«Hamlet, thy name is woman»: cross-gendered casting in Antonio Latella’s Hamlet (2021)

Theatre is hardly new to cross-gender casting. The tradition of men portraying women on public stages dates back to Greek drama: men played female roles in the playhouses of Shakespeare’s London and Japanese Kabuki. In recent centuries, the idea of switching the gender of parts in either direction when reviving Shakespearean plays has continuously come in and out of fashion. Cross-gender casting experienced a boom in the Anglophone world in the 1990s, with actresses like Sarah Bernhardt claiming their right to Olympian roles like Hamlet, a tradition most recently added to by Maxine Peake (2014), Tessa Parr (2019), Michelle Terry (2018) and Cush Jumbo (2020). Embracing this practice with cautious enthusiasm, contemporary Italian theatre has recently opened up to cross-gendered casting and to its capacity to illuminate and problematize specific aspects of the text performed. This is the case for Antonio Latella’s Hamlet, staged at Piccolo Teatro Studio Melato in 2021. Defying the performing conventions traditionally associated with the role, this production featured a young she-Hamlet, played by Federica Rosellini. As Latella articulates, by trascending gender binaries, the unconventionality of this casting choice was originally designed to urge audiences to engage with the text on a deeper level. However, the timely staging of the production during the wave of mobilisation that shook the cultural and creative sectors following the diffusion of the international feminist movements of #metoo and #metootheatre significantly affected the reception of this casting choice. Focusing on the ways in which Latella’s Hamlet resonated with Italian audiences and critics, this article contributes to the debates around the use of cross-gendered casting in the reviving of Shakespearean plays within the context of women’s struggle for equality. On the one hand, it offers a perspective on the gender imbalances that affect the Italian theatre sector, and on the other hand, it considers the potential of Latella’s production in promoting social change.