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Shakespeare & Beyond

Thine Own Self

Aaron Krohn as Touchstone, in green with guitar, in As You Like It, Folger Theatre, 2017. Photo by Teresa Wood.
Aaron Krohn as Touchstone, in green with guitar, in As You Like It, Folger Theatre, 2017. Photo by Teresa Wood.

“What are you?”

That’s the question Olivia asks “Cesario,” the strangely compelling person who is “between boy and man” (and is actually the lady Viola in disguise) in Twelfth Night. But it’s also a question that pops up in various forms throughout all of Shakespeare’s plays, filled as they are with characters, both in disguise and out, who are navigating shifting positions in social class, rising and falling fortunes, and fractious political loyalties.

William Oliver Watkins as Orsino and Caitlin McWethy as Viola in Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s 2018 production of Twelfth Night, directed by Austin Tichenor. By Mikki Schaffner Photography.

William Oliver Watkins as Orsino and Caitlin McWethy as Viola (“Cesario”) in Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s 2018 production of Twelfth Night, directed by Austin Tichenor. By Mikki Schaffner Photography.

When I teach or conduct workshops, it’s a question I ask my students, too: What are you? How do you identify? Are you an artist? A scholar? A scientist? An athlete? A nerd? (Everyone’s a nerd about something.) If you’re a theater artist, as many of my students are, how do you specify — are you an actor? A director? A playwright? A dancer? A choreographer? A designer? A technician? Knowing my students’ background and interests helps me tailor the lesson and show how the subject matter might be applicable to their lives (and not just, you know, fascinating for its own sake).

But it’s a question we all struggle with, with frequently multiple answers, or an answer that changes over the course of a term. It will almost certainly change over the course of a life, as Shakespeare well knew. At various times in his life, Shakespeare was a glover’s apprentice, an actor, a poet, a dramatic poet (what we now call a playwright), a property owner, a grain hoarder, and a shareholder in a theater industry that he helped invent. “One man in his time plays many parts,” indeed.

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