Ann-Marie MacDonald, Goodnight, Desdemona (Good Morning, Juliet)
This book found its way to a position on my list as live
theatre. I have seen this text enacted on stage three times and have re-read
the script many times because it is such a pleasure. If you have any fondness
for Shakespeare, this text will encourage you to rethink what you know and to
reconsider what you believe. This text has special resonance for me, though,
because of the time and circumstances of my discovering it.
Perhaps you know Ann-Marie MacDonald as the author of Fall on Your Knees (a novel that didn't
quite make my five-star list but is very, very close). She is also an actor and
a playwright — or at least, she wrote this play. Goodnight, Desdemona is the story of
Constance Ledbelly, a failing academic who is on the verge of discovering the
secrets to Romeo and Juliet and Othello: they weren't supposed to be
tragedies but comedies, and the lead female characters weren't supposed to die. But to learn
this secret, Constance must enter the texts themselves. Comedy ensues.
Goodnight, Desdemona
is funny: funny enough that your core may hurt from laughing. There is great word
play and tight script-writing. The text is also sharply feminist. In short,
there's a lot to enjoy in the book — even more if you get to see the text on
stage.
If you enjoyed Shakespeare
in Love, you will enjoy Goodnight,
Desdemona. It is witty and irreverent and pointed and thoughtful — qualities
that make the best theatre, and that make for good reading generally.
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