“All the women in Shakespeare are very strong,” says Phylis Ravel, chair of the Department of Performing Arts and director of the play “A Salute to Shakespeare’s Women,” which will be running in conjunction with “Romeo and Juliet” at the Helfaer Theatre.

“If they are placed in a situation where they have no alternative but to be submissive, they will seek to control the situation as best they can within their circumstances,” Ravel says. “Some are successful — some are not.”

Diane Long Hoeveler, professor of English and coordinator of the Women’s Studies Program, prefers the women in Shakespeare’s plays to those in the plays of his contemporaries.

“It’s the difference between what E.M. Forster calls ’round’ and ‘flat’ characters,” Hoeveler says. “You cannot predict what a round character will do at all times, and Shakespeare’s characters are written in that vein. Flat female characters are stereotypes — virgin or whore figures — and for that reason they are predictable but not convincing.”

However, although the women in his plays may have more dimension than those in the works of authors such as Christopher Marlowe or Ben Jonson, their tendency to be strong-willed is not unique to the Bard, says R. Clifton Spargo, assistant professor of English.

“One can overemphasize the difference between Shakespeare and his contemporaries at the thematic level,” Spargo says. “If Shakespeare’s women seem more compelling than those portrayed by contemporaries such as Jonson or Marlowe, it probably has more to do with his talent for creating the impression of introspection or of reflective deliberation in his characters, without depleting the dramatic intensity of his scenes.

“Shakespeare is hardly ever superficial in his treatment of his most important characters.”

Amelia Zurcher, assistant professor of English, believes the women portrayed in Shakespeare’s plays may have had an unusual amount of maneuvering room but that they’re not all that exceptional in comparison to his contemporaries.

“I’d say that Shakespeare hardly stands alone,” Zurcher says. “The gender-related issues that his female characters raise were major issues in the culture at large, but on the representative continuum between chaste, silent, obedient women at one end and assertive, resourceful and witty women on the other he’s clearly pretty far toward the assertive end, at least in the comedies and some of the romances.”

Ravel says her play, which was compiled by Libby Appel and Alan Flachman, will give viewers a look at some of Shakespeare’s greatest women, from Queen Elizabeth and Lady Macbeth to Ophelia and Cleopatra.

Ravel says the woman who stands out the most for her in all of Shakespeare’s works is Isabella in “Measure for Measure.”

“She is faced with the duplicitous nature of a patriarchal order that sees women as mothers or whores and treats them accordingly,” Ravel says. “While more subtle in our culture, even today it still dictates the attitude and language of many men.”

“A Salute to Shakespeare’s Women” will run Saturday through Tuesday at the Helfaer Theatre. For ticket information, call 288-7504.