Performance Workshop

Crispinella (Maloney) rails against husbands.

This performance workshop worked with a cut-together version of 3.3 and 3.4 (Cockledemoy, the Mulligrubs and the goblets and salmon) and the latter half of 4.4 (Tysefew’s proposal to Crispinella). Because we had done extensive work with the Mulligrub scenes in our earlier rehearsal workshop – and because so much of our discussion in the morning of the 22nd focused on the Mulligrubs, we primarily used this moment as an opportunity to present the scenes, and how they had been shaped by discoveries made in the early workshop, before giving the bulk of the workshop to discuss the Tysefew-Crispinella relationship.

Our production cast Tysefew as a woman – played by Victoria Urquhart and played as woman within this production – queering perhaps the only happy romance in the play. This casting took on particular meaning given Crispinella’s disgust with being kissed by any man who feels entitled to woo her, as well as her fears of being made servant to ‘a stiff, crooked, knobby, inflexible, tyrannous creature’ (3.1.60). Crispinella’s fears seem to be realized in her sister’s marriage to the manipulative Freevill, a man who tests Beatrice’s love despite having no cause to suspect her fidelity, ultimately distressing her to the point of wanting to kill herself.

Tysefew (Urquhart) proposes to Crispinella.

Urquhart and Breanna Maloney as Crispinella discussed how they made sense of Crispinella’s nonsensical non sequitors following Tysefew’s proposal: they read her as nervous at the possibility of submitting to marriage when she has always railed against it. She fears not only how her husband might treat her, but also a loss of identity – if she has defined herself by her refusal to marry, then she must give a part of herself up by accepting Tysefew. Maloney and Urquhart worked out a performance where Tysefew delivered his line ‘you shall be your own’ with absolutely sincerity, while delivering the follow-up conditional, ‘only be silent in my house, modest at my table, and wanton in my bed’ (67-68), with a cheeky grin. The actresses wanted Tysefew’s delivery to signal to both Crispinella and the audience that she understood Crispinella’s fears and was entering into the marriage with the idea that the women would be equal partners. The casting of course raised the question about whether such equality is dependent upon the fact that there are no men in this relationship.