Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet)

Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) is a 1988 three-act comedy play by Canadian novelist and playwright Ann-Marie MacDonald. A postmodern synthesis of Shakespeare’s two most famous tragedies, Othello and Romeo and Juliet, the play portrays Constance Ledbelly, an assistant English professor at Queen’s University who tries to understand her life by virtue of her work. Though the plays have no explicit advice to offer someone in the late twentieth century, Constance becomes both figuratively and literally absorbed in the text. As she inhabits and inevitably shapes the classic stories, her journey becomes a cathartic allegory for her subconscious anxieties and desires.

At the beginning of the play, Constance is working on a research project aimed at proving that Romeo and Juliet and Othello were originally written as comedies, and encoded in a document called the Gustav Manuscript. She is afraid to make her thesis known to the skeptical head of her program, Claude Night, for whom she also has feelings. Professor Night visits her office and dismisses her dissertation topic. In response, she gives up hope and tosses her manuscript into the waste bin. Suddenly, the crumpled manuscript sucks her in. Simultaneously, elsewhere on the stage, Othello kills Desdemona, and Romeo and Juliet commit suicide, thematically uniting each other in despair.

Act 2 begins on the Greek island of Cyprus. Just as Othello is about to find Desdemona to murder her, Constance explains to him that he was tricked by Iago, successfully thwarting Iago’s plot. Desdemona enters, oblivious to the fact that her husband nearly killed her. She immediately takes a liking to Constance, and Othello asks Constance to keep quiet about what happened. Constance recruits Desdemona to help find the true author of Shakespeare’s plays. Constance sets off to find the Gustav Manuscript’s archetypal “Wise Fool” character who, she believes, will help her transform Othello into a comedy. In private, Iago reveals that he has a page from the manuscript and intends to use it against Constance. He convinces Desdemona that Constance practices witchcraft, and has come to steal Othello’s heart. The naive but vindictive Desdemona decides to murder Constance. Before she has a chance, Constance reads the missing page from the Gustav Manuscript and is transported to Verona, Italy.



The third act takes place within the plot of Romeo and Juliet. As it opens, Tybalt and Mercutio are dueling. Constance jumps on Romeo, preventing Tybalt from dealing his fatal strike to Mercutio. Because Desdemona tore Constance’s skirt off as she escaped, Romeo reads her as a man. She goes along with it, announcing that she is Constantine. She urges everyone to stop fighting, as Juliet and Romeo are already married, making them family. The argument is convincing enough, so the men stand down. However, Romeo quickly becomes infatuated with Constance. The men leave for a whorehouse, and Constance yearns for home. In the following scenes, Juliet and Romeo start to regret their marriage, though it has yet to even be celebrated. Romeo declares his love for Constance. Tybalt summons Juliet, hoping that seeing them will compel her to leave Romeo, but she falls in love with Constance as well.

Infuriated, Tybalt decides to kill Constance. Uncertain of which gender Constance prefers, Romeo and Juliet cross-dress to compete for her. Juliet wins Constance over by telling her that she knows the identity of the Wise Fool. As she walks to meet Juliet, Constance passes through a graveyard. A ghost appears and tells her, cryptically, that the Wise Fool is also the author of the story. When she arrives at Juliet’s balcony, they begin to make love. Constance finds a page from the Gustav Manuscript under Juliet’s shirt. When she grasps the page, Desdemona magically appears and tries to kill Constance. Juliet, helpless to intervene, runs off for help. While being smothered, Constance holds an amulet given to Desdemona by Othello, causing her to relax. Meanwhile, Romeo has fallen in love with Desdemona. Tybalt, confusing Romeo for Juliet because he has disguised himself in her clothes, tries to whisk him away. Juliet attempts suicide and is then attacked by Desdemona, but Constance saves her both times. Juliet and Desdemona express guilt for their needless drama and violence. Constance realizes that she has always been both the play’s author and the Wise Fool. The realization transports her back into her office at the university. As she looks at her surroundings with fresh eyes, she sees that her pen has turned to gold.