She speaks more lines than any other woman in Shakespeare, yet most playgoers have never heard her name. On Monday, June 29, authors Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern come to the Pasadena Playhouse to make the case for Margaret of Anjou, the subject of their new book “Shakespeare’s Margaret: The Dramatic Life of a Warrior Queen.” The Vroman’s Bookstore event begins at 7 p.m.
Margaret is, by the authors’ reckoning, more violent than Lady Macbeth and more strategic than King Lear’s daughters — the only Shakespearean character, of any gender, whose entire life unfolds onstage. A 15th-century French princess married to an English king, she was thrust into command amid civil war and later resurrected across four of Shakespeare’s earliest plays, the three parts of “Henry VI” and “Richard III.” Over the centuries, actors from Peggy Ashcroft to Helen Mirren and Sophie Okonedo have found in her a rare showcase for their talents.
O’Malley holds a doctorate in dramaturgy and dramatic criticism from the Yale School of Drama and has worked at theaters across the country. Stern is a scholar and critic whose earlier book, “The Trials of Nina McCall,” was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection. Together they trace how each era has reshaped Margaret, from Elizabethan boy-actors playing on fears of powerful women to modern feminist celebrations of her command.
For Pasadena’s literary and theater communities, the evening offers both a lively history lesson and a reminder that Shakespeare’s plays remain living works, still being rewritten by every generation that stages them.
Charles O’Malley and Scott W. Stern will discuss and sign “Shakespeare’s Margaret: The Dramatic Life of a Warrior Queen” on Monday, June 29 at 7 p.m. Pasadena Playhouse, 39 S. El Molino Avenue, Pasadena. For more information, call (626) 449-5320 or visit vromansbookstore.com. Admission is free.
