Emilia Bassano Lanier,1569-1645: well-educated, musical, half-Italian, writer, cousin and niece of court musicians, a woman of character, nerve and intelligence as evidenced by her published poetry plus case-notes by the slightly dubious physician-astrologer, Simon Forman. Also, William Shakespeare’s contemporary. Could they have crossed paths? Undoubtedly. Was she Shakespeare’s Dark Lady of the Sonnets. For playwright Jessica B Hill, the answer is an unequivocal Yes.

She has drawn a captivating, deeply thoughtful and sensitive portrait of Emilia and given her a worthy protagonist in a Shakespeare who is as ambitious and needy as any of his characters..

From their first meeting sparks fly. Emilia challenges his writing of women, Will answers back; he challenges her, she rises to the occasion – and so it goes. References back to Berowne and Rosaline, Kate and Petruchio, Beatrice and Benedick are irresistible but never obtrusive. Indeed, the opening dance, (choreographed by Lisa Goebel) so clearly ripped from Loves' Labours Lost, so Elizabethan and yet so modern in its movement, epitomised what was to come. Shakespeare’s words are woven invisibly into the modern dialogue, acquiring new colours and significance.

The play tracks the course of their lives through time. Shakespeare grows as a writer and achieves fame and fortune. Emilia, on the other hand, is in a constant struggle to write and to publish, an exceptional feat at that time for a woman without wealth and status. As the play builds, the discussion of Shakespeare's female characters becomes more profound and includes also interesting examinations of some of Shakespeare's less attractive men, even Bertram. Kindness inhabits this play as well as anger, but not bitterness.

Dramatizing Shakespearean criticism is only a single thread of the themes woven into this play. Some historical background is slipped in – it is true that the Bassano brothers were picked up in the street after an altercation and briefly imprisoned, not the first or last time foreign-speaking immigrants have been categorized as spies, also true that a playwright, Thomas Kydd, was held in the Tower, and it is true that, if women wrote at all, they wrote prayers or on religious subjects. The position of women then and now is closely examined.

But the heart of this play is a creative relationship between one artist and another and between an artist’s life and work. Ideas shoot like fireworks between Emilia and Shakespeare; they push each other’s work and find deeper understanding through each other’s life.

Arghavan Jenati (Emilia Bassano) and Nathan Kay (William Shakespeare) are magic. Jenati’s Emilia is vitally intelligent, passionate and volatile. Kay’s Shakespeare is a complex amalgam of confidence and vulnerability, ambition, and caution. Together they will teach you much and break your heart.

The set by Ryan Cormack is built of crates providing a quiet background to a dynamic play, as well storing props and cloaks and an astonishing, waterfall of colour, a tour de force. Costumes by Alaia Hamer are equally accomplished and at one point poignantly eloquent. Steering the chronological series of scenes across 30 years, Jeff Harrison’s lighting design marked the passage of time and place with the utmost clarity, always articulating the intent of a particular scene.

Tying everything together is Anju Singh’s remarkable music and sound design. Although based on music by Emilia’s uncle it transcends time and place and offers something rich and rare.

Moya O’Connell and her team have created a deeply satisfying evening of theatre - stimulating writing, perceptive direction, exciting performances, skilled artistry, a portrait of two artists, a love-story.

© 2025 Elizabeth Paterson