His Majesty, The Queen

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If you teach me how to be a woman, I will teach you how to be a man," Queen Elizabeth I says to Ned Lowenscroft near the end of the first act of Timothy Findley's provocative Elizabeth Rex. As uttered by Diane D'Aquila with a ferocious sense of urgency and a sly sense of humor, the line forces us to examine how we perceive gender and sexuality and their place in matters of power and the heart. That Elizabeth doesn't fully succeed in breaking down sexual stereotypes is largely owing to the excessive time spent embracing them.

Elizabeth Rex, which opened last week at the Stratford Festival of Ontario's Tom Patterson Theater under Martha Henry's direction, is a rare bird at this venue: a new play. But it is a perfect choice for bending the rules. Though it has a contemporary sensibility, Elizabeth is set in Shakespeare's time, quotes his masterworks (specifically Much Ado About Nothing and Antony and Cleopatra) and features Shakespeare himself (played blandly by Peter Hutt) in a major role. The portrayal of the Bard as gay and the use of an AIDS metaphor underline the play's attempt to be boldly modern, but it is these things that ultimately make Rex seem stale.

In 1601 Elizabeth I awaits the morning's execution of her former lover, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. She has sentenced him to death for treason, and she alone can pardon him. Seeking distraction, she commands a performance of Much Ado--she loves the character of Beatrice (Brent Carver), especially before that determined damsel wins the heart of Benedick (Scott Wentworth)--and joins the players after the show. Here she meets Lowenscroft, a man who plays all the important female roles in the Shakespearean canon. Impressed, she asks for his insights into womanhood, something she has repressed as ruler, always the masculine Rex (King).

We all know that in Shakespeare's time, men playing the women's roles, and certain modern illusions have grown up around this. Movies like Shakespeare in Love show us young boys acting the ingenue roles like Juliet or Viola, and this is what we assume to be the minimum requirement for such impersonation. But Ned is a different animal. He is a mature adult who would play Lady Macbeth or Hamlet's mother Gertrude. Carver, best known for his Tony Award-winning performance in Kiss of the Spider Woman, plays the actor with flamboyance but with real grace. His profane entrance is funny, moving and outrageous, and one of the show's highlights.

Ned forces Elizabeth to confront her femininity, specifically her sense of compassion. Elizabeth also has something to teach Ned, who is dying of syphilis, about strength, masculinity and fortitude. "Ned can play anything," one of the players declares. To which Will Shakespeare responds, "Except his own life."

Rex is most alive when Elizabeth and Ned are sparring, and it suffers when the odd couple disappear. Carver and D'Aquila complement each other beautifully. D'Aquila is the epitome of tough. "Enough amazement," she says to one of her subjects who stares at her in awe, but she could have said it to the audience. Carver's vulnerability is equally magnetic. In true Elizabethan fashion, they are as much at ease with the play's denser passages of philosophy as they are with witty wordplay.

Both the play and the production have flaws that undermine their accomplishments. There are 40 long minutes leading up to Elizabeth's entrance. Nothing happens. The role of Shakespeare seems misconceived as written and performed. Ned's crises aren't as compelling or as well thought out as Elizabeth's. The play falls into talky chasms. Bizarre background sounds are out of place.

But there is a moment near the end of the play that is breathtaking, as Elizabeth watches the actors perform an intimate and imagined scene from her own life--between herself and the doomed Essex. All of a sudden, the healing power of theater unfolds. Finally, Elizabeth mourns the death of her faithless lover as a woman, and Ned accepts his fate as a man. It is a moment of peerless clarity, one that can happen only, as playwright Findley has again shown us, on the stage.