Women of Will Showcases Shakespeare

In the Wright Memorial Theater last Saturday night, Feb. 20, a burgeoning audience waited impatiently for the beginning of “Force and Heat: The Early Plays,” the first part of Tina Packer’s show Women of Will. Alongside co-star Nigel Gore, Packer delivered an exhilarating analysis of the development of female characters throughout Shakespeare’s early plays.

Packer, a renowned actor and playwright, is the founder and director of the Massachusetts-based Shakespeare & Company. Well versed in Shakespeare’s works, she has directed and taught all of his plays at over 30 colleges in the U.S. Having begun her Women of Will project in the mid-1990s, Packer took a break from the artistic directorship of Shakespeare & Company to focus on the Women of Will show and a book of the same name, which was published in 2015. Joining her in this performance of “Force and Heat: The Early Plays” was Nigel Gore, a veteran Shakespeare & Company actor whose credits include the title roles in Richard III and Macbeth. Both “Force and Heat” and their Sunday performance of “Chaos and Redemption: The Later Plays” were sponsored by the College’s Performing Arts Series, the Theatre Program and the Town Hall Theater. Women of Will was brought to Middlebury as part of the Shakespeare celebrations centered around the month-long Middlebury College Museum of Art exhibition of “First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare.”

The show consists of a series of short scenes sampled from early Shakespeare plays like Twelfth Night and Antony and Cleopatra, interspersed with short analyses of the scenes presented directly to the audience by Packer and Gore. Saturday’s show began with a passionate scene from Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew. This play, controversial for its misogynistic elements, proved a powerful introduction. The first scene culminated with Packer struggling onstage with Gore’s character, who sought to strangle her into submission with his belt. With practiced ease, Packer stepped out of the role and walked to the front of the stage as the house lights slowly turned on. Packer began introducing the performance and the material she would be analyzing, laying out the development of the female roles throughout Shakespeare’s plays. These short analytical pauses, placed between every scene, formed a key element of the show and allowed Packer to explain why she chose to include each scene.

The casual manner of Packer and Gore’s interactions contributed greatly to the atmosphere of the analytical portions of the performance. Speaking directly to the audience, Packer sounded completely at ease, explaining the most critical aspects of each scene like an English teacher picking apart a passage. Gore occasionally chimed in as well, commenting on aspects that Packer may have overlooked. This off-the-cuff discussion between these two veteran actors and old friends was immensely enjoyable.

The lighting in the show was superb, alternating seamlessly from the dark, violent battlefield scenes to bright palace environments in plays like Henry VI. Working with a couple of costumes and a very simple set consisting of a merely a chair and a few chests, the actors and their movements were the focal point of the show. The lighting design took this into account, expertly highlighting the actors and their positions on the stage.

Some scenes included audio clips that I found to be more hit-and-miss in their effectiveness. For instance, although the sound of seagull cries added a realistic ambiance to a beach setting, the scene from Antony and Cleopatra seemed to rely excessively on short sound bites of Packer’s voice reading lines from the play. The recording that played through speakers as the actors sat in stony silence sounded clipped and robotic. Although an interesting use of media, I felt it would have been more impactful if the actors had simply spoken the lines.

The highlight of the show was definitely Packer’s performance, which featured a strong, fluid delivery of lines and passionate monologues. Her familiarity with Shakespeare was apparent through her mastery of tone and pace. This powerful, emotional performance across a variety of roles was reminiscent for me of Dame Judi Dench’s Lady Macbeth from the 1978 version of Macbeth with Ian McKellen. After seeing Women of Will, I would certainly be eager to see a full Shakespeare production with Packer as its lead.