Thy Woman’s Weeds

Centaur Theatre in partnership with Repercussion Theatre and Tableau D’Hôte Theatre presents Thy Woman’s Weeds

Lady Capulet fights to stay relevant next to her fresh-faced Juliet, while Goneril clamours for a role as juicy as King Lear’s. Hermia laments the dress code that prevents her from wearing whatever “woman’s weeds” she pleases; Desdemona desperately needs an intimacy coach. As the director asks Lady Macbeth to sexualize her unsexing, Ophelia rails at the patriarchy from beyond her early grave. Meanwhile, the chorus of actresses playing each of these classic characters are finding it more and more difficult to hold their tongues about what they’re going through on- and off-stage.

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Erin Shields’s fierce feminist re-examination of Shakespeare’s work and the way it is taken up in contemporary society sheds new and urgent light both on the blindspots in the Bard’s oeuvre and on the modern social dynamics that continue to challenge women’s full participation in the performing arts. A partnership with Repercussion Theatre and Tableau D’Hôte Theatre directed by the acclaimed Amanda Kellock, this exciting new theatrical creation will delight Shakespeare aficionados and agnostics alike.

Thy Woman’s Weeds was developed in collaboration with Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal.

Program

Director’s note

Shakespeare tells us that “All the world’s a stage, 
And all the men and women merely players, 
They have their exits and their entrances 
And one man in his time plays many parts…”

In Shakespeare’s time, women weren’t allowed to perform onstage, so it’s actually remarkable that he created the incredible female characters he did. He found so many possibilities within the limitations of his time. 400 years later, his work and words still hold so much power, but how do we engage with them in ways that don’t simply replicate the limitations of the past, or even the present? Limitations that Shakespeare’s characters themselves are so often railing against? 
  
Hamlet says that theatre’s purpose is to hold a mirror up to nature, and in a wonderfully feminist dramaturgical twist, Erin has shattered that mirror into a kaleidoscope – offering multiple perspectives and viewpoints, some hilarious, some haunting, all (I think) driving towards one recurring question: what is the difference between being an object and being a subject? Particularly in the theatre ? This play contains many such questions, and I’ve tried hard not to answer them, but rather to keep them as complex and nuanced as I think they are. I hope it makes for some great conversations in the lobby bar later… 
 
One thing is not up for debate, though, and that is that we are so much stronger together than in isolation. This process (from way back in 2016!) has involved so many bright and generous souls who’ve been part of workshops and readings along the way. Those souls include:  
 
Emma Tibaldo, Leslie Baker, Lucinda Davis, Samantha Bitonti, Michelle Rambharose, Leah Fong, Fanny Lacroix, Amy Keith, Dean Fleming, BP Houle, Melanie Saint Jacques, Deena Aziz, Warona Setshwaelo, Leni Parker, Julie Tamiko Manning, Felicia Shulman, Joy Ross-Jones.

Repercussion Theatre

Founded in 1988, Montreal’s Repercussion Theatre is best known for its annual Shakespeare- in-the-Park summer tour. The company’s mission is to deliver professional, classically based, visually dynamic theatre that is accessible to all, regardless of income, language, age or education. In 2016, in collaboration with Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, Repercussion launched a new play development series called Words With Will, which invites commissioned playwrights to “talk back to Shakespeare” in some way. Thy Woman’s Weeds was the first play commissioned as part of this program.

Tableau d’Hôte Theatre

Founded in 2005 by Mike Payette and Mathieu Murphy-Perron, Tableau D’Hôte Theatre is an award-winning company known for staging big, bold and innovative Montréal premieres of English and bilingual Canadian plays. Our theatre is often confrontational, seeking to challenge dominant narratives and unearth the buried stories of the nations upon nations upon nations that make up the colonial settler state known as Canada. For most of our history, Tableau D’Hôte has borrowed plays from the Canadian canon to give them a first life in Montréal, but more recently, we are thrilled to now be contributing to the canon by world premieres like Erin Shield’s Thy Woman’s Weeds, Julie Tamiko Manning’s Mizushōbai, which premiered this past fall at the Segal Center, and Anna Burkholder’s Caravan, which will receive its premiere at the end of May at Studio Hydro-Québec. 
 
Upon witnessing the staged reading of Thy Woman’s Weeds in 2019, it was immediately clear to me how vitally important it was to join forces with Repercussion Theatre to bring Erin Shield’s words from page to stage. 
 
A global pandemic got in the way of what would have been its premiere in May of 2020, but neither company gave up hope that this piece would find its audience one day, whenever and wherever that may be. That day is now and that place is here, at the Centaur, a theatre that gracefully and boldly embarked with us as a third (and mighty) performance partner in this most ambitious of undertakings. It does indeed require three companies, and dozens upon dozens of
artists, to stage this type of work in 2024. Unabashedly feminist theatre that confronts, questions, and hopefully uplifts. 
 
We couldn’t be prouder for it finally to be here, for it finally to be now, together, with you all. Bon spectacle.

Credits:

Head of Wardrobe: Sonya Bayer 
Seamstresses: Anne-Sophie Boucher, Marika Porlier, Deborah Adams 
Hair Consultant: Ron Rolfe
Assistant Head Technician: Zachary Weibel
Technicians: Gordon Barnett, Scarlet Fountain, Miles Keily-Baxter, Kitiya Phouthonesy, Catherine Sargent 
Thank you to: Elisabeth de Medeiros – Segal Centre – Le Grand Costumier

Cast

Deena Aziz – Beatrice, Cleopatra, Lady M, Witch 2, Regan, La Pucelle, Othello Director
Leni Parker – Gertrude, Viola, Queen Margaret, Macbeth Director, Goneril
Joy Ross-Jones – Cordelia, Miranda, Hermia, Merchant Director, Katherine, Lavinia, Kate
Espoir Segbeaya – Juliet, Ophelia, Helena, Audrey, Lady Mortimer, Othello Fight Director
Warona Setshwaelo – Anne, Portia, Nurse, Much Ado Director, Lear SM, Lady Macduff, Emelia
Felicia Shulman – Rosalind, Ghost Mother, Witch 1, Lear, Duchess of York, Othello, Tamora
Julie Tamiko Manning – Desdemona, Katherina, Lady C, Witch 3, Hero, Lear Director, Phebe, Lady Percy