Review: (Toronto / Theatre) Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)

(L-R) Nicholas Porteous, Lesley Robertson, Cydney Penner (photo by Scott Gorman)

A Theatrical Gem. 
Chamberlain's production is a perfect alchemy of old and new, of comedic and poignant. 
by Lisa McKeown 
@lisammckeown

When I entered Hart House Theatre I was filled with gleeful anticipation. Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is a play with a special place in my heart, as it was one of the first contemporary plays I fell in love with when I first saw a production of it in high school, at Toronto's Upper Canada College. A few years later I was lucky enough to get to see the play with none other than the author herself, Canada's own Ann-Marie MacDonald, in the lead role as the relentlessly self-deprecating academic Contance Ledbelly. Hart House's current production had a lot to live up to. 

The multi-award winning play, directed by Carly Chamberlain, is well deserving of the hype - both of the play and this production. Constance Ledbelly, (Lesley Robertson) is  "an overlooked academic trying to prove her theory about two of Shakespeare's best-known plays" - a theory, more specifically, about "Othello" and "Romeo and Juliet" - two tragedies that don't follow the traditional tragic tropes. And then it happens, Constance falls down the rabbit hole - or, in this case, the trash can - into the world of these two Shakespearian plays. And what she discovers there is something essential to living a good life, but also frustratingly elusive: a true sense of self-worth.

Review: (Ottawa) Goodnight Desdemona, (Good Morning Juliet)

A Wormhole to the Bard
by Jim Murchison
@JimMurchison

Imagine if Alice in Wonderland was about a beleaguered assistant professor who falls through a garbage pail, instead of a looking glass and finds herself lost in a land of Othello and Romeo and Juliet. That is what happens in Ann-Marie MacDonald’s Goodnight Desdemona, (Good Morning Juliet). It is a fantasy journey of discovery that has elements of Lewis Carroll, Jules Verne and William Shakespeare but is 100 per cent Ann-Marie MacDonald. 

Ann-Marie MacDonald’s script is witty, clever, insightful and thought-provoking as it examines one woman’s quest for literary and academic achievement that takes her instead to a place of personal enlightenment. Wrapped up in the middle of this, is a re-examination of Shakespeare and the lines between comedy and tragedy. Primarily though it is good fun. It plunges a dagger into the belly of Shakespeare and pulls out a rubber chicken.