A review by jswense
Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare's Roles for Women by Harriet Walter

4.0

I bought this book after seeing her in Phyllida Lloyd’s Shakespeare trilogy in London in 2016 but only got around to reading it now. It is an excellent piece of Shakespeare scholarship that emphasises the importance of actors to understanding the canon. Walter over all does well exploring privilege, entitlement, and gender in relation to Shakespeare. My only wish is that she had addressed the problems of her, as a white woman, playing Cleopatra. Beyond that it was a well written and thoughtful account of gender and Shakespeare.