Brutus and Other Heroines: Playing Shakespeare's Roles for Women

by Harriet Walter

‘A part we have played is like a person we once met, grew to know, became intimately enmeshed with and finally moved away from. Some of these characters remain friends, others are like ex–lovers with whom we no longer have anything in common. All of them bring something out in us that will never go back in the box.’

In a varied and distinguished career, Harriet Walter has played almost all of Shakespeare’s heroines, notably Ophelia, Helena, Portia, Viola, Imogen, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice and Cleopatra, mostly for the Royal Shakespeare Company. But where, she asks, does an actress go after playing Cleopatra’s magnificent death? Why didn’t Shakespeare write more – and more powerful – roles for mature women?

For Walter, the solution was to ignore the dictates of centuries of tradition, and to begin playing the mature male characters. Her Brutus in an all–female Julius Caesar at the Donmar Warehouse was widely acclaimed, and was soon followed by Henry IV. What, she asks, can an actress bring to these roles – and is there any fundamental difference in the way they must be played?

In Brutus and Other Heroines, Walter discusses each of these roles – both male and female – from the inside, explaining the particular choices she made in preparing and performing each character. Her extraordinarily perceptive and intimate accounts illuminate each play as a whole, offering a treasure trove of valuable insights for theatregoers, scholars and anyone interested in how the plays work on stage. Aspiring actors, too, will discover the many possibilities open to them in playing these magnificent roles.

The book is an exploration of the Shakespearean canon through the eyes of a self-identified ‘feminist actor’ – but, above all, a remarkable account of an acting career unconstrained by tradition or expectations. It concludes with an affectionate rebuke to her beloved Will: ‘I cannot imagine a world without you. I just wish you had put more women at the centre of your world/stage… I would love you to come back and do some rewrites.’

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, Theatre, Essays, Drama

235 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 27, 2016

About the author

Dame Harriet Mary Walter DBE is a British actress. She has received a Laurence Olivier Award as well as numerous nominations including for a Tony Award, three Primetime Emmy Awards, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2011, she was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) for services to drama. She is the niece of Christopher Lee.

Walter began her career in 1974 and made her Broadway debut in 1983. For her work in various Royal Shakespeare Company productions, including Twelfth Night (1987–88) and Three Sisters (1988), she won the 1988 Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Revival. Her other notable work for the RSC includes leading roles in Macbeth (1999) and Antony and Cleopatra (2006). She won the Evening Standard Award for Best Actress for her role as Elizabeth I in the 2005 London revival of Mary Stuart, and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Play when she reprised the role on Broadway in 2009. She reprised her roles of Brutus in Julius Caesar (2012) and the title role in Henry IV (2014), as well as playing Prospero in The Tempest, as part of an all-female Shakespeare trilogy in 2016.

Her film appearances include Sense and Sensibility (1995), The Governess (1998), Villa des Roses (2002), Atonement (2007), The Young Victoria (2009), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), The Sense of an Ending (2017), Rocketman (2019) and Ridley Scott's The Last Duel (2021). On television she starred as Harriet Vane in the 1987 BBC Wimsey dramatisations, as Natalie Chandler in the ITV drama series Law & Order: UK (2009–14), in four episodes of Downton Abbey (2013–15), as Clementine Churchill in The Crown (2016), in Succession (2018-), and in the third season of Killing Eve (2020).

(with thanks to Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have no idea whether a book like this is useful or interesting to non-actors, but to a performer is filled with the insightful practicality of a professional at work.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walter's final chapter, a letter to Shakespeare, brought me to tears.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Some of the earlier chapters, which were drawn from other pieces she wrote for various publications, etc., felt undeveloped. But the later chapters created specifically for this collection are amazing in giving us a peek inside how an actor develops a character - and specifically a character that has been played so many times by so many other actors. I always enjoy Harriet Walter in anything I've seen her in so this was a delight to read.

And if you can catch it, the Julius Caesar where she plays Brutus is phenomenal. I haven't seen the Henry IV (or Tempest, which she doesn't get into) yet but I hope I can.

[BiblioPhil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of most interest are the chapters on playing Brutus and Henry IV, esp. for those lucky enough to have seen these breakthrough performances, and her Prospero.

[Sri Vidya · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot speak highly enough of Harriet Walter, her writing, her incisive and compassionate perspectives, and her body of work. It honestly was a stroke of luck to have come across this book, and I am deeply grateful for it. My mind feels enriched and engaged in literary analysis of human nature in a way that I have not been since my last English course over three years ago during a college GE. I have enjoyed Shakespeare, but something that became abundantly clear to me during this reading was I adore analyses of Shakespeare. For a woman who grew up the daughter of an avid Shakespearean and Miltonian, it felt paltry to not enjoy the art as much as the critiques of it. But as I slowly digested the various essays and studies of character, direction, poetry, screenplay, and society, I came to the realization that perhaps that was the point. At the very end Walter writes the sweetest letter to her Will, asking more of him, to return and write for and about women and people of color in the marvelous way he did about white men. And she encapsulates the entire collection of essays wonderfully, giving coherence to my feelings, that it is not too much to want more genders and races explored on that stage of humanist beauty Shakespeare set so many times. I take away not only a deeper appreciation for Shakespeare and a hunger to reread some of the plays with an understanding gifted by Walter’s committed studies, but a now undying fandom of this exceptional actor, who dares call herself “just” an actor as though the work of embodying and conveying life’s essence and meaning to entertain, educate, and empathize is anything less than worthy of appreciation.

[Emily Bowden · Rating 5 out of 5]

her character analysis and investment is literally revolutionary <3

[Carol Kent · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for anyone interested in Shakespeare

The insights into how to actually analyze and play Shakespeare's characters is delivered in an amazingly detailed yet practical way. Walker's personal experiences with the many roles she has played on stage is compelling from the first page to the last. She details easily how the words Shakespeare wrote guide the interpretation in even some of his most difficult lines and characters. Studying the entire text, utilizing the meter and other clues to narrow down what it is that drives the character and how to understand their relationships to others within the play are the key to bringing the actor, reader and audiance to a fuller understanding of Shakespeare's works. This is especially important for the modern ear and modern mindset. We find through her research with psychologists that Shakespeare's understanding of the human experience was on target. Her understanding of the strictures of the time in which Shakespeare wrote; boys playing women, the politics of church and state, the generally accepted relationships of men and women in society at the time and so on, also gives her fuel to color the characters more fully and life like. She gives us a treasure trove of experience and tools to enhance our understanding of Shakespeare's characters who have withstood the test of 400 years on stage.

[JD · Rating 5 out of 5]

for any Shakespeare lover who wants just a little bit more

If you love Shakespeare and want to read around his work then this is a really useful and pleasurable little book to read. It isn't heavy or difficult and it offers a very special kind of insight into some of Shakespeare's best known female characters. Harriet Walter brings articulate enthusiasm for her subject, a distillation of the sources the RSC can provide for its actors to help them interpret the characters, and her own insights from inside the skin of Shakespeare's women as they act or are acted upon in the rehearsal room or on the stage. Shakespeare is great on the page, taught or untaught, with or without footnotes and somethings are better dwelt on at leisure in that way. But, as I now discover, there is nothing like understanding how a character is inhabited and made real by an actor - seeing how the dynamic nature of performance brings out aspects of Shakespeare's intention that the page can't show. This isn't an autobiography in any sense, but it is about Harriet Walter because it is her response to the poet and thinker for whose thoughts she is a conduit. Even her ability to articulate the feet of clay Shakespeare manifests as a man of his time when it comes to writing about women, is something few people would be qualified to do in the way Harriet Walter is able.

[Rhi · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear, accessible series of short essays about various Shakespearean roles Harriet Walter has taken throughout her career. Many of her insights as an actor are revelations and serious food-for-thought to me, as an English Lit student. Academics often get accused of ignoring or failing to deal with the performance side of dramatic texts, and reading this is a great corrective to that mode of thinking. Walter writes with dexterity and passion, showing her consideration of character through Shakespeare's words, psychological readings, historical contexts, and her long experience of what works in performance.

One of the only complaints I have - and a minor one at that - is that some of the points she makes are repeated a little too often. This is at least partly a result of the book being a collection of essays, some already published elsewhere, and hardly detracts from the whole. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on Helena (All's Well), and Portia, Viola, and Imogen.

[Dana Cordelia · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an exceptional collection of essays by a tremendous Shakespeare scholar and performer. I wasn't sure what to expect when I picked it up but was very excited to learn more about Ms. Walter's experience playing myriad roles in the canon with the RSC and other companies. This was so much more than that. In addition to detailing several of her standout experiences playing certain iconic roles, she offers insightful commentary on the history both of the world Shakespeare lived in, and the ones he created or amended in his plays. The most valuable prose herein, however, is Ms. Walter's assertion (and, indeed, demonstration) that female performers' contributions to production of the works Shakespeare penned is critical and invaluable. Both from a contemporary feminist and a scholarly standpoint, her essays are engaging and fascinating, and this book offered me a greater depth of admiration for a truly incredible actress.

[Jeff Howells · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dame Harriet Walter takes us through some of the key Shakespearian female roles she has played (and a couple of male ones) It's not really a memoir more of a technical manual. I think I would have enjoyed it more if I knew more about the plays themselves (I've seen quite a few but aside from Romeo & Juliet and Othello have never actually studied any), but it was interesting to read her take on how the really challenging female parts dry up after Lady Macbeth & Cleopatra and how in order to prolong her Shakespearian career she has - to some acclaim - tacked some of the male roles. I wonder if, following Glenda Jackson's lead she might one day tackle Lear?

[Eleanor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love reading accounts of other actors, especially when it comes to Shakespeare, and even more so when women take on historically male roles. As an actor and former English student, it's so useful watching Walter show you how she approaches the text, looking within it to discover the psychology of her characters. I've learnt so much about creating a character from this book. And there's advice I'd never even thought about before, reminding me how much I still have to learn.

Copiously highlighted the Cleopatra and Brutus chapters (and Beatrice ... okay, and Lady Macbeth too). This is definitely a book I'm going to keep referring to over the years.

Thank you Harriet!

[Jo Swenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book after seeing her in Phyllida Lloyd’s Shakespeare trilogy in London in 2016 but only got around to reading it now. It is an excellent piece of Shakespeare scholarship that emphasises the importance of actors to understanding the canon. Walter over all does well exploring privilege, entitlement, and gender in relation to Shakespeare. My only wish is that she had addressed the problems of her, as a white woman, playing Cleopatra. Beyond that it was a well written and thoughtful account of gender and Shakespeare.

[Harry McDonald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Harriet Walter's insightful, witty examination of Shakespeare's heroines (and some of his heroes) is never less than interesting, and sometimes genuinely revelatory.

The sections on Lady Macbeth and Brutus were particularly interesting to me, especially having had the privilege off seeing Walter play Brutis, Henry IV and Prospero on a single day; she reveals the layers that inevitably get lost in the immediacy of performance.

[Haviva Avirom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find it hard to put into words how brilliant and insightful this book is. Walter is so good at explaining the way her mind and her acting process work to create fully fleshed out characters onstage and the ways that she attacks texts, particularly Shakespeare, so that the words work for her specific interpretations. So smart. So rich in understanding.

[Pers · Rating 5 out of 5]

An engaging, well-written, intelligent account of Harriet Walter's experiences playing Shakespeare's leading ladies, and 2 of his leading men. A thoroughly readable book that could easily have been twice as long.

[Sarah Oravetz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great analysis of Shakespeare's greatest female roles from a woman who has played so many of them.

[Twofrontteethstillcrooked · Rating 5 out of 5]

No, seriously. Harriet Walter + Shakespeare + acting. Give me this equation forever.

[Carolin Kopplin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating insights by Shakespearean actor Harriet Walter.

[Catherine Harris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not able to see the productions that are discussed in this book and I imagine if you have the book becomes more interesting.
That being said, I still found it really informative and enjoyable.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dazzling, moving.

[Abigail · Rating 5 out of 5]

Y’all. So smart, so insightful. Not just for theatre types, but, I think, for thinking people in general.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was largely unfamiliar with Harriet Walter, but I saw the title and the rating, and I couldn't pass it up. Harriet Walter has been performing Shakespeare professionally for decades. She has gone from playing Juliet to Henry IV. She is passionate about the work, and if her commitment to it did not say as much, she makes it clear here.

This is essentially a collection of essays she has written about different parts she has played over the years. It's a bit of analysis, but it's from the perspective of a performer, so it's largely explaining choices that were made regarding her performances and productions at large. It's fascinating, and I think, a necessary perspective, as his work was written to be performed rather than read or studied. I'm not horribly familiar with all of the shows she discusses, but I found plenty of interest in the essays.

It's particularly interesting to think about the ramifications of Shakespeare writing women's roles knowing they would be performed by men and boys. Walter theorizes that might be why he has so many substantial roles for women. She is clear in her admiration for the parts, but she is also clear in their failings, and in the failings of his works at large to serve women as well as they do men.

I initially thought I'd read it and find someone to give it to, but I actually think I'll hold onto it and maybe reread essays as I either watch or read certain plays. It definitely improved my appreciation and understanding of a few of them.

[bookinglibrarian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Insightful remuninations on Shakespeare's female and male characters through a seasoned actor's feminist perspective. This excellent exploration about performing Shakespeare onstage is especially poignant now when we face a summer without Shakespeare

Harriet Walter provides an accessibly insightful perspective of a seasoned actor on playing Shakespeare's female and male characters. Her excellent exploration about performing Shakespeare onstage is especially poignant now when we face a summer without Shakespeare. I'm familiar with Walter's film work, but dearly wish I could have seen her theatre work, especially at the Donmar Warehouse.

[Helen Meads · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great insight into an extraordinarily talented actor. Harriet Walter’s reflections on the work she has undertaken and on Shakespeare’s intentions give a rare insight. This is scholarship by experience of inhabiting the language, the characters and gender roles.

It made me wish I knew Shakespeare’s work better, but at the same time I learned a lot more about it.
It was well worth the confusion of not quite getting all her reference points. I took a chapter at a time in between reading other books and would recommend that as an approach.

[John Barclay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best kind of actor talking book that you will find. Of course Harriet Walter is brilliant about understanding classic roles from a feminist perspective, but what's really great is her insight into the text and how to bring it out on stage.

I would so have loved to see her Brutus. A character that I loved and find totally fascinating.

[Claire Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend for actors looking for how to deepen their character analyses, particularly when it comes to Shakespeare. Also talks about the development of the Shakespeare Trilogy at the Donmar Warehouse which is one of my favorite theater productions I've ever seen.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having always studied Shakespeare from a literature angle, it was fascinating to consider his plays from an actor’s perspective - and who better to ask than Harriet Walter! A real insight into decisions we as an audience don’t always consider.

[Tracey Sinclair · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the acting process and playing Shakespeare's male and female roles.