Good Night Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)

Description

In this exuberant comedy-and original revision of Shakespeare’s Othello and Romeo and Juliet-Constance Ledbelly, a drab and dusty academic, deciphers a cryptic manuscript she believes to be the original source for the tragedies, and is transported into the plays themselves. She visits Juliet and Desdemona, has a hand in saving them, and finds out what these women are about. in true Shakespearean spirit, Constance plunders the plays and creates something new, all the while engaging in a personal voyage of self-discovery. With an abundance of twists, fights, dances, seductions and wild surprises, the play is an absolute joy of theatricality-not surprisingly, considering the author who created it.

Winner of the Governor General’s Award for Drama

“Clever, pointed and entertaining. . . . This play is one of the wildest and woolliest feminist reappraisals that theatre has seen, and one of the most intellectually ambitious.
-Toronto Globe and Mail

“Imagine a collaboration among Shakespeare, Lewis Carroll and Woody Allen, and you have the essence of Goodnight Desdemona.”
-The Commercial Appeal (Memphis)

“In Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) the playfulness is the thing.”
-San Francisco Chronicle

“Delightful, often hilarious . . . MacDonald doesn’t miss a trick, scattering satirical observations on love and sex, scholarship and the Bard like birdseed, while taking full advantage of the slapstick possibilities in Shakespearean cross-dressing.”
-The Washington Post

MacDonald’s influences may be apparent, but the charm is her own.”
-Variety

“Stratford-upon-Acid: that’s where MacDonald’s dizzying Goodnight Desdemona lives. . . . MacDonald traipses through the canon with glee. . . . Lots of clever fun.”
-The Village Voice

Ann-Marie MacDonald is one of Canada’s leading dramatists and is the author of the critically acclaimed novel Fall on Your Knees