So, shall I talk about the elephant in the room? It sure looks like it wants a good patting. Ok, well, let’s then, let’s pat the elephant and talk about Ros and Guil being female, when really they’re supposed to be male.
There’s not much sex in this play – it’s very unArcadia-like in that way, even less Shakespearean. Not that talking about gender necessarily implies talking about sex – or does it? That is the question, but it’s not the question here, so let’s not digress.
So, no, there isn’t much sex in this play. Well, there’s the Player of course and he – I mean she in our play – is quite into it. Then again, s/he’s a player. However, it seems it’s only because the times are bad, indifferent really, so frankly there’s not much choice but to talk about it (according to the player’s logic then, the times are constantly bad, indifferent really). Ok, so the player is a little bit of a perv, I’ll give you that. Well, Guil and especially Ros definitely think so. And Elodie’s exhilarating French accent isn’t helping. It’s doing an amazing job at toning up the sexual undertones, both un- and intentionally.
And then, of course, there’s the action that’s happening backstage, you know, with Gertrude going to Claudius for “comfort” while somebody’s body is still warm… “Indecent”, “hasty”, “suspicious” and all of those things, say Ros and Guil… and they’re right I suppose. It does make you think and it does add up. “Incest to adultery…” Yes, you can go so far. And yet. I wouldn’t overthink it. You’d end up mad, like Hamlet. Who knows, maybe G was really feeling lonely, and C was hanging around looking all like his dead brother and it sort of just happened – as these things often do. And maybe he did a really good job at finding her G point, so she gave him the crown because maybe she’d never known anything like it (today, a powerful woman might have given him candy, if anything at all). Maybe it’s as simple as that. Because, it’s true, we women are more complicated at that level – that’s a difference I’m willing to acknowledge. Maybe that’s why men are called hunters: there’s a lot of searching, aiming and waiting to do. It’s not easy.
Ok, just to fill you in on why this is going where it’s going – we’ve all been reading The Vagina Monologues in parallel to working on this play. A completely random occurrence I can assure you (I stumbled upon it in Waterstones during our stay in London last month). Then again, I think there’s always something quite deliberate about the random – n’est-ce pas Monsieur Stoppard – because, as it turns out, in our version of RGAD, let’s face it, Ros and Guil have vaginas. The question is does it make a difference?
To be honest, we haven’t thought about it that much. We were looking for a play with a small cast, not too long and that had something to do with Shakespeare. And so when Ros and Guil came unto the scene, we fell in love instantly. They were exactly what we were looking for: they make us laugh and think, work hard and enjoy life, they’re demanding without being invasive – they leave us feeling free and fulfilled. And what do they get in return - castration. Life's a bitch.
The thing is maybe that’s what post-feminism is all about. The fact that it doesn’t matter anymore, that it doesn’t make such a huge difference whether Ros and Guil are male or female. Implications it will have and interpretations it will call for and we hope it does. We’ve made all the pronouns feminine, our costumes will have elements of femininity and masculinity and I suppose our poster can be read as representing femininity in decay or the decay of the feminine, as you wish. At the end of the day, it all rests in the eye of the beholder. It’s open to debate, to interpretation and hopefully to progress, but it’s no longer at the centre. And that in itself is (r)evolution. Thanks to the women who fought for us – those feminist bitches – we can be Ros and Guil and Ros and Guil can be us, and it really doesn’t matter all that much. Not anymore.
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