Thy Woman’s Weeds

Written by Erin Shields
Directed by Amanda Kellock

A fierce, subversive new work by one of Canada’s leading playwrights, Thy Woman’s Weeds boldly challenges and explores what it means to be a woman working with Shakespeare today.

As the first play commissioned by Repercussion as part of our Words With Will development series, Erin Shields’s Thy Woman’s Weeds premiered at Centaur Theatre in spring 2024. Shields’s play was recognized as a “fierce feminist re-examination of Shakespeare’s work and the way it is taken up in contemporary society”.

Thy Woman’s Weeds ran April 23 to May 12, 2024.

Thy Woman’s Weeds centers around a chorus of women. Over the course of 30 scenes, these women speak through Shakespeare’s characters and about them. They rage against the limiting space they are allotted and commiserate over the lack of options they are allowed.

The play has the capacity to excite the Bard afficionado as much as the novice, and it seems to engage those who hate him as much as those who love him.

It is neither simply a love-letter to Shakespeare, nor is it a break-up text (though it sometimes is both). It is a daringly vulnerable expression of some of the people and experiences that are left out of this so-called universal material.

Thy Woman’s Weeds

Team 2024

Cast
Deena Aziz
Leni Parker
Joy Ross-Jones
Espoir Segbeaya
Warona Setshwaelo
Felicia Shulman
Julie Tamiko Manning

Thy Woman’s Weeds

Thy Woman’s Weeds

Repercussion Theatre