Clare Booth Luce wrote the play in the 30s' but it rings as true today as it did nearly 70 years ago. Live, on stage at Academic Hall, the Drama Guild of The University of Ottawa presents The Women, an exposé of the feline traits, wily ways, power trips, and marital mayhem of the well-off, well-to-do female creatures of North American urban-jungle culture.
One of the unique features of this play is that it has 35 characters in it and they are all female. There are no male characters in the play at all.
In order to highlight the gender politics and to create an unusual tension in the play, the choice of director Michael Dobbin has been to engage several male actors, some playing central female roles, amidst the majority of women forming the cast.
“This is a student production” he said, “and it is certainly a useful exercise for the male actors to play these complicated women. But it is also a great exercise for the female actors to play amidst their male colleagues who are playing women. The cross-gender casting creates a new awareness of all things feminine for every one of the actors. It also allows the audience to see the play in a different light and it illuminates the gender politics of the piece in a remarkable way”.
Dobbin is a guest director with The Drama Guild and brings with him a 35 year career in professional theatre and opera as a director, actor/singer, and producer.
Set design is by Theatre Department Chair, Margaret Coderre-Williams; lighting design by David Magladry; fight direction by John Brogan; and costume design by Stephanie Carter.
“The costumes are from the mid-1930s',” Dobbin said, “and that period provides a beautiful silhouette with unusual hemlines and lovely hats, high heels and fur wraps. It is a great period piece and a useful one for the student actors, from a movement and social decorum perspective. So many of the plays we do today are contemporary in nature and it is good for young actors to deal with the challenges of manners and etiquette, dress and body deportment from another era. They look classy!”
The large cast of students is complimented by the presence of one visiting actor, Claudia Buckley, recently retired and a highly respected theatre officer from the Canada Council for the Arts. She plays the mother of the leading lady and is appearing onstage for the first time in decades, in Ottawa.
The last time she was on stage here was in a legendary production of The Beard — a show that Ottawa police did not take well to and which was shut down. After several decades, Buckley felt her “notoriety” as a performer was sufficiently diminished that she could safely venture forth onto the boards in relative “anonymity.”
The show opens November 1, 2005 and runs five performances, each starting at 8:00 p.m. Tickets are $10 for general public and $6 for students and seniors.
Academic Hall is located north of Tabaret Hall at 135 Séraphin Marion. Parking is available in nearby lots.
Reservations:
Secretariat, Department of Theatre
(613) 562-5761
theatre@uottawa.ca
