Writer Melissa Poll takes a look at Temple Repertory Theater and its extraordinary emphasis on female characters.
Ladies’ Choice
by Melissa Poll
Although we’ve come a long way baby, the journey’s far from over. Despite recent media coverage of shifting gender ratios in the American workforce (keenly exemplified in The Atlantic’s “The End of Men”), the entertainment industry continues to lag perilously behind. It’s no surprise that Oscar has waited eighty-two years to acknowledge a female film director (Kathryn Bigelow) given Hollywood’s enduring objectification of women and seeming commitment to sexualize increasingly younger girls (most recently, via twelve-year-old Chloë Moretz’s Tarantino-esque turn in “Kick Ass”). Unfortunately, Broadway isn’t doing much better. In his May Tony roundup, New York Times columnist Patrick Healy dissects a season that often relegated actresses to back burner roles, seriously subverting the female voice. It suffices to say that in today’s male-dominated, ageist entertainment industry, the climate for mid-career female artists is dishearteningly cold. Thankfully, Temple Repertory Theater is unapologetically challenging the status quo.
To ring in its inaugural season, Temple Rep will present two productions defined by eminent female roles: Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, directed by Dan Kern, and William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, directed by Douglas C. Wager. Although the central female characters in both plays are far from icons of gender equality (Irina, Masha, Olga and Isabella all find the crux of their identities inextricably linked to men) both Three Sisters and Measure for Measure put women front and center. Chekhov’s turn-of-the-century offering follows the Prozorov sisters (played here by Kate Czajkowski , Yvette Ganier and Geneviève Perrier) as they negotiate life, love and an insatiable longing for Moscow. Measure for Measure charts the journey of a young postulant (Geneviève Perrier) forced to choose between her religious principles and her brother’s life.
Thanks to years of professional experience and an unwavering dedication to the actor’s craft, the women of Temple Rep are up for this season’s challenge. In a recent interview, both Seattle’s Kate Czajkowski and Philadelphia favorite Geneviève Perrier lauded Temple’s MFA program as well as the new repertory season. Perrier says she’s become conscious of her artistic habits at Temple, including “putting limits” on herself. While professional casting directors often pigeonhole her as girlish, Perrier now realizes the need to explore a wider range: “I want to play women, not girls!” By joining the ranks of Temple’s MFA acting program, Perrier feels she’s found a “safe place” to explore the breadth of her abilities; through characters like Measure for Measure‘s Isabella, Perrier is eager to transcend basic ingénue territory.
Kate Czajkowski’s experience at Temple has been similarly rewarding. After ten years in Seattle, an artistic milieu where she feels that “only a few men make a living strictly through acting,” Czajkowski was ready to push her artistic boundaries and further build technique. She’s currently tackling the former through Chekhov’s Masha, a character she describes as “mercurial” and “completely reactionary to prevailing social constraints.” As for technique, Czajkowski is ebullient when crediting her voice instructor, Lynne Innerst, with an approach that is “totally eye-opening… it gives you a way to permanently proceed with your work.” Moreover, like her cohort Perrier, Czajkowski relishes Temple’s supportive atmosphere: “I have the freedom to play without worrying about ticket sales or an artistic director evaluating my work.”
Czajkowski and Perrier’s commitment to good art and dynamic female voices is a timely counterpoint to popular summer entertainment. Given the season’s “blockbuster” line-up, (“The A-Team,” a new Stallone action flick [no joke] and, inevitably, Megan Fox in her perpetual state of dishabille) the tireless quest for three-dimensional women turns to theater. And, although a summer repertory season can hardly end an industry’s prevailing gender inequality, I’m partial to the belief that an inception of change resides in repeatedly voting with my entertainment dollar and encouraging my friends to follow suit.
Measure for Measure and Three Sisters run in repertory at the Tomlinson Theater from July 3 to August 1, 2010. For tickets please visit http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/repertory-theater/ or call 1-800-838-3006.
Melissa Poll is a freelance writer and graduate student whose work has appeared in The British Theatre Guide, The Vancouver Sun, and vancouverplays.com.
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Ladies’ Choice
Writer Melissa Poll takes a look at Temple Repertory Theater and its extraordinary emphasis on female characters.
Ladies’ Choice
by Melissa Poll
Although we’ve come a long way baby, the journey’s far from over. Despite recent media coverage of shifting gender ratios in the American workforce (keenly exemplified in The Atlantic’s “The End of Men”), the entertainment industry continues to lag perilously behind. It’s no surprise that Oscar has waited eighty-two years to acknowledge a female film director (Kathryn Bigelow) given Hollywood’s enduring objectification of women and seeming commitment to sexualize increasingly younger girls (most recently, via twelve-year-old Chloë Moretz’s Tarantino-esque turn in “Kick Ass”). Unfortunately, Broadway isn’t doing much better. In his May Tony roundup, New York Times columnist Patrick Healy dissects a season that often relegated actresses to back burner roles, seriously subverting the female voice. It suffices to say that in today’s male-dominated, ageist entertainment industry, the climate for mid-career female artists is dishearteningly cold. Thankfully, Temple Repertory Theater is unapologetically challenging the status quo.
To ring in its inaugural season, Temple Rep will present two productions defined by eminent female roles: Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, directed by Dan Kern, and William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, directed by Douglas C. Wager. Although the central female characters in both plays are far from icons of gender equality (Irina, Masha, Olga and Isabella all find the crux of their identities inextricably linked to men) both Three Sisters and Measure for Measure put women front and center. Chekhov’s turn-of-the-century offering follows the Prozorov sisters (played here by Kate Czajkowski , Yvette Ganier and Geneviève Perrier) as they negotiate life, love and an insatiable longing for Moscow. Measure for Measure charts the journey of a young postulant (Geneviève Perrier) forced to choose between her religious principles and her brother’s life.
Thanks to years of professional experience and an unwavering dedication to the actor’s craft, the women of Temple Rep are up for this season’s challenge. In a recent interview, both Seattle’s Kate Czajkowski and Philadelphia favorite Geneviève Perrier lauded Temple’s MFA program as well as the new repertory season. Perrier says she’s become conscious of her artistic habits at Temple, including “putting limits” on herself. While professional casting directors often pigeonhole her as girlish, Perrier now realizes the need to explore a wider range: “I want to play women, not girls!” By joining the ranks of Temple’s MFA acting program, Perrier feels she’s found a “safe place” to explore the breadth of her abilities; through characters like Measure for Measure‘s Isabella, Perrier is eager to transcend basic ingénue territory.
Kate Czajkowski’s experience at Temple has been similarly rewarding. After ten years in Seattle, an artistic milieu where she feels that “only a few men make a living strictly through acting,” Czajkowski was ready to push her artistic boundaries and further build technique. She’s currently tackling the former through Chekhov’s Masha, a character she describes as “mercurial” and “completely reactionary to prevailing social constraints.” As for technique, Czajkowski is ebullient when crediting her voice instructor, Lynne Innerst, with an approach that is “totally eye-opening… it gives you a way to permanently proceed with your work.” Moreover, like her cohort Perrier, Czajkowski relishes Temple’s supportive atmosphere: “I have the freedom to play without worrying about ticket sales or an artistic director evaluating my work.”
Czajkowski and Perrier’s commitment to good art and dynamic female voices is a timely counterpoint to popular summer entertainment. Given the season’s “blockbuster” line-up, (“The A-Team,” a new Stallone action flick [no joke] and, inevitably, Megan Fox in her perpetual state of dishabille) the tireless quest for three-dimensional women turns to theater. And, although a summer repertory season can hardly end an industry’s prevailing gender inequality, I’m partial to the belief that an inception of change resides in repeatedly voting with my entertainment dollar and encouraging my friends to follow suit.
Measure for Measure and Three Sisters run in repertory at the Tomlinson Theater from July 3 to August 1, 2010. For tickets please visit http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/repertory-theater/ or call 1-800-838-3006.
Melissa Poll is a freelance writer and graduate student whose work has appeared in The British Theatre Guide, The Vancouver Sun, and vancouverplays.com.