Lisa Wolpe wrote, directs and stars in ‘Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender’

By Debora Gordon

Writer, performer, director, teacher and world traveler Lisa Wolpe, currently starring in a one-woman show at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, has been in the world of theater for more than 50 years.

Born in Palo Alto, California, Wolpe (pronounced “vol-pay”) began her acting career while still in high school, while also editing an underground newspaper. She later edit the school newspaper at University of California San Diego. Wolpe went on to earn her bachelor’s degree in Theater and Communications, and later a master’s in Interdisciplinary Arts at Goddard College.

An early play she wrote, “Parzival,” details what Wolpe described as “the voice of an innocent fool in a hostile world” and is, in a sense, the subtext of her creative work: “a continuing theme to look at violence in the world and try to keep your heart open.” The play was nominated as the Best New Play in the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Awards in 1985.

While not on one of her many world travels, Wolpe lives in Santa Monica, California, five minutes from the beach in a rent-controlled apartment, with her partner Michelle and her dog Peanut.

Here in Ashland, Wolpe is currently the writer, director and star of “Shakespeare and the Alchemy of Gender,” at OSF through May 4. Her one-hour monologue intertwines experiences from her own life as well as those of her parents and family member with many lines and references from a range of Shakespeare’s plays, including her father’s experiences at the hands of the Nazis.

In relation to current world events, she notes that “the violence in Gaza is horrific, and I don’t believe it’s the right thing to do. All of the people on the planet are human. It’s easy to vilify other people and hate them, but it is the worst thing going for humanities record, I just wish everyone could just be whoever they are and, you know, race, religion, gender or whatever, and just be who you are. Don’t hurt anyone.”

She follows the performance with a 15-minute question and answer period with the audience. After that, she opens up to one-to-one conversations for 10 more minutes.

Wolpe notes she has played more male roles than any other female performer, beginning 45 years ago, with Malvolio in “Twelfth Night” as her first traditionally male Shakespeare role. Subsequently, Wolpe established the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company (LAWSC) in 1993, which was “created for the empowerment of women and girls, and it was a beacon to the larger Shakespeare world. What would be possible if women could, within their own ranks, promote each other? We built all the sets, did all the promo and all the fundraising and promote the global majority.”

She produced, directed, and starred in more than a dozen plays with all-female casts with the LAWSC before its closing in 2016.

“I’ve been acting for almost 50 years,” Wolpe recalls. “The first play was ‘Don’t Drink the Water’ by Woody Allen, in which I played Krojack (the head of the Communist police who traps the Hollanders in the embassy.) I was able to perform with the graduate actors even when I was a teenager.

“All of the work that I’ve ever done, and all of the work that I’ll ever do, has been invited to be archived at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon in 2026, which is the year that the library there is calling “Shakespeare’s Sisters” to honor women, partly because of my activist efforts to raise up the legacy of women and queer women in that library, which is mostly the World Shakespeare Company and Kenneth Branagh. There are some women, but there’s not as much as I would like to see parity in terms of representation. So they are making some effort now to talk about that.”

Wolpe’s work has the underlying theme of hope, and also challenging prevailing notions of women’s place in the world.

“I’m always in favor of people doing things that change the world in some ways, hopefully for the better,” she said. She also notes that “Women’s roles are mostly victim, girlfriend, mother or whore — I prefer playing heroes or villains because there’s more complexity, there’s more power, there are more lines, and one doesn’t feel defeated on the daily. Also, it helps address what had been the problem; although not so much anymore, which was that a rehearsal would involve two or three women and maybe 20 guys. That isn’t safe or comfortable for a young girl and doesn’t represent the world, where more than half of the world is female.

“Eighty percent of the lines spoken in films are spoken by men. And paintings hanging in the museums? Artists are not equally represented according to gender. I played Eleanor Roosevelt a couple years ago. She had a lesbian girlfriend who was a journalist, living in the White House. And because they were trying to fight for female journalists, Eleanor Roosevelt said ‘I’m going to give news briefings. But the only people who can attend are female journalists. They’re now forcing the newspapers to hire more women.’”

Wolpe also began directing while in college. “I started a group called GUTS, which stood for the Group for Undergraduate Theater Students, because we had less opportunities than the graduate students had,” she said. “I directed several plays at college, and then I went on to direct for the rest of my life, continuing to this moment. I have been teaching theater for decades.”

Wolpe has taken her talents worldwide. “Currently, I enjoy teaching for the Prague Shakespeare Company and Czech Republic,” she said. “I’ve done seven of their month-long intensives and will direct shows and act for them …. I’ve been a guest artist at 30 universities, all over the U.S. I’m going to Germany to teach a workshop in Bremen. It will be my second trip to Bremen, where I did my solo show, in June, right after I perform at Yale.” 

Additionally, she said she is “currently putting up ‘Two Noble Kinsmen’ at the Estates Theater in Prague, which is one of the most beautiful theaters in the world. I’m proud to have that opportunity through the Proud Shakespeare Company to put up a little-known play in a gorgeous place. ‘Two Noble Kinsmen’ is the play that is attributed to Shakespeare and John Fletcher as a cooperating team written near the end of Shakespeare’s life. And it features mostly queer characters. Really. Even back then. And so nobody does it.”

Debora Gordon is a writer, artist, educator and non-violence activist who recently moved to Ashland from Oakland, California. Email her at [email protected].

Related article: Lisa Wolpe Uses Shakespeare To Bend Gender Roles (American Theatre, Aug. 13, 2014)