At the end of last year, I asked the outgoing seniors what I should direct this year. They pretty much all suggested Shakespeare or “something classic.” So the search began for a play. Few of the Shakespeare shows I looked at seemed quite right—too big, too small, too serious, too frequently produced, or offering too few lines (and agency) for the female characters.
I also love to remind our students of the fact that there were more classical playwrights than just Shakespeare! Most writers from 100 years in either direction of Shakespeare’s time were just as skilled but have the misfortune of simply “not being Shakespeare.”
Aphra Behn (1640–1689) has the distinction of being one of the first women in recorded history to make her living as a full-time playwright. The women in her plays have more lines compared to her near-peer playwrights (especially Shakespeare). They also assert more control over their lives than is typical for a classical work. When the idea of this play came to me, it was the first play I considered that felt right—right tone, right size, right amount of literary quirkiness, and I felt our students here could do it justice.
For women in Behn’s time, you were your father’s or brother’s responsibility until you were married to your husband. It was expected that, as a dutiful daughter, you would do whatever the males in your life asked of you. Yet, Florinda and Helena wrest control into their own hands and, within the confines of their society, achieve their own ends—to the consternation of the males by whom they are surrounded.
This play premiered in 1677 and takes place in Florence, Italy, during Carnival. We moved it to French New Orleans in 1785 and found a cultural analogue in Mardi Gras. There are touches of both the truly historical and the utterly modern. While the language remains largely what Behn wrote, I get the feeling that you will understand it anyway.
If you are nervous whenever you sit down to watch a classical show, do your best to relax. These characters are just people who need things—to marry the person they love, to earn a living, to be petty to an ex, or to resolve a love triangle. We did our best to take this language down off the lofty shelf of classical literature and bring you real people with real problems they have two hours and fifteen minutes to solve.
If an actor talks to you, I encourage you to talk back.
Welcome to The Rover. I hope you laugh as much as I do.
-B. Mayo
