SOURCE: Dusinberre, Juliet. “King John and Embarrassing Women.” Shakespeare Survey 42 (1990): 37-52.

In the following essay, Dusinberre focuses on the subversive and dramatically energizing qualities of the feminine roles in King John.

Compared with almost any other play of Shakespeare's, King John has had a poor press both in quantity of what is written about it and also in the faint praise accorded to it. This lack of interest has been reflected in its stage history. Arthur Colby Sprague wrote in 1945 that the play is ‘now almost unknown as an acting play’.¹ When it was put on in the Old Vic season of 1953-4 the editors of a commemorative volume (Roger Wood and Mary Clarke) record that ‘it only just maintained a 75 per cent attendance record’, and that ‘this was in spite of good reviews and first-rate acting’ (by a cast which included Fay Compton as Constance, Richard Burton...