Take three women writers, commission them to
write brand new plays and reimaginings of classic works with strong female
leads. Add visiting companies attempting something similar and a programme of
outreach work that looks at some of the issues all this raises, knit it
together as the Citizens Theatre’s 2019 season, and announce the details
exclusively in today’s Herald.
This is exactly what Citz artistic director Dominic Hill has done in a programme that puts women’s voices at the theatre’s centre. This is the case from Stef Smith’s time-hopping take on Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and Zinnie Harris’ new version of John Webster’s Jacobean revenge tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi, to Frances Poet’s play, Fibres, which looks at the lingering effects of asbestos poisoning in the workplace.
There is also a speedy touring revival of Cora Bissett’s Herald Angel winning autobiographical play, What Girls Are Made of, which stops off at Tramway, where the Citizens company is currently based while its Gorbals-based home undergoes a major rebuild. Given the track records of the writers on board, the season as a whole looks like a major body of work at any level. The decision to present a season made up solely of work by women writers, however, is making quite a statement.
“I think that in a post #MeToo age, women’s work needs to be put centre-stage,” says Smith. “To ignore the events of the last two years would be gross negligence by theatre, and I think it’s theatre’s responsibility and its remit to reflect those events in the work that is being made. It’s been a private conversation forever, to see it come out into the open and become a public one is really important.”
It was Smith’s take on Ibsen’s play, restyled as Nora: A Doll’s House, and which looks set to be directed by Elizabeth Freestone, which accidentally kicked off the thinking behind the season.
“I was
very excited about Stef’s ideas of setting the play in three different time
zones,” says Hill of Smith’s approach to the play, which features three
different Noras in 1918, 1968 and now. “As an organisation which tends to do
classic plays in different ways that seemed to fit. It also seems to fit with a
lot of the current conversations about women, gender and women’s relationships
with men.”
This
led to a series of connections with Harris and Poet, both of whom have
established relationships with the Citizens. Hill had already directed Harris’
version of August Strindberg’s play, Miss Julie. More recently, in co-production
with the National Theatre of Scotland, Hill oversaw her epic take on Aeschylus’
Greek trilogy, The Oresteia, This Restless House. The play’s revival during the
2017 Edinburgh International Festival saw Harris receive a Herald Angel for a
mini-season of her work led by Oresteia: This Restless House.
Coincidentally,
Harris has also adapted A Doll’s House in a version set in 1909. Her version of
The Duchess [of Malfi] has already been announced as part of co-producers the
Royal Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh’s programme, and again chimes with current
public discussions about women.
“It’s a
tale of male rage at female sexual empowerment,” says Harris, “and I wanted to
look at how that might sit if seen through contemporary eyes. As well as being
about female sexual empowerment, it’s also about what it means to be a man, and
asks what is this need for some men to control women.”
As the
Citz’s literary associate, Poet too has worked extensively with the theatre.
She adapted The Dance of Death, another play by Strindberg, for a studio
production directed by Candice Edmunds. Poet also worked as dramaturg on The
Macbeths, Hill’s stripped-down take on Shakespeare’s Scottish play that focuses
solely on the drama’s central couple. After a run in the Citz’s Circle Studio,
it recently went out on tour featuring an all-female cast. Poet also scripted
Adam, directed by What Girls Are Made of creator Cora Bissett.
Fibre will
tour in a co-production with Stellar Quines directed by Jemima Levick, and
touches on a scandal which has caused the death of many men exposed to asbestos
dust in the workplace, including in the Glasgow shipyards. What is less
well-known is that asbestosis has also affected women.
“Women
washing their husbands’ clothes were exposed to the same asbestos,” says Poet, who
developed Fibres as part of a new playwriting award from Playwrights Studio
Scotland. “The death sentences that brought with it relates to marriage and the
things you share.”
In
terms of the season in general, Poet observes that “It’s no surprise when you
get a slight shift in perspective” when women writers approach subjects such as
those in Fibres.
While things have come a
long way since the Citizens Theatre’s founder James Bridie rejected Ena Lamont
Stewart’s play, Men Should Weep, now regarded as a modern classic, can Harris, Hill, Poet and Smith envisage a time when
such a statement as all-women’s season won’t be necessary?
“I
think in time we might have all women’s seasons the same as we have all men’s
seasons where no-one raises an eyebrow,” says Harris, “but we’re currently
living in a moment where the scales have tipped somewhat, and that needs to be
addressed.”
As Poet
points out, “If you had a season of work by David Greig and Douglas Maxwell, you
wouldn’t market it as an all-male season, but neither would you blink at it. I
think what’s great about what Dominic is doing is he’s putting women’s voices
front and centre, and I think sometimes you need to do that, then in five or
ten years’ time when it happens you won’t blink ay that in the same way as you
don’t with male writers.”
As she
also points out, given their respective track records, “You don’t really need
an excuse to programme work by powerhouse writers like Zinnie Harris and Stef
Smith.”
Poet is
too modest to include herself in that line-up, but, given her own track record,
the same applies.
For Hill,
“The changes in the world that have happened over the last few years have
helped bring these things to our attention, and has stopped us being complacent
so we can see the benefits and the excitement in doing something like this. I
know at the Lyceum these things are very much a part of their programming, and
a 50/50 ratio of male and female artists is very much a thing in other places.
Hopefully it’s something we won’t have to have discussions about, but will just
happen. At the same time, I think it’s worth celebrating a strong female voice.”
Smith
puts it simpler, both in terms of her play and a broader representation of
women’s voices onstage.
“I think
we’re at a turning point,” she says. “We don’t know what that is yet, but
something is happening.”
Tickets
for the Citizens Theatre’s 2019 season are on sale from today at www.citz.co.uk. Nora: A Doll’s House, Tramway, Glasgow,
March 15-April 6 2019; What Girls Are Made of, Tramway, Glasgow, April 9-13
2019; The Duchess [of Malfi], Tramway, Glasgow, September 4-21 2019; Fibres
will tour in September and October 2019.
The Herald, December 4th 2018
ends
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