‘Women of Will’ provides insight into mind of genius

Tina Packer plays Rosalino in disguise to Johnny Lee Davenport’s Orlando from Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” in a scene from ‘Women of Will Part Two,’ 1995.

Characters in plays often represent something or someone other than themselves, embodying a political idea, perhaps, or standing in for the reigning monarch.

Elizabethan playwright William Shakespeare, for example, may have used the women he created to reveal his own mind and psyche. Tina Packer, artistic director of Shakespeare and Co. in Lenox, Mass. will explore the feminine in Shakespeare’s plays during her residency at UW–Madison Nov. 22-24.

The visit’s centerpiece will be the performance of Packer’s The Women of Will Trilogy, which uses 40 scenes from 20 plays to engage the audience in a dialogue about the pivotal role women assumed in the Shakespearean canon.

“The women in the plays reflect the development of Shakespeare’s own psyche –if you want to know what Shakespeare thinks, listen to his women characters,” Packer says.

Early in his career, Shakespeare cast women as warriors with a desire to be heard, Packer says. This sorority includes Joan of Arc, Katherine from The Taming of the Shrew, Tamara from Titus Andronicus and others. These characters eventually give way to women who claim themselves by traveling incognito, free of social constraints. Examples include such comedies as Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice.

On the other hand, tragedies written during Shakespeare’s middle period donot disguise women truth-tellers and the characters wind up mad, dead or both as they struggle toward authentic representation of themselves in Othello and Hamlet. During the last phase of Shakespeare’s work, daughters redeem fathers in Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest.

Details: The Women of Will Trilogy will be presented Nov. 22-24 at 7:30 p.m. in Music Hall. Tina Packer also will lecture on “The Function of Theatre,” Monday, Nov. 23 at 4 p.m. in Vilas Hall’s Mitchell Theatre. All events are free.

Packer says that although the presentations will focus on Shakespeare’s own artistic and psychological development, the insights found in this territory also have a much broader application.

“In revealing his own mind to us, Shakespeare, being one of the greatest artists who ever lived, actually exposes us to the development of a universal human psyche,” Packer says.

She adds that the appeal to theater and literature majors is obvious, but students in other disciplines, such as women’s studies, history, political science, sociology and psychology, will no doubt find food for their fields of thought as well.

“These presentations are for anyone who has ever wondered what life is all about,” she says. “It’s a large journey, but one I’ve found worth taking. We need theater to build community by helping us look together at the big questions of life. The role of theater is to say things that can’t be said, to bring to consciousness the unconscious,” she says.”

In addition to her Women of Will Trilogy, Packer will work with theatre and drama students. “Our residency will show students how it’s possible to earn a living from a passion, and how difficult it is to do. The average theater professional makes about $5,000 a year,” she says.