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Arts feature

Why are Shakespeare’s women so feeble?

The bard did not give his female characters pivotal roles — but some of his contemporaries did, as the new RSC season shows

29 March 2014

9:00 AM

29 March 2014

9:00 AM

There’s a problem, as we all know, with female roles in the theatrical canon, and it reaches all the way back to the Bard. Shakespeare’s women lack the richness and variety of his male characters. Modern theatre practitioners have tried all kinds of ploys to correct this imbalance. Next month the RSC launches a season of dramas, Roaring Girls, written during Shakespeare’s lifetime and featuring women in pivotal roles.

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The RSC’s Roaring Girls season — The Roaring Girl, Arden of Faversham and John Webster’s The White Devil — runs in rep at Stratford from 9 April to 4 October.

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