Royal
Conservatoire of Scotland, Glasgow
Four
stars
The
Cambridge ladies of Girton College do much better than their male
contemporaries in Jessica Swale's 2013 dramatisation of the struggle to have
students graduate from the UK's first women-only seat of learning. Their
academic achievements don’t do them much good, alas, in Swale's timely lesson
in how, more than a century after the play is set, equality on campus and
everywhere else besides should never be taken for granted.
The
ensemble of fourteen final year BA Acting students who add fire and passion to
Becky Hope-Palmer's production seem understandably galvanised by such a
fiercely intelligent work. The play focuses on four young science students at
Girton, whose enquiring minds are only occasionally distracted by the over-privileged
boys who they must keep a respectful distance from. In the main, however, Tess,
Carolyn, Celia and Maeve keep their eyes on the stars that could lead them to
infinite possibilities if they are ever allowed the opportunity.
The
play itself is a beautifully constructed piece of work. There's a user-friendly
charm to Swale's writing that gives the play a power which a more polemical
approach might have undercut. The drama looks at class as much as gender, with
Sharon Mackay’s Maeve forced to leave her course to look after her family in a
way that still reflects the plight of some poor students today. At the centre of
the story is the everyday contradictions between science, art, head and heart which
Tess, played by Mary McCartney with a sense of perennial curiosity, must square
up to if she is to have a chance of greater glories.
While
the boys are the Cambridge equivalent of Bullingdon bullies, with Harri Pitches’
portrayal of one little charmer a particularly effective study of arrogance,
McCartney, Mackay, Carolina Lopes as Carolyn and Alice Masters as Celia give as
good as they get. Arriving at a time when middle-aged men still get to play God
regarding rights for women, Swale’s play is an entertainingly serious historical
primer that points to how, despite many leaps forward, in terms of education
for all, the work is far from done yet.
The Herald, May 20th 2019
ends
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