Edinburgh 97 - Theatre Preview - from The List

Aphra Behn And Nell Gwyn - 17th Century Career Girls

They sure didn't know the term glass ceiling syndrome but, for all the oranges in M&S, I bet they had no truck with men who got in their way. Aphra Behn and Nell Gwyn were 17th century career women who juggled bedroom antics with serious jobs and would only have thumbed through Cosmo if there was nothing better to do.

In a double bill from New York's Theater Ten Ten, their lives on both sides of the bedchamber door are revealed. Gwyn, famed for her expletives and for selling oranges, was one of the sharpest wits on London's 17th century comedy circuit and part-timed as Charles II's long-term, stay-over lover. "She was a court jester who really entertained Charles" says Lynn Marie Macy, writer and performer of A Thousand Merry Conceits, A Private Audience with Nell Gwyn.

Aphra Behn was another woman of reckoning. Regarded as the first professional woman playwright in England, Behn sidelined as a spy during the Dutch wars and saw the inside of several prisons as a result of unpaid debts. She also had trouble with her man, John. "He slept with almost everything that moved," according to Karen Eterovich, performer and writer of Love Arm'd, Aphra Behn & Her Pen. "So she kicks him out and puts a curse on him and he ends up being killed in a bar room brawl." Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, as they say. Or perhaps it was just girl power restoration-style.

(Susanna Beaumont)

Excerpts from. . . .

THE BRITISH THEATRE GUIDE  9/15/97   Theatre* * *

We learn a great deal about Behn, the first ever professional woman playwright and the first ever novelist, predating Defoe by seventeen years. It is a fascinating and informative piece .... a polished jewel, impressive ... I enjoyed the show!

Peter Lathan

THE SCOTSMAN   Friday, 29 August 1997

Aphra Behn and Nell Gwyn  -  Bedlam Theatre      Theatre ***

Probably only a few people have thought of linking these two names, but their yoking as two one-woman portrayals provide the fascinating entry into the world of women in the Restoration theatre. . . .Eterovich's Aphra is classier... we get something of her fiery relationship with lover John Hoyle, and of the pathos of her stay in Guiana amid indigenous American and black slaves which is evoked in her 'noble savage' novel Oroornoko.....they do provide a vivacious, informative, enjoyable entertainment, and one hopes the company will develop their work in this period further.

Sara O'Sullivan