Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is a 1988 comedic play by Ann-Marie MacDonald in which Constance Ledbelly, a young English literature professor from Queen's University, goes on a subconscious journey of self-discovery.
In a moment of despair, Constance is thrown into both her subconscious mind and the two Shakespearian tragedies to discover the truth about herself, and to find the lost fool with the help of Desdemona and Juliet.
Goodnight Desdemona begins with a "dumb show", or a scene with no sound, in which three situations occur simultaneously.
Othello murders Desdemona, Juliet and Romeo kill themselves, and Constance Ledbelly throws a pen and a manuscript into a wastebasket.
Her longtime crush, Professor Claude Night, comes in, criticizes her dissertation topic, and tells her that he is taking a job at Oxford University that she had hoped to secure.
Constance wonders whether she has permanently changed Shakespeare's work and resolves to find the "Wise Fool", a typical Shakespearean character, who secures the happy ending of a comedy.
In scene 2, Iago discloses that he has a page from the Gustav manuscript and forms a plan to conspire against Constance.
Desdemona believes Iago's claims that Constance is a witch who is after Othello's heart, and she resolves to kill her!
Iago shows Desdemona the page from the Gustav manuscript, saying that he found it in Constance's underwear drawer.
Romeo tells her, "Speak, boy", confusing her gender because Desdemona has ripped off Constance's skirt.
Juliet complains to her nurse that she is dying of boredom and wishes that she could be unmarried, able to play the deadly game of love.
The nurse tells her that she should cheer up, because she will enjoy the marriage festivities that night, and Juliet resolves to find another lover.
In scene 3, Constance pounces on a servant because she believes that he is the Wise Fool, but she finds instead that he is giving out invitations to a masked ball thrown by Juliet's father.
They share a long kiss, and then Juliet admits that she lied about knowing the name of the Wise Fool.
Constance is then transported by warp effect back to her office at Queen's University, where she finds that her pen has turned to gold.
The cast included Derek Boyes, Beverley Cooper, Diana Fajrajsl, Tanja Jacobs, and Martin Julien.
The original cast remained, with the exception of Kate Lynch replacing Tanja Jacobs in the role of Constance Ledbelly.
[6] In 1992, Classic Stage Company mounted a production featuring Cherry Jones,[7] Hope Davis, and Liev Schreiber.
In 2016, Kate Newby directed Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) for The Shakespeare Company in collaboration with Handsome Alice at Vertigo’s Studio Theatre in Calgary, Alberta.