Rewriting Shakespeare for gender neutrality

SIR – I agree with the theatre director Sir Richard Eyre that gender-swapping can sometimes ruin Shakespearean speeches (report, June 3).

I would, perhaps, go a step further and condemn the notions of political correctness that now seem to weigh productions down too heavily. I recently attended a live transmission of As You Like It from the Royal Shakespeare Company, which boasted the usual quota of actors of colour, a female quota achieved by genderswapping (including the key role of Jacques); one pair of lovers was lesbian and another featured a deaf actress, with the lines being signed and translated by another actor.

However, what I found really intolerable was that speeches were modified, not always to accommodate the gender-swapping of the cast but to degenderise the speeches themselves. Thus, for example, in one of Shakespeare’s most famous speeches, “And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel”, was rendered: “And then the whining school-child, with their satchel”.

I have seen more than 200 productions from the RSC, but I will not be going again. Nor will I attend any more of their live transmissions, until they remember what their primary purpose is. Vincent Smith

Chorley, Lancashire

SIR – It is not often that a review exactly reflects my feelings about a play – but Dominic Cavendish’s review of the RSC’S Venice Preserved (Arts, June 3) hit the nail firmly on the head, to the extent that my husband thought I was the woman whom your critic heard leaving in the interval.

In fact it wasn’t me – I kept my opinions to myself until we were in the post-interval lull in the café.

The actors, by the way, were not merely wearing carnival masks, but the kind of Guy Fawkes mask favoured by the Anonymous group of “hacktivists”, which made more sense within the play.

I was sorry to leave. The actors clearly gave their all – but it was not enough to save the play for me. Valerie Snow

Bromsgrove, Worcestershire