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From: JNugent <JNugent73@mail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written,alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: The Demonization of Shakespeare
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2025 14:18:19 +0100
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On 15/07/2025 03:11 AM, Cryptoengineer wrote:
> On 7/8/2025 6:28 PM, Robert Carnegie wrote:
>> On 08/04/2025 16:49, Paul S Person wrote:
>>> <snippo Shakespeare examples of what the alt-right calls "woke">
>>> <I should note that is has always been my understanding (probably from
>>> something I was told or read) that Romeo and Juliet would have been
>>> about 13, but who can say for sure?>
>>
>> I seem to remember that in several U.S. states,
>> that isn't a problem.
>>
>> However, "Juliet" originally is a boy actor
>> in a dress.  This could be brought up.
>>
>> In some British actor's recent memoir that
>> I heard on radio, I've forgotten who, the
>> school drama was similarly cast, since that's
>> all that they had.  I also don't remember if
>> he was Juliet or Cleopatra or Lady Macbeth,
>> but apparently the male lead role was a
>> good-looking young man.
>>
>> Ian McKellen?
>>
>> Gregory Doran?
>
> Last night, I watched an episode of 'The Sandman'
> in which there is included parts of a
> Shakespeare-contemporaneous production of 'A
> Midsummer Night's Dream' The female parts are
> played by young men.
>
> I know this is historically accurate, but I don't
> remember seeing it done this way in any other modern
> film or TV adaption.

Maybe not quite "modern" enough, but all Elizabethan theatrical 
conventions were portrayed accurately in the ATV / ITC six-part drama 
series of 1978 (made in 1977): "Will Shakespeare". This was quite clear 
about the casting of boys as female characters. Jack Rice (played by Ron 
Cook) wanted never to play anything but female parts.

I know it has been shown in the USA because I managed to obtain a 
university-published set of VHS NTSC recordings of the series a decade 
or two back. That item was eventually rendered redundant by the release 
of the series on a UK DVD box-set a few years ago.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_Shakespeare_(TV_series)>