Emilia by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm.

 Directed by Petra Kalive. Assistant director Darylin Ramondo. Movement director.  Xanthe Beesley. Set designer Emily Collett. Costume designer Zoe Rouse. Lighting  designer Katie Sfetkidis. Lighting Associate Harriet Hogan. Co sound designers and composers Sharyn Brand and Emah Fox.Movement associate Jennifer Ma.  Hair and makeup Shula Kate.

Cast EMILIA 1 Manali Datar EMILIA 2 Cessalee Stovall EMILIA 3 Lisa Maza WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE / MAN 2 Heidi Arena LADY MARGARET CLIFFORD / MIDWIFE / MAN 1 Emma J Hawkins LORD ALPHONSO LANIER / LORD COLLINS / EMILIA (OTHELLO) AND OTHERS Catherine Glavicic MARGARET JOHNSON / MARY SIDNEY / HESTER Carita Farrer JUDITH / PRIEST / LORD HENRY CAREY Genevieve Picot LADY CORDELIA / LADY ANNE AND OTHERS Jing-Xuan Chan SUSAN BERTIE THE COUNTESS OF KENT / MARY BOB Amanda LaBonté LADY KATHERINE / DESDEMONA (OTHELLO) Sonya Suares LORD THOMAS HOWARD / DAVE / FLORA Sophie Lampel EVE / LADY HELENA Sarah Fitzgerald STANDBY / COVERS Nazaree Dickerson Kuda Mapeza Izabella Yen

Essential Theatre is a female led and values driven company headed by  Amanda Labonte and Sophie Lampel. The Playhouse. Canberra Theatre Centre. December 2-3 2022

Reviewed by Peter Wilkins

After four hundred years the identity of William Shakespeare’s Dark Lady of the Sonnets remains a mystery, shrouded in conjecture. Sonnet 127, the first of the sonnets dedicated to the mysterious woman describes a lady with black eyes and black wiry hair. Was she of Mediterranean descent or perhaps of African heritage? In 1611 Emilia Bassano published her volume of poems,  Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum, a collection praising notable women including the late Queen Elizabeth 1^st. Sonnet 127 was written in around 1609. It is therefore very probable that Shakespeare knew Emilia Bassano. In fact playwright Morgon Lloyd Malcolm makes it clear in her colourful, vital and lively account of Emilia Bassano’s life that not only did Emilia Lanier (nee Bassano) know the famous dramatist, but that she could have been his mistress and the mother of his illegitimate child.  

Manali Datar as Emilia 1

In Emilia, produced by Essential Theatre, a female and non binary cast play multiple roles and leave an audience in no doubt that Emilia Bassano does indeed lay the main claim to the mysterious title of Dark Lady of the Sonnets. To stride the span of Bassano’s life and dramatic experiences, three actors play the role of Emilia at different times
in her 56 years. Manali Datar gives an enchanting performance as Emilia 1, separated from her mother, deprived of a father and eventually becoming the mistress of Lord Howard ( the Lord Chamberlain, the wife of the foppish Alphonso Lanier  and the mistress of William Shakespeare and possibly the mother of his illegitimate child who died soon after birth. Cessalee Stavall plays the older and more mature Emilia. It is suitably sombre performance and Stavall lends the character an emotional pain as Bassano struggles to survive and only survives after a near drowning – or was it an attempt to take her own life. Accomplished and commanding Meriam/Yindinji/Dutch performer Lisa Maza, last seen in Canberra in Belco Arts’ production of Dylan van den Berg’s Ngadjung,  assumes the role of the oldest Emilia and narrator of Emilia’s tale.

Lisa Maza as Emilia 3

Director Kalive notes that the ensemble have been inspired by Australian vaudeville tradition to infuse this seventeenth century story with humour, satire, song and dance that captures a lively and entrtaining quality to a show of eccentric charcaters, absurd situations and moments of pathos and high drama. To fully appreciate the real force of this production one needs to understand the impact of Emilia 2’s delivery of Emilia’s speech to Desdemona in Othello or references to The Taming of the Shrew. Injustice and cruel subjugation of the female sex reaches a crescendo of furious indignation in Emilia 3 ‘s screaming call to the audience to “burn the f…ing house down”  It is an exhortation that diminishes the power of the drama to bear the standard of outrage and rebellion. Malcolm’s play serves the purpose well. It is entertaining, funny, satirical and ironic and a fine cast embrace the characters with relish and irreverent glee. Sophie Lampel’s Lord Thomas Howard, Heidi Arena’s William Shakespeare, Catherine Glavick’s Lord Alphonso Lanier are all played with joyfully ridiculing gusto .

Cessalee Stovall as Emilia 2

 But the case of Emilia Bassano, the first woman to have her poetry published in England and then ignored for centuries, hides a much darker truth, a truth of sexual exploitation, malevolent manipulation, disempowerment and cruel subjugation. Maza’s outburst ricochets down the centuries with the force of indignant fury. It rattles apathy and assaults complacency, but methinks she doth protest too much. As Brecht claimed, the first rule of Epic Theatre is to entertain. Emilia is thoroughly entertaining but the life of Emilia Bassano, so  significantly revealed by Essential Theatre holds the mirror up to injustice and oppression of the female.  Emilia comes to the Canberra Theatre at a time of change and some progress. The Me Too movement, the experiences of Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins, the overturning of Roe vs Wade and the horrific domestic violence statistics attest to the fact that there is still, in spite of the advances made since 1611 something rotten in the state of Sexism and Misogyny. If this tale of Emilia Bassano can make one jot of difference and advance compassion, equality and fairness for all, be they in any way marginalized or disadvantaged by race, creed, gender, disability or colour then Essential Theatre’s production deserves a place on every stage in Australia and Morgan Lloyd Malcolm’s play in every school library.