March 29, 1976 FEATURE ACTRESSES GET BREAK IN "MYSTERY THEATER" ADAPTIONS OF SEVEN SHAKESPEARE PLAYS William Shakespeare 's plays don't have many good parts for women, but dramatist Ian Martin, who has adapted seven of the Bard's works for consecutive daily presentation on CBS RADIO MYSTERY THEATER , starting Monday, April 19, has made certain that female actors appearing in the series won't feel alighted. "Although I've had to compress these long plays into much shorter lengths," says Martin, “I’ve tried very very hard to retain as much of the women’s roles as possible. Things are a lot different now.” In Shakespeare 's day, Martin points out, there were no respectable women in the theater. “Their roles,” he says, “were taken by young boys whose voices hadn’t broken. Shakespeare, I’m sure, would have liked to have written major parts for women, but in those days they couldn’t appear on the stage. Any who did were consid...
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