ACT’s 2010 Mainstage season continues with a savage new comedy, The Female of the Species by Australian playwright Joanna Murray-Smith, opening this weekend. This Seattle premiere is loosely based on a real-life incident when feminist icon, author, and professor Germaine Greer was attacked and held hostage in her home in the British countryside by a college co-ed obsessed with the famous writer.
Germaine Greer’s ordeal and the ensuing commentary provided Murray-Smith with an ideal springboard for the delightfully zany events of The Female of the Species. In her irreverent satire, she lets loose with a wild farce that takes on the entire feminist movement, subjects it to comedic scrutiny, and plays it out to pitch-perfect hilarity on stage.
“The Female of the Species is a deliriously funny new play that acknowledges and celebrates the achievements of the Feminist movement, while poking and tweaking its thin-skinned underbelly,” said ACT Artistic Director Kurt Beattie.
Directed by Allison Narver (Eurydice and The Clean House at ACT; Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at The 5th Avenue Theatre), The Female of the Species features veteran Seattle stage actor Suzy Hunt as feminist writer Margot Mason and Renata Friedman as her disillusioned, gun-wielding disciple Molly, with madcap interruptions from her harried daughter Tess (Morgan Rowe), her successful but inarticulate son-in-law (Paul Morgan Stetler), a macho taxi driver (Tim Hyland), and her longtime friend and publisher (Mark Chamberlin), adding to the escalating lunacy of the situation.
The Female of the Species was produced this past February at the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles with Annette Bening as Margot, and also played on London’s West End with Dame Eileen Atkins in 2008, when it was nominated for the Oliver Award for Best New Comedy.
The Female of the Species
By Joanna Murray-Smith
Directed by Allison Narver
June 18- July 18, 2010
Tickets/Times
Students/people 25 and under: $10/$15
Adults: prices start at $37.50
Pay-What-You-Will: June 20 at 7:30 p.m., July 1 at 2:00 p.m.
Monthly Membership: included in Membership
Tues-Thurs & Sun 7:30 p.m.; Fri & Sat 8:00 p.m.; Sat & Sun 2:00 p.m.
ACT Theatre
Ticket Office: (206) 292-7676
Group Sales (12 or more): (253) 839-4204
700 Union Street, Seattle WA 98101
www.acttheatre.org
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