The full title of this play is Elizabeth: Almost by Chance a Woman and in a lot of ways is similar to the recent film, The Favourite.
One of my favorite lacuna in the theories about Shakespeare not actually being Shakespeare (he is) involves how many of Shakespeare’s roles were clearly shaped by the makeup of the company at a given time. Certainly a lot of different actors could play lots of different Shakespeare roles, but Richard Burbage, a good boy, or William Kemp were certainly part of how some of the roles were created. We have exactly the same thing occurring today in theater, but also in film, where we get some truly iconic performances because of the shaping of roles to certain actors. It makes more sense in film, or rather, seems more obvious for film, since film is a one time performance. But the theories of Shakespeare fail to recognize that if Francis Bacon wrote Henry IV, how did it so perfectly suit Kemp?
Anyway, this play that takes place in the boudoir of Elizabeth I while she’s waiting for a lover (the Earl of Essex, who is presently planning a coups). The role of Elizabeth was played primarily by Dario Fo’s wife and collaborator, and the character of Lady Grosslady, was written for and performed by Dario Fo himself. That role is especially funny since the entirety of Lady Grosslady’s lines are written in a kind of half-sensical gibberish (the kind of gibberish that has just enough sense to make even less sense than it might otherwise). The role is weird and silly, just like the play. The only thing that makes it even more so is that they performed it for Ronald Reagan, which fuck that guy.