Suffer the
suffragettes

A mish-mash of ideas and an
unsettled story drag down Age of Arousal

EXPRESSIVE AND ANDROGYNOUS: Leni Parker

By NEIL BOYCE

It's kind of a love story. Or a homage. Or something.

Montreal-born playwright Linda Griffiths started with women activists in Victorian England, then expanded on the struggles of these historical sisters for her 2007 play, Age of Arousal.

In the current Centaur production, directed by Sarah Garton Stanley, Mary Barfoot (Clare Coulter) is a bruised and battle-weary suffragette. She's opened a school with her lover Rhoda Nunn (Alison Darcy) for the female misfits of society: the unmarried, the fallen, the unrepentant the so-called Odd Women.

With the Industrial Revolution running in high gear and everyone gravitating towards London, a conflagration of new ideas filled the air, not least of which was the emergence of independent working women and a change in sexual mores. With the aid of the newly invented Remington typewriter, Mary hopes that, with her trainees unleashed and our pointed boot in the door, they'll go on to tackle the world of business and money governed by men.

Coulter plays the tough-talker with grit and tenacity as she spits out, The idea is to totally transform women, from cradle to grave.

The arrival of three spinster sisters (Diana Fajrajsl, Gemma James Smith and Leni Parker) adds fuel to the heated dialogue, which gets more volatile with the appearance of Mary's cousin, the libidinous and ridiculously named Everard (Julian Casey). He's a pointy-nosed dandy who gets the best lines, epigrams like: Men aren't afraid of women, really...only of women in groups.

Not fully realized, his character exists as a sort of foil for the females, an illustrative prop for Griffiths aphorisms on chauvinism and the male perspective. He's there to set ablaze this struggle for balance between the sexes at least, that's what should have happened.

Asides to the audience are scattered throughout, little windows into inner lives. The lighting shifts to red as a character turns her head and hisses We are lost! or I am desired no more before resuming. Amusing at first, these pauses get old fast, killing the flow of the story along with any goodwill generated thus far.

At one point, Mary and Rhoda give a demonstration to the class, typing blindfolded while sprightly music plays one nearly expects them to burst into song and extol the virtues of office drudgery.

There are great individual performances by all, and good scenes, even: Parkers wonderful voice and expressive face as the androgynous Virginia Madden, Fajrajsl a comical and manic bundle of nerves as sister Alice Madden, and James Smith, the gentler voice to Mary's hard line: Love, it seems to me, she says, is in many of us. Love with no reward.

Alison Darcy is lovely too, as Rhoda squares off against Everard, who remarks of women, You are built to bear children, and is rebuffed by her with: You are built to hunt bison.

Transgenderism, free love, single motherhood: many activist markers are covered, but light moments come off weird and unfunny, while serious scenes begin to bore.

Stanley tackled the lengthy, message-heavy script bravely, but had difficulty establishing where the story settled. Bawdy comedy, feminist polemic, rapid-fire Stoppardian wordplay: Griffiths play is a mish-mash of it all, awash in its own importance, wordy, clever...and long. There may be an engaging way to stage it, but it wasn't in evidence on this night.

THE AGE OF AROUSAL TO APRIL 19 AT
CENTAUR THEATRE (453 ST-FRANÇOISXAVIER)
INFO: (514) 288-3161