I enjoyed reading this fictional biography of John Rice, a young actor at the Globe Theatre. He was apprenticed and trained to play the female roles and he played some of the most famous women written by Shakespeare. The author does a very good job with the historical background and imagining what his life might have been like. I was not a fan of the narrative style. I did not like the recaps at the beginning of each chapter or the first person POV. The book was a quick read and the subject held my attention.

I Was Cleopatra
by Dennis Abrams
House of Anansi
Groundwood Books
Historical Fiction , Teens & YA
Pub Date 03 Apr 2018
I am reviewing a copy of I Was Cleopatra:


During Shakespeare's time women were not allowed to be on stage so boys had to play the female parts. In I Was Cleopatra we meet Just Rice some called him the most beautiful and acclaimed boy actor of them all. He played roles like Lady Macbeth, Cleopatra and Cordelia and in this fictional memoir of John Rice, this explores his life on and off stage.

This story is told with grace, prose and an encyclopedic knowledge of the time in which the story takes place.


In this book we follow John from the age of thirteen which is when he leaves his family in Reading to join the King's men theatre troupe in London so he can apprentice as a boy actor. Over the next few years John works on the skills needed to play female roles, including memorizing lines, reading all the plays he can get his hands on, and learning to imitate female gestures.

By the time he is sixteen though he realizes that he is getting to old to convincingly portray female roles which leaves him with some tough choices.


I give I Was Cleopatra three out of five stars!


Happy Reading!

Unfortunately, this book didn’t really hit for me. Primarily, I think it was due to the first person narration which was not in the style of common English at the time of Shakespeare, nor is it the style of common English today. Instead, it is stilted and unfriendly to read and made the narrative sluggish for me.