Strange to relate in these days when being a secretary is still seen as a female domain, that it was not much more than a hundred years ago the typewriter gave women unimagined job opportunities. Helen Brown spoke to Age of Arousal director Muriel Romanes about a story of women’s lives and the huge changes, social, political, personal and sexual, wrought by technology and the campaign for women’s rights.
The “far enough” that Muriel Romanes refers to takes shape in this production as a highly theatrical, non-naturalistic, visually arresting production with women at its heart, challenging traditions in the way it’s presented as well as in the way it expresses ideas and characters.
“Who would want to see utter naturalism on stage? You can get that on telly in EastEnders! It’s very poetic, with great rhythms and pace, the actors are wonderful and we’re so lucky to have the mix we have, from Hannah Donaldson (a former Dundee Rep ensemble apprentice) to Ann-Louise Ross, with whom I worked as an actress many years ago.”
She doesn’t claim, though, that it’s a great feminist play because it undercuts quite a lot of the accepted polemic and allows women to be flawed individuals rather than figureheads. “It’s just a really interesting story. In some ways, it reminds me of the kind of theatre I used to do as an actress in the early days of 7:84. All the characters are in Gissing’s original book but Linda has subverted them from figures in a rather turgid Victorian novels into people with a colourful life of their own. I think of it as a contemporary play set in the past.”
The suffragette element is also something Muriel is familiar with, having taken part in a reading of Perth-based author Ajay Close’s play, Cat & Mouse, which takes its name from the notorious act of parliament that allowed imprisoned suffragettes to be force-fed, in this case, in Perth prison.
People think of the campaign to gain women the vote as being a London-based, metropolitan movement, but there was a huge amount of suffragette activity in Scotland, names like Louisa Lumsden, Aberdeenshire-born educationalist Cambridge graduate and active campaigner for women’s suffrage, as well as first head of St Leonard’s School in St Andrews. A St Leonard’s educated Scot, Edinburgh-born Chrystal Macmillan, was amongst the first women admitted to Edinburgh University, by 1902 was a member of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies and later served on the executive in London.
A committed internationalist, after the first world war she was a delegate at the Paris Peace Conference and at the International Congress of Women in Zurich which issued the first public criticism of the terms of the Versailles Treaty. She eventually became a barrister specialising in law affecting married women.
Dundee artist Ethel Moorhead was another, studying art at Whistler’s studio and in Paris under Alphonse Mucha, going on to become a distinguished portrait painter. She was, according to information from Dundee Women’s Trail, a “boisterous” member of the suffrage movement, smashing windows, attempting arson and refusing to bow to male authority. She eventually went back to Paris in the 1920s, founding and editing one of the best-regarded art journals of the time.
Muriel reckons that there are many more stories like these waiting to be discovered by a wider audience.
“We did a reading for International Women’s Day at the Lyceum but this is also a piece I’d love to be able to present it to audiences in Dundee and Perth. In fact, if anyone has stories about the movement in their area, I would love to see them at the current show and perhaps talk to them about it.”
So far the short tour has taken The Age of Arousal to very different venues across Scotland, from the Victorian splendour of the Royal Lyceum itself to the tiny 90-seater Woodend Barn in Banchory where it was performed the night before I spoke to Muriel.
“I was amazed at the audience response they were banging the floor with their feet, whistling and whooping! I am very excited about being at Dundee Rep, too, with its bigger stage which will cope with the epic sweep of the piece and its intimate atmosphere which will bring it close to the audience.
“The set isn’t at all literal at the Lyceum, the audience could see the back of the theatre building itself and there are interesting juxtapositions in the design that give it both a period feel and a contemporary slant. The costumes are partly period, partly modern (often in the same outfit) and the famous typewriter, for example, sits on a computer table!”
Linda Griffiths’ play, The Age of Arousal, takes us back to the 1880s, a time of passion, confusion and a collision between notions of virtue, freedom and independence where mastery of the new machine will literally change people’s lives.
You may not cot consider the typewriter an instrument of revolution but without it, it’s likely that women’s rights would not be where they are today.
Linda Griffiths’ play, being given its UK premiere by Scottish company Stellar Quines, shows militant ex-suffragette Mary Barfoot and her lover Rhoda enlisting female students to learn to master the machine as a road to freedom. The effect this has on three spinster sisters takes it much further than that, taking in the breaking of taboos, rules and accepted behaviour, especially for women discovering their own sensuality, defying convention and sloughing off social restrictions along with their corsets and stays.
Linda Griffiths is a Canadian playwright and it was in her homeland that Stellar Quines’ director and founder, Muriel Romanes, first came across a production of her work. Griffiths’ play was based, in turn, on the 1893 novel The Odd Women by Victorian writer George Gissing which she came across by accident in a Toronto book shop.Stellar Quines’ production of The Age of Arousal comes to Dundee Rep on April 14-16. Performances start at 7.30pm. There will be a post-show discussion with director Muriel Romanes and cast members on April 15.Muriel explained, “When I saw the play in Toronto, I loved the idea of it although I thought it didn’t go far enough to do the story and the characters justice. It’s provocative on a number of levels, not least because it shows women experimenting with cross-dressing and alcohol but it’s also right in the Stellar Quines’ approach of presenting work about women and by women.
“We needed to find a co-producer because of the need for a cast of six and partial historical costume – at the moment, Stellar Quines is me and one other person two days a week! So we were delighted when Mark Thomson of the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh came on board, having seen a reading in London featuring the actress Diana Quick.”
Continued…