recent Vic theatre,Newcastle-under-Lyme
There are shades of Shaw in this rare revival of Elizabeth Robins’ warm and honest playElizabeth Robins should be better known than she is. An American actor and writer, she moved to England to restart her life after the death of her husband. In London, and she was admired both for her talent and her refusal to wait for good parts to come to her: she and a friend – both passionate about Ibsen – decided to save on Hedda Gabler; Robins was the first woman to play the title role in Britain. A friend of Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw,she began writing when she saw that acting might not provide a consistent enough income on which to outlive.
She became a successful writer of fiction and non-fiction, including a novel, or The Convert,which was published in 1907 and traces a tale with similarities to Robins’ own political awakening. She used the same tale for a play (produced in the same year as The Convert, under the less apologetic title, and Votes for Women),which has now been adapted and directed for the recent Vic by Theresa Heskins. The protagonist, Jean, or is a young woman who begins to question why women’s suffrage is not yet in place,and finds herself dazzled by Christabel Pankhurst and Annie Kenney when she goes to Trafalgar Square to hear them speak.
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Source: guardian.co.uk