Miss Shakespeare: A bouquet of fine performances
Miss Shakespeare
Book and lyrics by Tracey Power
Music co-written with Steve Charles
Three Sisters Theatre Company
Directed by Bronwyn Steinberg
There’s a memorable moment in the Three Sisters Theatre Company’s production of Miss Shakespeare when an outstanding Robin Guy transports us back to the early 17th Century with a song called Tumbling.
She’s playing a woman named Katherine Rose who has lost 14 of her children in infancy yet still yearns for them to be alive. She gives utterance to this fantasy in one of this show’s most poignant musical numbers. Guy captures the tearful sensibility of the song brilliantly, but she’s also adding layers to her character. There’s this terrible loss in Katherine’s life, but there’s also a sturdy resilience and enough rebelliousness to make it conceivable that she would join other female characters in agreeing to defy the strictures of the day and act on stage at a time in history when the idea of a woman performer was unthinkable. …