May Morris in Performance
Two plays by May Morris are being performed for the first time!
Did you know that May Morris wrote plays? It’s well-known that she had ‘play-fever’, as she put it, and acted in amateur productions, especially for Socialist causes, but her own plays are virtually unknown, and for a while now I’ve been on a one-woman mission to tell the world. There are two plays: Lady Griselda’s Dream (1898) and White Lies (1903) (actually we know she wrote at least another two, but no one knows where the scripts for those might be). The two we have are drawing-room plays, with 5 actors and an Aesthetic home with blue-and-white china and bowls of roses; both have women whose lives are not turning out how they expected. Both plays are about the choices women have to make, and the limits that society puts upon them. (Summaries at the end of this post).
The plays are being performed at Kelmscott Manor (2nd June), where May Morris lived for much of her life, and Wightwick Manor (4th June), an amazing Arts and Crafts house; both are the perfect settings for the plays. Kelmscott tickets have already sold out, but you can buy tickets for Wightwick by calling Visitor Reception between 10am and 5pm on 01902 760106; tickets are £15. The plays start at 7.30; doors open at 7.
The actors are final-year Birmingham City University Acting students, Daisy Bates, Cirilla Neiles, Niamh Logue, Nathan Horrocks and William Bennett, and working with them all has been a pleasure - they have brought the text to life, bringing out both humour and tragedy (directed by my colleague Professor David Roberts), and I can’t wait for audiences to see the plays and discover a different side to May Morris.
Lady Griselda’s Dream (1898): Lady Griselda Fairweather, idealistic and languid, is moping in her Aesthetic drawing-room when her sister, Lady Lucy Cohen visits. Lucy is bright and cheerful, married with a baby, and quite the opposite of Griselda. When she hears that her sister is awaiting a visit from a former lover, the artist Eugene Sinclair, who jilted Griselda years ago, she is anxious about what will ensue. And then Eugene arrives. Can Griselda hang onto her dreams or will real life shatter them?
White Lies (1903): Lucy Treglown and her daughter, Julia, are living a quiet, respectable life, with Julia managing her father’s photographic business while he is unaccountably absent. Herbert Cumberland arrives for a portrait, and confesses his love for Julia. He wants them to marry, but the family secret is about to be exposed as her father, Frederick, arrives unexpectedly, and the white lies that have accumulated threaten to ruin Julia’s future.