Writing new lines for the shadowy women of Shakespeare
Thirty of William Shakespeare's "underwritten" female characters speak their mind in a new book of speeches by English actress Harriet Walter.
We can all learn a lot about humanity from reading William Shakespeare, says Harriet Walter, so it's “very, very frustrating” that the 16th-century playwright hardly ever let women take centre stage.
To settle the score, the Royal Shakespeare Company veteran has written additional speeches for 30 of the Bard's female characters.
Ahead of her Auckland Writers Festival appearance on 16 May, she chats to Saturday Morning about her new book She Speaks! What Shakespeare's Women Might Have Said.
Harriet Walter as Cleopatra in the Royal Shakespeare Company's 2006 production of Antony and Cleopatra.
© Pascal Molliere / RS
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As a writer, Shakespeare was interested in love, power and morality, Walter says.
While female characters such as Lady Macbeth (Macbeth) and Cleopatra (Antony and Cleopatra) sometimes play a key role in his plays, they usually feature only in his love stories and in relation to men.
During Shakespeare's lifetime, in which female characters were played by boys because women weren't allowed to act, it's hard to imagine there was ever a conversation about how women were depicted, she says.
“In those days, it was simply storytelling. If you stand on stage and say ‘I am a girl’, the audience go, ‘Okay, you're a girl’.
“I don't think Shakespeare ever thought, “Gosh, I should beef up the women's part. He just thought, ‘This is the world.’"
Harriet Walter (seen here with actress Sarah Snook) plays Lady Caroline Collingwood in the American family drama series Succession.
HBO
Then, as now, men don't often see gender inequality because they don't experience it themselves, Walter says.
“I will walk into a room and see that there are only two women in there and lots of men. I notice it immediately. If you're a man, you don't notice.”
One powerful way to challenge the centuries-long acceptance of patriarchal dominance is for women to get writing, she says.
“We've got to change the story. We've got to open up the story.”
Playing Margaret Thatcher in the TV series 'Brian and Maggie' was a "big mountain to climb" for British actress Harriet Walter because their political views were so different.
Matt Frost/Channel 4
Young women today seem to waste too much energy on their appearance, Walter says, and at 74, she feels "liberated" to focus on “more interesting” things.
The acting parts she is offered, though - “wonderful, fleeting entrances which make a splash” rather than anything complex and substantial - reflect how women over 60 are viewed in our culture.
“You and I can think of millions of really interesting older women but they're not put into the story yet.”
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