would be seeing it, and I wanted to create a piece that showed
“I knew that a lot of families
that they have ALWAYS had a place in American stories, that their stories are universal and needed.”
LGBTQ+ teens and young people — Kate Hamill
produced, for millennia, and they’ve been controlling the narratives,” she continued. “Our stories are all too often filtered through the male gaze. So, I wanted to start writing new, female-centered, feminist classics that don’t ask for that kind of approval, that break out of those structures. I wanted to make roles for complicated, funny, spiky, vulgar, very human women as well as men. I wanted to make ensemble-based plays that brought something new, that took a radical new play approach to adaptation. Honestly, when it comes to the classics, I didn’t come to decorate the doors of the palace – I came to kick down the doors and let all the people in.” Hamill’s version of the show just finished a run and now will open at The Old
Globe onThursday, March 19. The cast of the Dallas production will be here as well, and playing the role of Jo March will be Pearl Rhein, who is very familiar with Hamill’s work. “I’m a huge fan of Kate’s work,” Rhein said. “Her characters and dialogue are
never-ending gifts to actors. She writes dialogue that you read as an actor and instantly want to say out loud. This is my first time getting to do one of her adaptations, and I’m hoping to work my way through her catalog.” Rhein, like Hamill, said she hasn’t seen the latest film version because “it
becomes too difficult to find a character with someone else’s performance in my head.” However, she did see the Katharine Hepburn version many years ago and is fighting to not let Hepburn slip into her character. Jo March is the very strong-willed daughter in the March clan and in some ways
has been an icon and hero to many girls and women over the years, including Rhein. “I think Jo is a prototype for many of the misfit girls in literature,” Rhein said. “Harriet in Harriet the Spy, Anne Shirley inAnne of Green Gables, Celie inThe Color
Purple, Hermione Granger inHarry Potter are all strong but underestimated characters that many people grew up with. (They’re also, along with Jo, all characters who are judged ‘not pretty enough’ in one way or another.) When I was growing up, Jo was someone who helped me see that I wasn’t the only one who felt out of place.” Rhein, also like Hamill, feels that it’s more than about time that women are
given the same opportunities that men are given. “Women and other non-cis-male people are seriously underrepresented on
American stages,” Rhein said. ”In 2019, 61% of named roles in Broadway plays and musicals were male identified. This is a problem because it doesn’t accurately represent the world (or the ticket-buyers, who are majority female-identified). It’s also a problem because it means there’s employment disparity. “In the last few years I’ve auditioned for more plays by Kate Hamill than by any
other single playwright! Kate is a job creator. Because she wroteLittle Women, re- gional audiences get to see a play with a female lead and a majority-female cast, I get paid a living wage, and I get health insurance. That’s the real, tangible result of representation. And while it’s true that cis white women are acting and directing more these days, that’s not enough. The disparity is much worse for actors of color, for trans and nonbinary actors, and anyone who is further marginalized by being a member of more than one of these groups,” Rhein concluded. Sounds like Alcott’s classic tale is more than in safe hands with Hamill and
Rhein. They are standing up for women and for Alcott. Something I’m sure she would have approved of.
Little Women runs Saturday, March 14 through Sunday, April 19 at The Old Globe.
theoldglobe.org or 619.234.5623
March 2020 | @theragemonthly 41
photos by karen almond
photo courtesy of the old globe
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