Emilia by Morgan Lloyd Malcolm is a fine piece of feminist theatre, a call-to-arms, which also happens to be informative, funny, thought-provoking, sad and life-affirming, and if you’re a woman, highly relatable.
The Emilia in question is the daughter of immigrants, the ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s sonnets, brought up to be a courtesan at Elizabeth I’s court, but who hungers for so much more. Emilia wants to write and have her voice heard, at a time when only the male gaze is permitted, and any woman, regarded as having transgressed the norms, risks being burnt as a witch.
The play lays bear the obstacles women face before they even reach the starting block, let alone the encouragement, entitlement and opportunities that had they been men they may well have taken for granted. Fortunately, the play is written with a great deal of humour so the play’s message comes across less of a polemic, more as if you are eavesdropping on a conversation that you could easily be having with your mates.
And there are some neat conceits such as Emilia heckling Shakespeare for stealing her words and sticking them in his play. This deftly crystalizes that age-old conundrum of women solely being depicted via the prism of men. Not to mention the fallacious if long-held belief that the only way a woman can be truly creative is as a muse of some man, whereas any work, she might herself produce, should be dismissed as a ‘hobby’ and something inherently less valid.
The play also underlines how important it is for women to hear their voices reflected back to them, a point felt on a visceral level when watching the play. On several occasions I found myself shouting out in agreement as, for example, Emilia chastises Shakespeare for mansplaining or when a group of women are interrupted as a man walks on stage, shouting the immortal line, ‘Silence, there’s an important man coming through’. We may not have met a man who has actually said those words, but we’ve all met those men that think it.
In its final scenes, the play depicts the awful price some women pay for daring to raise their head above the parapet, while at the same time making clear that despite all the obstacles and the dangers, women still find a way of making their voices heard. Emilia’s final speech is a moving call to arms. As Emilia says, ‘Look how far we’ve come. Don’t stop now.’
