This spring, our actors have been pulling double duty! Not only have they performed Twelfth Night and Shakespeare in Love in repertory, but some of our actors have been exploring playing both sexes! Orlando Shakes got the chance to sit down with Susan Maris, who plays Viola or “Thomas Kent” in Shakespeare in Love, and John P. Keller, who portrays Olivia in our traditional all-male production of Twelfth Night, and chat about what it has meant for them to explore these roles.

An Interview with Actors Susan Maris and John P. Keller

Orlando Shakespeare Theater: When you approached the role, how did you begin to explore the boundaries of gender?

Susan Maris: I started by thinking about what characteristics I associate with a man (or male-identifying human): voice, gate, and posture. Playing with my voice came first. Lowering it into my chest, and adding a more manly or boyish quality to it. Physically, I explored a more masculine way of moving and standing. Simple things like how I would bow rather than curtsy, how I would dance as a man and not as a woman. I think of gender as a spectrum of feminine into masculine, and vice versa. We all contain multitudes of both aspects (these characters included), and in our daily lives rest somewhere on that spectrum. I imagine Viola aiming for the masculine side of the spectrum as Thomas Kent, and then jumping back to the feminine side where she naturally exists, sometimes all in a matter of seconds, depending on where we are in the story.

John P. Keller: The goal and responsibility of any actor is first to find the truth of the character. When I began work on the role of Olivia my first and primary goal was to be honest about her journey. She starts as a woman in mourning and grows to become a woman in love. As a fellow human I have had my own experiences of both sadness, despair, anxiety, joy, love. The challenge is understanding or at least making every effort to see this kind of journey through Olivia’s eyes and respond to these circumstances the way she would. That’s were I tried to start. I think my next step was to trust the text. Not try to “put on” the character of a woman. I certainly did a lot of work on the physicality and the mannerisms and movement of the time period but that is more structural to the era. I think the essence of exploring the boundaries of gender is more about listening and valuing a perspective and letting the text give you the essence of the character.

OST: What is the biggest challenge in playing the opposite gender?

Photo by Tony Firriolo features Susan Maris as Thomas Kent in ‘Shakespeare in Love’.

SM: My goal is to always keep it human, and rooted in storytelling—and that can be a challenge. It’s easy to make general choices and just “act masculine” as opposed to making specific choices that propel the story, create behavior, and build character.

JK: The more superficial and humorous answer would be the corsets. It is worth mentioning though because so much of the realities of how women move and behave during this time period is how their clothing either restricts or gives them power. The first practical challenge I had to face in the rehearsal room was getting used to not only being confined in a corset but then having to navigate yards of fabric hanging off of every square inch of my body. It is amazing how movement can inspire your behavior and how it helps an actor also find the inner emotional life of a character.

OST: Did any aspect of the role come easier than expected?

SM: The vocal world came easier than I had expected. I still have to remember sometimes to fully lift my voice back up to Viola from Thomas, but I’m amazed at what a good vocal warm-up will get me as far as a speaking vocal range. It feels better in my voice and in my body than I thought it would.

JK: I think the honesty of Olivia’s journey and how well she is written. She has so many instances in her text where she is both aware of how strongly she feels and how her behavior might seem silly while at the same time saying to both herself and the outside world that she doesn’t care and she is going to fight for what she wants.

OST: Is this something you’ve done before?

SM: Yes! I played Imogen in Cymbeline, (one of Shakespeare’s pants roles). She disguises herself as a boy to travel to find her husband.

JK: I’ve had the opportunity to play some incredibly characters who were men in drag. This is decidedly different however because I am not playing a man in woman clothes but rather trying to create the truth of a woman’s journey.

OST: Is this something you would like to do again?

Photo by Tony Firrolo features John P. Keller as Olivia and Thomas Leverton as Viola in ‘Twelfth Night’.

SM: I want to do every pants role there is! It’s so fun to play with gender—and it’s usually a welcome costume change out of a corset or dress into pants.

JK: This has been an incredibly joyful process. As scary as it was to take on the part, it is one of those opportunities that makes you fall in love with acting all over again. I would love to keep doing roles like this that challenge me and allow me the opportunity to step into someone else’s shoes and try to see the world from a new perspective.

OST: Did you do anything differently to prepare for this role?

SM: I did extra research on the general physicality of men and women in 16th century England, and the ways I could weave some different physicality in to my performance. I got to dive in and relish some Romeo text, which was really fun, and something I’ve never had to do before.

JK: I gave up donuts. (Refer back to the corset!)

OST: What’s one defining characteristic of the opposite sex?

SM: In my opinion, generally speaking, men (or people on the more masculine side of the spectrum) have a more pointed focus—one thing at a time, one action at a time. I find feminine creatures to have a more circular attention, able to split focus and actions. Both characteristics have their pluses and minuses. Humans, gender, and the opposite sex—all endlessly fascinating.

JK: Wow. What a loaded question. I not sure I have an answer for this one. I think it is a pretty near impossible task to say there is one defining characteristic between any two humans, let alone across such a wide group of humans that might share a gender or sex identity. We know now through modern science, psychology, and common sense that gender and traditional definitions of sex are not binary. They are both on a spectrum. We don’t have to define ourselves by rigid boundaries. I think we can find new ways to love both each other and ourselves by determining what characteristics we ourselves strive for, and by loving the identities that others choose for themselves.