Death and the Maidens

What do Virginia Woolf, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath have in common? They’re all famous dead literary figures. They all kept journals. And, at the moment, all three are being considered by the Arizona Women’s Theatre Company in its newest production, The Ophelia Project, presented in conjunction with the Phoenix...

By Robrt L. Pela

March 26, 2009

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What do Virginia Woolf, Anne Sexton, and Sylvia Plath have in common? They’re all famous dead literary figures. They all kept journals. And, at the moment, all three are being considered by the Arizona Women’s Theatre Company in its newest production, The Ophelia Project, presented in conjunction with the Phoenix Fringe Festival. Directed by Rachel Bowditch, the play intertwines stories of and commentaries on Woolf’s and Sexton’s mental illnesses and the emotional trials that led to Plath’s infamous suicide. The poetry of each author provides a framework for a piece that uses historical text as a through-line, and the production’s multimedia presentational style punches up a story of three rather disparate women whose lives dovetailed in tragedies almost as well-known as their better works. No doubt Ophelia will find ways to comment on the ways in which these tragic authors were alike, although one wonders what Woolf, who wrote that “a woman must have . . . a room of her own if she is to write,” might think of being profiled alongside other authors.
Fri., March 27, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., March 28, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., March 29, 7:30 p.m.; Fri., April 3, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., April 4, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., April 5, 7:30 p.m., 2009

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