Do3 - Votes for Women, 15 Sept

[french frank]

"Votes for Women is a suffragette play, originally performed in 1907 at the Court Theatre (now the Royal Court), which remains both modern and surprisingly controversial. Writer Elizabeth Robins, an American actress, was hugely admired by London audiences at the time, most notably for her performance as Hedda Gabler.

"A philanthropist and doyenne of the literati, she was also famed for having pulled a gun on George Bernard Shaw when he made a pass at her [And quite right, too IMHO - Ed]! Votes for Women was originally written as a novel - Robins having done her research by interviewing women about their lives (this forms the middle of the play, set at a rally in Trafalgar Square). It was turned into a play when the suffragette movement realised the power of theatre to affect public opinion and, shortly after its run in London, Robins was instrumental in setting up the Actresses' Franchise League."

Starring Zoe Tapper and Sam West.

This is the first in a trilogy of classic plays relating to the emancipation of women.

[Russ]

I do hope R3 spruce this up - at best, this sounds like a museum piece, the contemporary reviews being less than enthusiastic, and much of the text comes across as verbose melodrama.

Russ

[french frank]

Thanks for the links, Russ. It sounds as if it will suffer dramatically from having been written as a campaigning piece to carry some sort of message on women's emancipation. But even museum pieces may have some interest. The opening does have a distinctly 'Edwahdian' air.

[aeolium]

But even museum pieces may have some interest.

But when there are so many repeats, novel adaptations and biographical dramas, it seems like the disinterment of plays like this (and the Bulwer Lytton some time back) is really like plying us with weak tea and adulterated beer. There is so much better work out there.

[french frank]

But when there are so many repeats, novel adaptations and biographical dramas, it seems like the disinterment of plays like this (and the Bulwer Lytton some time back) is really like plying us with weak tea and adulterated beer. There is so much better work out there.

It's a 90-minute play with a largish cast, so won't be cheap. They could get a first rate play for the same money ...

[jean]

But when there are so many repeats, novel adaptations and biographical dramas...

...anything that's actually a play in its own right is something to be welcomed...

[Russ]

This one is reported as being "the first of three classic plays that responded to the growing freedom of women at the turn of the twentieth century", so we are in dreaded 'BBC theme' mode here, but what will the other two be? Any guesses?

Doesn't R3 usually issue a list of forthcoming Do3 productions for the upcoming season around this time of year - any info ff?

Russ

[french frank]

This one is reported as being "the first of three classic plays that responded to the growing freedom of women at the turn of the twentieth century", so we are in dreaded 'BBC theme' mode here, but what will the other two be? Any guesses?

Doesn't R3 usually issue a list of forthcoming Do3 productions for the upcoming season around this time of year - any info ff?

Russ

I'll have a scout round.

[french frank]

Sunday 22 September is Strindberg's The Father - which sounds a bit more like it.

Nothing yet for the following week from the Media Centre.

[Russ]

Considerably better and subtler than I thought it was going to be, despite getting off to a very stodgy start in act one. Act three's denouement was well constructed and paced, with the more polemical and tub-thumping parts edited out of the original text, to leave us with the meat of the personal substance between our two protagonists.

Russ

[french frank]

Yes, it was certainly a drama, if a little complicated at times (I wasn't always sure who was who). Not a great play but it did capture the spirit of the time without seeming too 'stagey' a production. Good performances all round.

[amateur51]

Better than I'd feared and as french frank says, it certainly captured the spirit, which is most important.

I recall going to see a suffragette musical a few years back at Sadler's Wells on a rainy Sunday afternoon as part of the Forgotten Musicals series in part curated by the late Dick Vosburgh. It wasn't a great musical but by Jessica it caught the spirit too.

Back to the play, I thoght it was worth doing, and in this spirited production worth preserving.