FIRST 100 YEARS:
The Professional
Female Playwright
Aphra Behn
(ca. 1640 - 1689)
Had
the Plays I have writ come forth under any
Man's Name, and never known to have been mine;
I appeal to all unbyast Judges of Sense, if
they had not said that Person had made as many
good Comedies, as any one Man that has writ in
our Age; but a Devil on't the Woman damns the
poet.... All I ask, is the Priviledge for my
Masculine Part the Poet in me.
Preface, The Lucky Chance, 1686
Readings:
THE LUCKY CHANCE Directed by Rebecca Patterson & The Queen’s Company at The Drama Book Shop (250 West 40th Street, betw. 7th & 8th Aves) on Sunday, November 3rd, 2002, at 2 p.m. 212 944 0595 x417
THE ROVER Directed by Elizabeth Swain at Marymount Manhattan College (mezzanine, 221 East 71st Street, betw. 2nd & 3rd Aves) on Sunday, November 17, 2002, at 2 p.m. Call 212-315-3852 or email Duchessofnewcastle@yahoo.com
THE WIDOW RANTER Directed by Karen Eterovich (Love Arm'd Prods) at HERE Arts Center, Dorothy B Theater (145 Sixth Ave, betw. Spring & Broome) on Monday, December 2, 2002, at 6 p.m.
THE
DUTCH LOVER
Directed by James Hannaham & Target
Margin Theater Co. at The
Drama Book Shop (250 West 40th Street, betw. 7th & 8th Aves) on
Sunday, January 5, 2003, at 2 p.m.
212 944 0595 x417
- Introduction
- The Symposium: Saturday, October 26, 2002
- The Readings: November 2002 – October 2003
- Featured Playwrights
- General Bibliography
Please visit the lists of books about our other featured playwrights:
Aphra Behn existed.
If she had not, we would have had to invent her.
If Shakespeare could look back to Marlowe, Marlowe to Chaucer, or Chaucer to
the literary forefathers whose tradition he grew out of, Mrs. Behn imposed herself
on history without precedent: she was the first woman to become a professional
writer. Aphra had to invent herself.
The life she led would have been extraordinary in any age, but for a woman of
the 17th century not born to fortune or position it was nearly unheard of. Aphra
Behn was an adventuress who undertook the long and dangerous voyage to the West
Indies, became involved in a slave rebellion there, and visited tribes of Indians
who had never before seen Europeans. She was a spy for Charles II against the
Dutch. She was a debtor imprisoned for expenses incurred in the service of the
King. She was a feminist who vociferously defended the right of women to an
education, and the right to marry whom they pleased, or not at all. She was
a sexual pioneer who contended that men and women should love freely and as
equals. She was a political activist who argued the Royalist point of view at
Will’s Coffee House and from the stage of the Drury Lane theater. She was an
early abolitionist whose novel Oroonoko contained the first popular portrayal
of the horrors of slavery. Finally, she was a writer who not only insisted on
being heard, but successfully forced the men who dominated the jealous literary
world of Restoration England to recognize her as an equal. In a London that
boasted only two theaters, she had seventeen plays produced in seventeen years.
She wrote thirteen “novels” (thirty years before Daniel Defoe wrote
Robinson Crusoe, generally termed the first novel) and published several collections
of poems and translations.
Along with her friend and colleague John Dryden, she is buried in Westminster
Abbey – Dryden in Poets' Corner; Aphra outside, at the entrance to the
cloisters, where her stone has almost been worn smooth by three centuries of
indifferent feet.
From
Reconstructing Aphra: A Social Biography of Aphra Behn by Angeline Goreau
Copyright © 1980 by Angeline Goreau
Play List:
The Forc’d Marriage; or, the Jealous Bridegroom, 1670
The Amorous Prince; or, the Curious Husband, 1671
The Dutch Lover, 1672
The Town Fop; or, Sir Timothy Tawdry, 1676
Abdelazar; or, The Moor's Revenge, 1676
The Rover; or, The Banish'd Cavaliers Part I, 1677
The Debauchee; or, The Credulous Cuckold, 1677
The Counterfeit Bridegroom; or, The Defeated Widow, 1677
Sir Patient Fancy, 1678
The Feign’d Curtizans; or, a Night's Intrigue, 1678
The Young King; or, The Mistake, 1679
The Revenge; or, a Match in Newgate, 1680
The Second Part of the Rover, 1681
The Round-Heads; or, The Good Old Cause, 1681
The False Count; or, a New Way to Play an Old Game, 1682
The City Heiress; or, Sir Timothy Treat-all, 1682
Like Father, Like Son; or, The Mistaken Brothers, 1682
The Wavering Nymph; or, Mad Amyntas, 1684
The Lucky Chance; or, An Alderman's Bargain, 1686
The Emporer of the Moon, 1686
The Widow Ranter; or, the History of Bacon in Virginia, 1689
The Younger Brother; or, the Amorous Jilt, 1696
Mallory Catlett / Gwynn MacDonald, Co-Directors, THE FIRST 100 YEARS
Organized by The Juggernaut Theatre Company
For more information, www.juggernaut-theatre.org