Upstart! Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter Judith tells the story of the playwright’s younger daughter.
Stuck at home in Stratford while her father enjoys life in London, expected to marry well and settle down to the business of childbearing, Judith has other ideas. What she makes of them, and how she is thwarted by the patriarchal norms of Jacobean England, form the backbone of this interesting and well-acted new play, now making its UK premiere at the Gilded Balloon Patter Hoose.
Director Alexander Spencer-Jones makes good use of the Big Yin’s small stage; on the left we have ‘old Judith’ (Susannah May), who sits in her chair drinking ale and telling us her story. On the right we have ‘young Judith’ (Rachel Kitts) and the rest of the cast, acting out events from Judith’s life. Skilful lighting directs our attention to whichever scene is ‘live’, and facilitates smooth and unobtrusive prop changes.
Old Judith is visited by the local parish priest, who wants to record her memories of her late father. But he wants the sanitised version – Judith wants to tell him the truth. Throughout the play, writer Mary Jane Schaefer addresses the fine line between fact and fiction, between one person’s version of events and another’s.
This first scene, in which old Judith begins to reveal what her father was really like, while the Reverend Ward (Roddy Lynch) writes down a completely different story, is echoed time and again as characters intentionally ignore, withhold or forget facts, sometimes because this is the only way they can cope.
For as Anne Hathaway (Aisling Groves-McKeown, excellent) says, Shakespeare writes fiction, but it’s fiction based on other people’s stories. He changes the details to suit his plots; we change the facts to fit our own agendas. The one person who sticks to the truth is young Judith, and for that she is made to suffer.
The great tragedy of Judith’s life is the death of her twin brother, Hamnet, probably from plague. Judith herself was also sick. She survived.
Judith firmly believes that everyone wishes Hamnet had lived instead of her;
‘The wrong one died.’
Yet later in the play her mother refutes this. Who is right? Or is there no right?
Judith is ambitious; she wants an education, a life outside the home and away from Stratford. Knowing that she won’t get it any other way, she persuades her friend Tom Quincy (Angus Bhattacharya) to take her up to London to visit her successful and largely absent father. Tom, as Judith points out, has all the advantages that boys enjoy – an education, and a career as a vintner – despite being far less clever than she is. She has been taught at home;
‘The years went past, the endless, pointless, years.’
We hear first old Judith’s version of what she would have liked to have happened in London; then we hear the real story. She has walked in on Shakespeare as he ‘teaches’ Emilia (Becky Sanneh), a wealthy courtesan. She believes Emilia is just her father’s pupil (and complains that he ‘teaches her words’ but won’t teach his own daughter); Tom soon sets her right on that – but we later realise that things may not have been so straightforward as Tom wants Judith to believe.
During Tom and Judith’s night in London, Shakespeare takes them to see Twelfth Night; twins are a theme throughout the play, and Schaefer draws clever comparisons between Viola, whose brother is lost then found, and Judith, to whom Hamnet is lost forever.
‘I find her (Viola) false’
says Judith, because Viola does nothing to look for Sebastian whereas she would have done anything to find Hamnet. Her grief is as raw now as it was then.
The fallout from this innocent, illicit, trip colours Judith’s future; her reputation – and that of her more compliant sister Susannah (also played by Becky Sanneh) – is tarnished (Tom’s isn’t.) Again and again life holds her back. Even when she finally gets an acceptable offer of marriage, it’s for the wrong reasons, and things go from bad to worse when her father, who disapproves of the marriage, changes his will on his deathbed.
Schaefer weaves period detail into the play, but subtly; we never feel stuck in a history lesson. An unwed mother is left to labour in agony, because the midwives believe this is the way to force her to reveal the name of the baby’s father. A fortune is left to a daughter’s husband; the women in the family get nothing except his promise to look after them. Judith is powerless to change the rules.
Late in the day, Judith realises that her ideas (based on Tom’s words) about Emilia were not entirely right – in fact, she’s a liberated woman in her own way and has lived life according to her own rules. For Judith, however, it’s too late. She’s trapped in a marriage that’s just as claustrophobic as her previous life; seeing what might have been almost destroys her.
Old Judith’s final words bring us up to date with her story. She is sad but resigned, for as she says at the start of the play;
‘My father was a personage. I am not. Of course.’
And yet the final stage direction, with its oblique reference to Shakespeare’s history plays, adds a last wry twist to this brave woman’s words. We feel her pain, but we also sense her victory.
All of the actors in this ensemble cast perform well. Aisling Groves-McKeown stands out as the volatile, desperate, neglected wife of one of the arts’ first superstars; she is a woman on the edge, and her gestures and delivery convey this brilliantly. Rachel Kitts captures young Judith’s frustration and essential goodness, although I did very occasionally have trouble hearing her – I think this was because she was facing another character, so the problem could perhaps be solved by turning the couple to face the audience. Similarly, Luke Millard sometimes rushed his words a little, though certainly not enough to spoil his scenes.
Susannah May’s diction is perfect, and she brings nuance to the character of old Judith – life’s not been all bad, and although she still harbours justified resentments, she seems to have made her peace with it. Becky Sanneh is very good as Emilia, at first letting us think she is just a high class ‘entertainer’, but later showing her independence; unlike Judith, she knows how to play the system. The conformist character of Susannah perhaps gives her slightly less scope, but again she inhabits the role well.
Tom Quincy seems a straightforward character at first, but Schaefer shows us that, ultimately, he is as true to type as all of the other men in the play; Angus Bhattacharya skilfully peels away Quincy’s veneer of decency until we see that he too is self-centred, weak and controlling.
Upstart! Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter Judith can be enjoyed on many levels. Schaefer has written a thought-provoking story; this cast brings it to life.
Upstart! Shakespeare’s Rebel Daughter Judith is at Gilded Balloon Patter House (Big Yin) in Chambers Street at 12.10pm until 27 August (no performance on Tuesday 15 August.)
