Bard on the Beach – The Dark Lady

Bard on the Beach has been a Vancouver summer tradition for Shakespeare and theatre lovers since the early 90s, but I’ve never been! I finally had a chance to see what goes on under the iconic, big, red-and-white tented area at Sen̓áḵw (Vanier Park), for The Dark Lady’s Opening Night performance. Unlike Shakespeare’s more well known plays, I am not familiar with the story of the The Dark Lady, so the thrill of something new, plus never having been to Bard before had me excited with anticipation to see this show.

Bard Village opens an hour before showtime. In the Village, there are free, short informal intros to the production’s story and characters, a concession for snacks and refreshments (I enjoyed a tall can of Dillon’s blackberry lemon gin cocktail), and the Bard Boutique for a unique selection of gifts and Bard merch. I like how we were able to bring in our own food to enjoy at one of the many tented picnic tables in the Village grounds before the show. You can even pre-order a full picnic meal online, at least 48 hours in advance of the performance. (No BYOB though.)

It was a particularly hot summer’s day for The Dark Lady’s Opening Night performance. To beat the heat, theatre staff handed out paper Bard fans to keep Bard fans cool!

We lucked out and got seated underneath a huge ceiling fan that kept us comfortably cool throughout the 90-minute performance. As we were getting seated before the start of the show, a performer was already on stage to set the scene, scrunched over and fervently writing atop a wooden box. Hello, the Dark Lady.

Who is the Dark Lady? Well, Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets during the 1590s. Many of those sonnets are addressed to a mysterious woman with dark skin and dark hair, who is often referred to as the Dark Lady. Popular belief is that Shakespeare wrote his own romantic relationships into these sonnets, but nobody knows for sure. Jessica B. Hill’s play identifies the Dark Lady as Emilia Bassano, an intelligent, inspiring, and outspoken woman, of Italian and possibly of Jewish descent, and supposes her as more than just Shakespeare’s muse.

As the performance progresses, we see Emilia and Shakespeare’s creative and romantic rivalry develop. The pair are evenly matched in literary intelligence, ambition, and spirit. But Emilia struggles to make her thoughts heard on print because the 1600s was very much a man’s world. Funny that in my head, I think of Emilia by first name and Shakespeare as last name, perhaps unfairly, since that latter is an established playwright while the former is relatively unknown to me.

In The Dark Lady, Emilia is as much a contributor to Shakespeare’s works and plays as Shakespeare himself is. Her thoughts, wit, will, and even body intertwine with his, as they engage in creative and passionate banter, bouncing concepts and ideas off each other, to collaborate, corroborate, and create something bigger and better between them themselves. They are soulmates, constantly being drawn together despite the challenges of the time.

The play follows Emilia’s growing frustration in the lack of acknowledgment of her voice, witnessing time and time again that women are given weak calefare roles, while men shape the world and are always portrayed as heros. She believes that Shakespeare has written her ideas out of the plays and passed them off as solely his own. She anguishes over the fact that women are not allowed to even have strong ideas or objections to the world of 1600s London, much less pen those thoughts on paper for fear of imprisonment and/or harm.

Disagreements, the  way of the world, and life’s tragedies separate them, but she eventually realizes that their collaborative works and ideas indeed live on in Shakespeare’s plays. Emilia eventually succeeds in establishing herself as the first professional female poet in England, writing from a strong feminist point of view, and creates a community of female supporters, opening up the published literary world for women.

Going into this play without expectations and having no knowledge of the plot, I was surprised by the aggression and strength in Emilia’s character from the start. The way she was spiritedly bantering with Shakespeare from the get-go, I almost couldn’t tell if she was flirting, being sarcastic, or purposefully mean. But, Emilia is a woman with a massive intellect, sharp tongue, and cheeky wit, who holds her own, and gives it right back to the man. She quickly won my respect. You go, girl!

The Dark Lady runs from July 3rd to September 19th, 2025 at the Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival (Sen̓áḵw | Vanier Park – 1695 Whyte Ave., Vancouver, BC), Douglas Campbell Theatre. The 90-minute performace has no intermission, so plan accordingly!

 

MyVanCity received two complimentary tickets in return for advance promotion and this review.