Galatea
images above by Kaleidoshoots from production in Brighton Festival
“I like well and allow it” - Venus
Act V, Sc III
Galatea was a large scale outdoor production that was performed as part of the Brighton Festival, 2023. info here
“Galatea is the story of a town that has been cursed.
They have forgotten how to love.
And the monster is coming…”
This was the first professional revival of the play which inspired Shakespeare to write As You Like It and A Midsummer Night's Dream. Last performed in front of Queen Elizabeth I, five hundred years ago, this tale of love, joy and the importance of welcoming outsiders is an incredibly resonant story for our modern times.
HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE
John Lyly was the most famous writer of Shakespeare’s lifetime, but is now Shakespeare’s only playwriting colleague never to have been professionally revived. Galatea had a particularly powerful effect over Shakespeare: it is the first Elizabethan comedy about cross-dressing, getting lost in a wood and falling in love with someone whose identity you do not fully understand!
‘Galatea’ by John Lyly, is an extraordinary 16th century play from the period before Shakespeare began writing. In close collaboration with Andy Kesson and his Before Shakespeare project, I led several periods of research & development, working with a diverse group of artists and performers to mount scenes and rehearse the text, gaining a closer understanding of a play that is not only extremely feminist and queer positive, but also contains a trans narrative.
Venus: Then shall it be seen that I can turn one of them to be a man, and that I will.Diana: Is it possible?
Venus: What is, to the Goddess of Love, unpossible? (5.3)
The more time I have spent with Galatea, the more I have discovered what it contains about gender fluidity and trans identities in this period The importance of these discoveries must not be understated. As LGBTQ people our histories are often erased or confounded to fit the narrative of a cis-normative, patriarchal society. The presence of such a high profile story as Galatea, a play well known and performed in front of Elizabeth I, should radically alter our attitude towards queer identity today.
The final production was supported by Arts Council England and AHRC, commissioned by Brrighton Festival and co-produced with Marlborough Productions and Wildworks.
