The Toronto Theatre Review: Ann-Marie MacDonald leads Canadian Stage’s wildly witty revival, giving Shakespeare’s women the chance to rewrite their own endings
By Ross
I can hardly believe Ann-Marie MacDonald wrote Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) back in 1988. How old was she then, as young as her Juliet, already possessing the wild bravery of her Desdemona? There’s something wonderfully audacious about a playwright who takes two of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies, turns their foundations upside down, and invites us to consider that perhaps the whole business has been a terrible misunderstanding. Directed by Alisa Palmer, this 2026 Canadian Stage revival also marks the play’s return to the Bluma Appel Theatre, 25 years after it was last staged there. And then there’s MacDonald herself, bringing that same audacity to the stage as Constance, with such star power, intelligence, and infectious delight that we can’t help wanting to keep up with her. This play asks its audience to be clever, listen closely, and enjoy the sheer pleasure of language being twisted, teased, and set loose. MacDonald makes that invitation irresistible.
Although I hadn’t known the play or its history at the Bluma Appel Theatre, the significance of its return is clear from the first tableau and MacDonald’s entrance. The play continues with a discussion, delivered by a character (Praneet Akilla) wearing a collar that seems to belong somewhere between Shakespearean and Victorian costume. The philosophical monologue introduces alchemy, the medieval art of transforming ordinary matter into gold. It is a fitting and informative lecture to a story that will soon turn Shakespeare’s world on its ghostly head, as our heroine makes her entrance, humming to herself and trying to scribble down an idea before it escapes her. It is an intriguing introduction to Constance Ledbelly, the timid, self-deprecating assistant professor and ghostwriter whose academic life has become tangled up with her unrequited love for her arrogant supervisor, Professor Claude Night, portrayed gloriously by Carolyn Taylor (SummerWorks’ Gash!).
As she focuses in on the mysterious Gustav Manuscript, we catch subtle glimpses of the Shakespearean women waiting inside her imagination, although the boundaries between the academic world and the theatrical one are already beginning to blend and blur. Constance’s theory, which she beautifully expands for our benefit, is that Othello and Romeo and Juliet might actually be wild-eyed comedies gone tragically wrong, stolen from their source, with their leading women becoming victims of a practical joke played in the absence of the Wise Fool. Within its pages, she believes she has found the “footprints of a missing fool“, and perhaps discovering who that fool is could correct the “flimsy mistakes” that have sent both stories hurtling towards disaster.
With MacDonald sitting at her desk, surrounded by the greyest of academic worlds, the ideas sparkle and shine in exactly the kind of way that makes me sit up and take notice. It is deliciously clever, and MacDonald gives it a wonderfully theatrical life in this Canadian Stage production at the Bluma Appel Theatre. Constance’s world is then turned upside down, quite literally, as she finds herself tumbling into the wastebasket after the very professor who has taken advantage of her intelligence and affection heads off, leaving her quite literally in the rubbish. Now, “Suspend your disbelief. Be foolish wise” as we watch Claude’s little secret and his smiling betrayal push her completely over the edge and into the “zone of the unconscious mind“, where, as we are told, “anything is possible” as long as it stays in iambic pentameter. The mouse is off on her adventure, falling quickly down the rabbit hole like a more intellectual Alice, and the familiar Shakespearean worlds are there waiting for her arrival, ready to be rearranged.
Constance carries her theories and her scholarly knowledge firmly in her back pocket, only to discover that the women she thought she understood have plenty to teach her. The play’s cleverness is in full parry and thrust mode here, using Shakespeare’s language, rhythm, and structure while giving Constance a modern sensibility that makes the verbal gymnastics especially entertaining. Palmer and the cast also find room for a handful of playful 2026 updates, including references to AI hallucinations, ‘Heated Rivalry‘, and ‘Elbows Up’. They land with a knowing wink, especially the little jabs at the Stratford Festival’s apparent fondness for sauna scenes featuring its men, while its women are left out in the cold. These contemporary touches add a mischievous Canadian flavour without disrupting MacDonald’s original Shakespearean construction.
MacDonald is delightfully magnetic as Constance, bringing an effortless comic timing to the overworked academic, along with the natural meekness that makes her eventual transformation so enjoyable to watch. She embodies the part with an astonishing ease, making the Shakespearean language feel alive and immediate, and we, the audience, are joyfully invited to embrace every unexpected turn of phrase. Carolyn Taylor, returning to the stage after more than a decade, is an absolute delight in her multiple roles, including Othello, Tybalt, and the deliciously self-important Professor Claude Night. She has a charismatic ease with the shifting identities and a natural chemistry with MacDonald that adds another layer of fun to their encounters. Jessica B. Hill, fresh off a summer of playing bestie to Desdemona at the Stratford Festival, is magnificent as Mercutio, but it is her portrayal of Desdemona that brings fire to the stage. She is a fierce, swaggering warrior, brave, reckless, and ferociously focused. With a newly discovered battle cry of “BULLSHIT,” she fills the room with her unstoppable force, capable of rewriting an entire tragedy in its wake.
Caroline Toal, who spent the summer giving us a glorious Viola in Twelfth Night at the Dream in High Park, gives Juliet a hilariously focused determination that makes every entrance a pleasure. Constance finally sees Juliet for who she is, telling her, “You are the essence of first love.” The line captures Juliet’s romantic intensity, while Constance begins to recognize the wildness and force of personality that have always been there. Juliet’s quick emotional responses, especially to the knife she always seems to have within arm’s reach, add a much-needed layer to this young teenager, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to look at Juliet through the same lens again. And then there’s Praneet Akilla, who gets to reprise his Romeo, bringing the same natural charisma and comic timing that made him such a pleasure in Romeo and Juliet at Dream in High Park. He clearly has the time of his life tearing across the stage in a full-length prom dress, and the sheer physical commitment makes the sight even funnier. Together, the ensemble handles the Shakespearean language, physical demands, and rapid-fire comic delivery with terrific confidence.
The production’s dual-world set design provides the glorious landscape for this imaginative journey. Judith Bowden’s set and costume designs establish the very different worlds Constance moves between, from the functional, bland academic environment to the theatrical grandeur of Shakespeare’s plays. The visual contrast gives the production plenty of room to play with the collision of modern academic life and Elizabethan drama through colour and shape, while Jason Hand’s lighting and John Gzowski’s sound design help director Palmer maintain the swift transitions and energetic flow of the action. Palmer’s direction is particularly slick, keeping these worlds in motion and allowing the performers to throw themselves into the shifting scenes and identities without losing the comic momentum and expanded self-expression. Even with all the verbal fireworks and the impressive energy of the ensemble, the two-and-a-half-hour running time does occasionally begin to challenge our senses and attention. Some of the repetition slows the momentum, and there are stretches when the elaborate wordplay and theatrical invention could benefit from a little tightening. Palmer and the cast keep the production lively, however, and the sheer pleasure of watching these performers navigate MacDonald’s intricate language helps carry us through the longer passages.
Running through this fantastical frenzy and comic chaos is a wonderfully pointed feminist argument. By giving Desdemona and Juliet the agency to challenge the circumstances that traditionally lead to their deaths, MacDonald magnificently turns two familiar tragedies inside out and asks us to reconsider the roles women have been assigned within them. Constance’s journey is tied to that act of reclamation, as the woman who has spent her time quietly supporting someone else’s work begins to recognize the value of her own intelligence and imagination. The absent Wise Fool becomes a way of questioning the stories themselves, and the authority that has kept their endings in place.
And the Hamlet-inspired ghost who keeps appearing with clues for Constance has a particularly mischievous relationship with the name Yorick. I’ll leave the exchange itself for audiences to discover, but its recurring wordplay is a little comic gem, with a premonition tucked inside the joke. Lines such as “Where two plus one adds up to one, not three” capture the delightful mathematical mischief of MacDonald’s writing. Although the comedy works on its own terms, a little familiarity with Othello, Romeo and Juliet, and even a wee bit of Hamlet makes the experience especially rewarding, allowing audiences to catch the layers of academic jokes and literary inversions tucked smartly into the dialogue. The play’s exuberant parody of iambic pentameter and its gleeful rearrangement of Shakespearean conventions make the comedy accessible, while the literary playfulness carries a serious examination of who gets to speak and who gets to determine how a story ends.
MacDonald’s play is a glorious exercise in theatrical mischief, giving Shakespeare’s familiar tragedies a clever shake and allowing their women to take charge of the endings. Watching MacDonald inhabit Constance while bringing the intelligence and comic precision of the playwright herself to the role is a particular pleasure. The woman who begins this adventure trying to make sense of a manuscript, her professor, and a theory about a missing fool emerges with something far more valuable than the answers she was looking for. She has found her own voice, and after she bids farewell to her two accomplices with a softly engaging Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), that golden pen she has manifested becomes a fitting symbol of the stories she is now ready to write. With Desdemona and Juliet cheering her on, the old tragedies have finally been given a chance to change their tune.