Kaedyn Yonker
Sports Editor
Friday, Oct. 23, marked the debut of The College of Wooster’s Theatre and Dance Department’s performance of “Emilia.” “Emilia” was written by British playwright Morgan Lloyd Malcolm and premiered in 2018 at the Globe Theatre. The play covers and explores the life of 17th century poet Emilia Bassano Lanier, who was the first professional female poet in the English world. Most of her corpus of work is considered to be protofeminist, or ahead of her time. Bassano is also speculated to be the Dark Lady from Shakespeare’s sonnets or even to be the author of many Shakespeare pieces herself.
“‘Emilia’ twists the speculation about who Shakespeare’s Dark Lady is and instead asks how it must have felt to be Shakespeare’s Dark Lady,” said Gabrielle Risley ’27, who played Lord Thomas Howard, Bob and Man #2. “It talks about men using women’s words for their own gain and how men in the patriarchy are empowered to steal and take things and benefit from women.”
“Emilia” is truly a play challenging the erasure of women that was and is so prevalent in society.
“Emilia” was written during the height of Tudormania, a time of heightened obsession with the Tudor dynasty. However, despite taking place during a part of the Elizabethan Era, the play often divorces itself from the ideas that are ubiquitous in Tudor media. Instead of being a court-based drama, the play is a feminist review of the life and times of Emilia Bassano Lanier. “Emilia” often focuses on the relationships between women and men and how men endlessly take from women without giving anything back. The play also explores class division with its commentary on how even wealthy minorities benefit from their upper class privileges, giving them an advantage over their lower class counterparts.
From a production and story perspective, I thoroughly enjoyed “Emilia.” I thought it was a very powerful play that had clear calls to action on how the problems Emilia Bassano Lanier faced are very much still happening today. Its discussions of sexual violence and structural misogyny still ring true. I thought the writing was poignant and the actors always did an amazing job bringing life and energy to these characters. My only criticism would be that at times the writing felt like it would just use a cuss word as if it was their first-time cussing.
With the play, I was made to learn more about Emilia Bassano Lanier. As a self-described Advanced Placement (AP) English Literature kid, I had never heard of Emilia Bassano Lanier. I found myself frantically Googling her during intermission to learn more about her and actually read her poetry. I wanted to try to understand her more as a person, as is the goal of the play: to humanize Shakespeare’s Dark Lady and paint her as a person rather than a historical novelty. I would recommend people view “Emilia” in any way they can. It’s a strong play that has a lot of staying power and resonates with a modern-day audience.
