>>PREVIEW
AGE OF AROUSAL
Opens February 9
Written by Linda Griffiths
Alberta Theatre Projects
playRites Festival
Martha Cohen Theatre (Epcor Centre)
When playwright Linda Griffiths titled her play Age of Arousal, it wasn’t out of irony.
This is a play of corsets barely binding flesh under the heat of the spotlight. Flashes of skin peek out of rips in Victorian dresses, as sweat pumps from exposed legs and backs. The threat of nudity exists in every stare and every moment on stage. Though Age of Arousal explores the suffragist movement in the Victorian era, this is far from the traditional costume drama we expect from theatre.
"People talk about this as a wet play," says Griffiths. "That is contrasted with pretty costumes and the manners of the day. We have a sexuality that appears modern, but isn’t really. I wanted this to be a vital play and not write a play of manners. The gut-level connection of the women’s relationship to each other and then the ideas of the suffragist movement were more important. I wanted those relationships to be hot and sexy."
As part of Alberta Theatre Project’s playRites festival, Age of Arousal follows five Victorian women at the forefront of the suffragist movement’s struggle for equality in 1885 Europe. Inspired by a copy of George Gissing’s Odd Women, bought at a secondhand bookstore for a dollar, Griffiths decided to explore the characters and their movement through their charged sexuality. Not an adaptation of the book, she celebrates the travails of the characters through a charged sexuality. Griffiths wanted to bring a sensuality and jagged sexiness to a social movement people usually think of as chaste.
"When I started researching the Victorian age, I went in with certain assumptions," she says. "We think Victorian people were repressed sexually, a buttoned-up age. I wanted to challenge that. I was very interested in exploring women’s sexuality at that time. That’s definitely not in the book. I’ve taken huge liberties. I hope George Gissing won’t haunt me."
In a world inundated with sexual images, from soap detergent commercials on television to orgasmic moans on our adult-contemporary radio stations, a costume drama inspired by a little-known social novel seems anything but relevant. Griffiths, though, believes the issues dealt with in her play remain vital to people of the 21st century.
"They were dealing with exactly the same things as we’re dealing with now," she says. "I don’t know why that surprised me, but it did. Even to the point of having whatever name they were called perverted by the media. They were originally called suffragists, which is fighting for various rights. Then they got called suffragettes, which is like a kickline, like the Rockettes."
Beyond the names, though, stand-proud women known for their creative approach to protesting, including sleeping in Parliament to ensure their voices were heard, these were women flushed with life and, to Griffiths, important to explore.
"One of the key themes in the play is contradiction," says Griffiths. "They were contradictory, even wildly so, and I want the audience to take that away from the play. I want audiences to feel inspired by these women’s courage. The play is complex, not in the sense that you can’t understand it, but in that there are no easy answers. I want that reality to be part of their understanding."
Actors get fitted for corsets and the Victorian dresses are appropriately torn. Actors work with Griffiths and director Karen Hines to capture the rhythmic dialogue of the play. Everything needs to be perfect to honour these women.
"I really thought of them as philosophical ancestors helping me keep going in the writing of the play and in getting it on." |
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