It’s been almost forty years since Ann-Marie MacDonald’s satirical and silly Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) debuted at Nightwood Theatre. What a delight, then, to experience the energetic new production from Alisa Palmer at the Bluma Appel Theatre. It’s dynamic, laugh-out-loud funny and clever.
The story follows Constance Ledbelly, a rumpled, overlooked academic who has ghostwritten her supervising professor’s scholarship while nursing her own long-shot theory: that Othello and Romeo and Juliet are, in fact, comedies gone wrong which thwart the character arcs of Desdemona and Juliet, two supremely self-actualized go-getter heroines. After a distressing revelation about her supervisor, she tumbles like Alice through the looking glass (in this case a wastepaper basket), and meets the heroines in the midst of their respective plays’ action.
She first finds herself into Cyprus at a key moment of Iago’s misdirection in Othello … which she disrupts. She then moves to Romeo and Juliet’s Verona, where her arrival has unexpected and decidedly comedic consequences: Romeo and Juliet both fall for her at first sight. In this sly send-up of the heterosexual lovers’ famous trope, each then vies to seduce her. Through her adventures, Constance validates her hypothesis that Desdemona and Juliet are capable of far more than their tragedies allow. She also begins to suspect the same of herself: no longer a scholar working at the margins, Constance must act inside these stories which she has spent her career analyzing.
MacDonald first wrote the play in 1988, and it is both funny and uncomfortable that the satire has not expired in the intervening decades. What hits especially close to home is Constance’s place in the academy. Despite her obvious talent, she is talked over, uncredited and held in place by a hierarchy which, even in 2026, is too often run by white men. The script’s drive-by targets have been updated with a touch-up of characters and setting and some of the contemporary one-liners (about topics like AI, “elbows up” Canada-US relations, Heated Rivalry, MacDonald’s own sexuality, and more) land with zip. Through it all, the plight of women – in academics, reputation and relationships – resonates as pointedly as ever.
The casting extends the argument about the role of women. In Shakespeare’s theatre, of course, men and boys played all characters, including the women. Here, Baroness von Sketch Show‘s Carolyn Taylor plays Othello, Tybalt, and Constance’s boss and secret crush Claude Night. The doubling of Night with Othello makes the professor and the Moor (who, yes, is white) feel like clear variations on the same tired patriarchal authority. Cross-dressing also runs through the story itself: Praneet Akilla’s Romeo and Caroline Toal’s Juliet each disguise themselves to woo Constance, unaware of the other’s scheme — and the double inversion turns this old convention into refreshing comedic commentary.
The play’s true success lies not only in its updated script, but in its cast. MacDonald, back in the role of Constance for the first time in 25 years, is simply delightful. She plays the deferential scholar caught ina time warp with comic precision, with the result that each act of bravado feels worthy of a “You go, girl!”. Taylor plays all her roles blusteringly big and stiff, commanding the stage while keeping the comedy front and centre. Jessica B. Hill, fresh off another season at Stratford where she actually performed in Othello, steals every scene she is in as Desdemona, Mercutio, and Constance’s student Ramona. MacDonald’s script gives Desdemona a predilection for violence, and Hill clearly relishes the opportunity to play her not as a victim, but as a formidable woman who is powered by the unshakable courage of her convictions and is entirely in command of her own story. Akilla, as comedically sidelined versions of Iago and Romeo, and Toal, as a gleefully randy teenage Juliet, round out this nimble company, which handles Shakespearean verse and slapstick with equal ease.
Judith Bowden’s inventive set is a perfect blend of the literal and metaphorical. We begin in Constance’s cramped and crumbling academic office, whose towering, grid-marked rear wall — flaking in what could be peeling paint or sheets of paper — evokes the ivory tower of academia. That wall then gives way to Cyprus and Verona, conjured with arches and trees and Juliet’s famous balcony. High steps in front of the playing area, plus ramps on either side, give the actors ample room for physical comedy and battle scenes. Bowden’s clever costumes also allow quick changes, so the five actors can slip in and out of multiple roles with ease. At a two-and-a-half hour runtime, Goodnight Desdemona is a product of its era: it never rushes, enjoying its complications and taking the time to explore them and spray at its satiric targets. In this regard, John Gzowski’s evocative sound and Jason Hand’s ambient lighting do important work keeping us engaged and making the pace feel brisk.
In the end, this new version of Goodnight Desdemona balances the play’s registers well. Palmer’s production sends up Shakespeare and the academy — puncturing gaps in the tragedies that have frustrated more than just MacDonald, while reveling in the raunch and anarchy of the comedies — and still lets Constance’s search for herself land with feeling. That Goodnight Desdemona so entertains us in 2026 might just be evidence that it has successfully snuck its way into the very canon it skewers.
Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) continues until November 22, 2026 at the Bluma Appel Theatre. For tickets, visit canadianstage.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2026
