Shakespeare’s world of women

Packer’s thesis — and you will be hard pressed to disagree after seeing her work — is that Shakespeare was always singularly concerned with women’s place in a male-dominated world, and starting with some stiff stereotypes, he increasingly came to see women as emotionally complex individuals with a moral viewpoint dangerously excluded by the world. In the final plays, the women — and particularly the daughters — are forces of redemption.

Packer has knit the scenes together intelligently (each performance begins by plunging us into the middle of a play), and intersperses them with thoughtful mini-lectures, delivered impromptu, and the occasional English history lesson. She and Gore alternate between intense scenes (54 in all five parts) and engaging informally with the audience while they catch their breaths, tease each other, and pass around a few simple props on the almost bare set, intended to represent a theater set between shows.

This reviewer saw Part One and Part Five, and thought that would be enough. It wasn’t. You won’t need to see them all — each one is logically and emotionally self-sufficient — but you will want to. The connections Packer makes are too intriguing, and the energy of her exploration is contagious.