The inspiration was simple... 鈥渨ell behaved women seldom make history鈥.
And from that controversial statement has sprung four short works by female writers.
The plays are being championed by RSC deputy director Erica Whyman, as part of the RSC鈥檚 first Midsummer Mischief festival taking place in Stratford-upon-Avon鈥 which also features an exhibition on the RSC鈥檚 first female director Buzz Goodbody, a one-day family festival and a day of conversations about feminism and Shakespeare.
REVOLT. SHE SAID. REVOLT AGAIN by Alice Birch 鈥 one of the plays 鈥 has won the George Devine Award for Most Promising Playwright. Previous winners including Mike Leigh, Richard Bean and Penelope Skinner.
鈥淎lice is one of our youngest playwrights,鈥 says Erica. 鈥淩EVOLT is a play about the necessity and near impossibility of a sexual revolution from the perspective of a young woman. It鈥檚 a very funny play and very problematic.
鈥淎lice is interested in the world of work and money and how that has eclipsed the sexual revolution. Sharp-witted and quite dark it looks at how we have become tied-up with concepts of motherhood and what we look like.鈥
In one of two double bills performed by six actors, Erica is directing Alice鈥檚 play as well as The Ant and the Cicada by Timberlake Wertenbaker.
鈥淚n The Ant and the Cicada we meet two sisters on a Greek island. They are Anglo-Greek,鈥 says Erica.
鈥淚t appears to be a domestic play about their relationship but it is a profoundly metaphoric play about art and the economy; Europe and Greece.
鈥淭imberlake is part-French. She was struck by the hypocrisy of the English to Greece. It鈥檚 also a feminist play: two women over 40 mainly talking about economy, philosophy and politics 鈥 not about men or marriage.鈥
Jo McInnes is directing the second double-bill 鈥 E. V. Crowe鈥檚 I Can Hear You and This is Not an Exit by Abi Zakarian.
鈥淚 Can Hear You is a story about grief and how you understand yourself in your family,鈥 says Erica.
鈥淚t鈥檚 about a family who have lost their mum and they do not have much of a send-off for her. When the brother dies he has a big send-off. The family starts to look at itself and how they feel about each other. It鈥檚 about ghosts and being a woman of a certain age. E V Crowe has been quite brave in writing a woman who is not easily liked.鈥
鈥淎bi鈥檚 play thinks about the feminist debate. She has observed three or four generations of women and how we are stuck in different ways. Feminism has not liberated us. It鈥檚 a short, sharp, funny play.鈥
The plays are a contemporary response to the Roaring Girls season currently taking place at The Swan Theatre. Writers were given the brief 鈥渨ell behaved women seldom make history鈥.
鈥淚 was on a work trip to New York when I came across a book by Laurel Ulrich called Well Behaved Women Seldom Make History,鈥 Erica explains.
鈥淪he鈥檚 an historian and quite inadvertently was talking about the influence of women when she used the phrase in a history book. Then someone sent her a mug with the quote on it 鈥 she had no idea the expression had been taken up.
鈥淟aurel then wrote this book which includes Virginia Woolf, a well-behaved person and badly behaved in her books, and medieval writer Christine de Pizan, who even then said that hundreds of women get forgotten.
鈥淚 cannot make my mind up as to whether you have to be badly behaved to make history, or people who do make history break the rules. We expect women to be better behaved than men or women expect it of themselves. That runs through the plays.鈥
Erica, 44, joined the RSC two years ago after seven years of running Northern Stage in Newcastle. This is her first directing role at the theatre since returning to work full-time, following the birth of her baby daughter, Ruby, last April.
鈥淭here鈥檚 something liberating about being in rehearsal that lets you let go of some of the guilt of being a working mum.
鈥淭here are quite a lot of others involved with the festival with young children. I want that to be normal. It should not matter. Mums and dads are capable of doing significant jobs yet we are tied in knots about it, it鈥檚 a real shame,鈥 she says.
鈥淚 am lucky I do a fascinating, demanding job. When I said I wanted to come back full-time, the RSC believed me. It鈥檚 my responsibility to make it work.鈥
A pop-up theatre has been built inside The Other Place at The Courtyard Theatre for the festival. One of Erica鈥檚 main tasks is to revitalise the RSC鈥檚 experimental studio space as a home for new work, as well as directing her own productions and forging new artistic collaborations.
She has a life-long love of Shakespeare, his humanity, radical experimentalism and his powerful sense of mischief.
鈥淚 can鈥檛 really believe I am curating such a passionate group of plays about feminism; it is 20 years since I last marched for women鈥檚 rights in Reclaim the Streets.
鈥淣ow I see a lot of young women caught up with how they look, expecting they will fall in love and get married, only they are sort of dreading it,鈥 she says.
鈥淲e do not have enough role models of women in authority. We see so few plays about something other than the domestic lives of men or women. I cannot think of many women in TV dramas, who are not in a crisis domestically.鈥
A cross-cast includes Ruth Gemmell, who played opposite Colin Firth in Fever Pitch and was recently in Channel 4鈥檚 Utopia, Casualty鈥檚 Robert Boulter, John Bowe, well-known for TV roles in Prime Suspect, Coronation Street and Cranford, Scarlett Brookes, Julie Legrand and Mimi Ndiweni.
As well as curating The Roaring Girls season and Midsummer Mischief Festival, Erica is directing Phil Porter鈥檚 uplifting new play for families, The Christmas Truce. It recounts the true and moving story of British and German soldiers who left their trenches on Christmas Eve in December 1914 to meet their enemies in No Man鈥檚 Land.
It will run alongside Love鈥檚 Labour Lost and Love Labour鈥檚 Won, set just before and after the First World War.
* Midsummer Mischief runs until July 12 at The Other Place, The Courtyard Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, and Royal Court Theatre, London from July 15 -17. It also includes Midsummer Sundae, a free family summer festival on Sunday, and a day of conversations and events on June 28.
For tickets and a full schedule for Midsummer Mischief go to or ring 0844 800 1110.
