Performance of Gender: crossdressing in the adaptation of "As You Like It"

Abstract

This presentation – divided into two parts, the first written by Prof. Antonella Piazza and the second written by Ph.D. Maria Izzo – aims at describing and analysing the theatrical adaptation Shakespeare’s Lovers. A Postmodern Pastiche staged in 2010 by DAVIMUS students of English at the university of Salerno. This didactic experimentation results from the students’ re-reading and re-functioning of Shakespearian comedies As You Like It and Much Ado About Nothing. The final work is a pastiche of genres – literary and sexual –, linguistic registers, sources, where cross-dressing, which is highly at stake in the adapted comedies, proves to be a category that deconstructs the binary opposition between genres. The cultural process followed by the students has underlined that it is easier to reread the source text through the principles and fashions of your contemporary age and of the culture of your generation. In particular the students could access a “fictitious” moment where they were able to find out by enjoying themselves that dressing/cross-dressing is an intrinsic element of the creative process of your identity and that the young protagonists of Shakespeare’s adapted comedies were not so distant from them.