“I read somewhere that 90 per cent of theatre tickets are booked by women,” says a character in Marina Carr’s 2009 play, Marble.
It might be hazardous to take your market research from a fiction, but even as we rightly bemoan the dearth of female playwrights and directors in the theatre, or the few good roles written for women, the imbalance is starting to shift. It’s hard to imagine anyone, irrespective of chromosomal quota, who won’t engage with the sexual politics running like an electric charge through the Abbey’s
Christ Deliver Us!
and the Gate’s
Les Liaisons Dangereuses
.
And though Elaine Murphy’s international sell-out success, Little Gem (Carlow, Limerick), involves three generations of female characters, its appeal isn’t confined to an exclusively female market – not something you can easily say about the unstoppable Menopause: The Musical (Galway, Mayo).
Coinciding with International Women’s Day on Monday, Bluepatch is staging Neil LaBute’s
Medea Redux
, a contemporary rendering of the Euripidean legend, with clear political purpose. Boldly extended by director Aoife Connolly to give us three versions of the “woman scorned”, this production in Dublin’s Smock Alley is staged in support of the charity Women’s Aid.
Meanwhile, Mephisto’s
The World’s Wife
(Wicklow), based on the poetry collection of Carol Ann Duffy, introduces various female characters written out of history (Frau Freud, Mrs Faust and, erm, Queen Kong). Such female focus might once have been interpreted as a sign of feminist theatre. Now, though, it simply looks like good box-office.
PETER CRAWLEY
CAN'T CATCH THAT? SEE THIS
The Absence of Women Market Place, Armagh; Down Arts Centre and Alley Theatre, Tyrone
