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“Fair Portia” is Shakespeare’s closest simulation of the brilliantly willful innamorata played by the first female stars on the Continent: the diva of Italy’s itinerant troupes. Ambivalence toward this model marks Portia, who is far from merciful or fair. In this comedy rife with anti-Venetian satire, Portia’s morally “dark” Italianness is racialized. Her virtuosic but scandalous theatricality would mark her as a super-subtle Venetian, with a saintly exterior made fair by art.

Pamela Allen Brown has been a member of the Department since 1998. Her new book, The Diva’s Gift to the Shakespearean Stage, is forthcoming in January from Oxford University Press. With Julie Campbell and Eric Nicholson, she edited and translated Isabella Andreini’s Fragmenti di alcune scritture (Lovers’ Debates for the Stage), forthcoming from The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe. Her other publications include Better a Shrew than a Sheep: Women, Drama and the Culture of Jest in Early Modern England; As You Like It: Texts and Contexts (with Jean E. Howard); and Women Players in Early Modern England: Beyond the All-Male Stage (with Peter Parolin). She is a founding member of Theater Without Borders, a working group of scholars of early modern drama and performance.

Monthly Meeting for the Leadership Council