blessing over the baby Elizabeth at the end of Henry VIII, and his evocation of what the feminine spirit can do for a society was born out by her reign. Within this period of learning, music, poetry, and education, Shakespeare asks: what is the role of the artist in society, and what must artists do to make our collective lives more consciously lived? Gore and Packer investigate this question in Part Five, finishing the series in the same inquisitive spirit in which they began.