‘Imogen Says Nothing’: U-M Theatre Department

Ann Arbor Observer

Malcolm Tulip directs drama students in Aditi Kapil’s 2017 play, a thought-provoking revisionist comedy investigating the biases in the Western canon and  the power that those who can read and write have over those who can't. The highly allegorical plot centers on Imogen, a character from Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing who speaks no lines and is probably a typo. Here Imogen is an escaped bear (though not in costume), somehow passing as a human in Elizabethan England. She encounters a group of thespians and charms her way into a role in a performance of Much Ado About Nothing, breaking London’s law prohibiting women from performing on stage.