Upcoming: Age of Arousal, Southwestern University, April 13 - 17

Southwestern University Department of Theatre

presents

Age of Arousal

by Linda Griffiths

directed by Lara Toner

April 13-17
7pm | Wednesday & Thursday
8pm | Friday & Saturday
3pm | Sunday
Jesse H. and Mary Gibbs Jones Theater, Sarofim Fine Arts Center (click for campus map)

Southwestern University, Georgetown (click for driving directions)

Tickets $14 - $18 Seniors (over 62 yrs), Youth (under 16 yrs) and Students (with ID)
can request discounted tickets ($10.00 - $12.00)

Buy Tickets Online or by phone at (512) 863-1378

A fantasy-filled, fun and witty re-working of George Gissing’s 19th century novel “The Odd Women” takes us to Victorian London where there are twice as many women as there are men. An ex-suffragette has opened a typing school to liberate women from the home. Three sisters sign up, unleashing their passions and desires to create the most accessible look at the women’s suffrage movement ever put on stage.
(Adult subject matter for mature audiences only)

Age of Arousal, Austin Playhouse Larry L. King Theatre, April 10 - May 10

Age of Arousal is a strange, febrile comedy. It's like Dickens on drugs, if Dickens were to write about a closed circle of odd women.

These women are "odd" both in the numerical meaning of "not in a pair" and in the metaphorical meaning of "singular" or "remarkable." They are not "unique," because playwright Linda Griffiths intends them to represent for us the plight of women in late 19th century England, where by demographic quirk women outnumbered men by 25%. The sentimental Victorian ideal of cozy, obedient matrimony was an impossibility for many women.

Canadian playwright Linda Griffiths took as her point of departure the 1893 novel The Odd Women by British author George Gissing.
Gissing was ranked by some contemporary British critics alongside Thomas Hardy and George Meredith. A brilliant student from working-class origins, Gissing was expelled from university for stealing from better-off classmates and briefly imprisoned. He spent a year in Chicago and then went back to England in 1877. He churned out a total of 23 novels before his death from emphysema in 1903.

Gissing's social themes were well ahead of his time. He wrote about exploitation of the poor, hypocrisy in religion, the injustices for women in conventional matrimony, and unscrupulous commercial practices.

Read More at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Upcoming: The Age of Arousal, Austin Playhouse Larry L. King Theatre,

UPDATE: ALT review of Age of Arousal




Received from Austin Playhouse, March 30:

Age
of
Arousal
by Linda Griffiths
April 10 - May 10, 2009
Austin Playhouse Larry L. King Theatre

Austin Playhouse proudly presents one of the first U.S. productions of Linda Griffiths’ witty, wild, and stunning new play, Age of Arousal.

In Age of Arousal, Griffiths’ has created a fantasy-filled re-working of George Gissing’s 19th century novel, The Odd Women. In late 19th century England, a population imbalance had almost twice as many women as men running around London. This meant that many women would never find husbands, would never be paired; they would be odd.

Fusing the political battle of the 19th century suffragettes with the personal battles of the sexes, Age of Arousal creates a unique world to explore love, desire, and the cost of equality. Populating this world are six compelling characters brought to life by some of Austin’s most accomplished actors.

Read More. . . .