Vagina Rex & the Gas Oven, The Arts Lab, 1969, photography: Peter Smith
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Radical Rediscovery 1:

Feminist Plays of the 1960s to 80s

London Performance Studios is pleased to present Radical Rediscovery 1: Feminist Plays of the 1960s to 80s, the first season in the three year Fifty Years of the Fight for Inclusion (FYFFI) programme, initiated and led by LPS Associate Artist Susan Croft of Unfinished Histories. 

Established in 2023, FYFFI commemorates the consecutive anniversaries of three key moments in the intersectional struggle for inclusivity in British theatre in the post-war era.

In this first year, the programme celebrates the fifty–year anniversary of the first Women’s Theatre Festival at the Almost Free Theatre (1973–74), taking this as a catalyst to place contemporary debates in dialogue with the explosion of feminist theatre-making in Britain between the 1960s and 80s, in order to investigate the complicated historical realities which have informed feminist practice, as well as, interrogating the complex reality of re-staging the archive in the present.

Radical Rediscovery 1 will explore five overlooked plays from the period; Vagina Rex and The Gas Oven (1969) by Jane Arden; Go West Young Woman (1974) by Pam Gems; Ophelia (1979) by Melissa Murray; The Wind of Change (1987) by Winsome Pinnock and Motherland (1982) devised by Vauxhall Manor Girls’ School with Elyse Dodgson and Marcia Smith.

Workshops led by directors Kirsty Housley and Kaleya Baxe will investigate the historical context and thematic materiality of these texts — which encompass female rage in patriarchal society, a queer feminist version of Hamlet, the opening of the US West from the point of view of women, and powerful explorations of the experiences of women of the Windrush generation — as well as, interrogate the practical, political, and dramaturgical realities of their re-staging in the present. This will culminate with staged readings of Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven and Ophelia at London Performance Studios.

The workshops and play readings at LPS will be accompanied by off-site exploratory event Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk at Soho Poly Theatre at the University of Westminster. This will feature oral history interviews with key figures from the period, followed by a panel discussion, reception and guided walk to sites and venues central to women’s alternative theatre history in Soho and the West End. It will also celebrate the new publication Feminist Theatre Then and Now: Celebrating 50 years, published by Aurora Metro.

The five plays are collected in a new publication entitled Radical Rediscovery 1. This is the second publication in Scores, a new imprint co-commissioned by Montez Press and London Performance Studios that publishes scripts and performance texts by artists, theatre-makers and performance-makers working between the visual and theatrical arts.

Radical Rediscovery 1: Feminist Plays of the 1960 to 80s was organised by Unfinished Histories as part of the Associate Artists Programme. Talking the Talk and Walking the Walk was organised in collaboration with Soho Poly at The University of Westminster.

Programme

About

Kirsty Housley (she/her) is a director, writer and dramaturg. Recipient of the Oxford Samuel Beckett Theatre Trust Award for Cue Deadly, a Live Film Project, and the Title Pending award for innovation at Northern Stage. She jointly received The Stage award for Innovation in 2017 for The Encounter and was nominated again in 2018 for The Believers are but Brothers. She was an RSC digital fellow in 2022.

Kaleya Baxe (she/her) is a writer, director and facilitator. Her work champions historically excluded narratives in creative and collaborative environments. She studied Applied Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and has worked on outreach projects at the Young Vic, Kiln and Arcola Theatre. As a multi-disciplinary artist she is interested in where research, art, and real life intersect, as well as writing as a form of archiving.

Soho Poly was London’s leading Fringe theatre venue between 1972–1990. Located in the basement of the University of Westminster’s Riding House Street building, it was dedicated to widening access to the arts giving voice to underrepresented playwrights and actors, particularly women and those from BAME and LGBTQ+ communities. After lying vacant for over 30 years - the recently restored Soho Poly is a vibrant community hub for inclusivity and wellbeing within the Regent Street and wider London area. 

Aurora Metro is a leading independent publisher based in London, run by owner-publisher Cheryl Robson. Established for over 30 years and with over 300 titles in print, it is well-known for its diverse and inclusive range of titles including translations from over 20 languages and more than a dozen unique world drama collections.


  • Workshop / 11am - 6pm

    Jane Arden’s major play Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven was the first theatre work to come out of the Women’s Liberation movement in 1969.

    Using the original text, this daylong workshop will explore physical approaches to text and updating visual dramaturgy. We will use the text to discuss how much (or how little) has changed for women since the 60’s and interrogate ways of using physical visual storytelling to support text. You will need to wear clothes you are comfortable moving in.

    About the play

    Vagina Rex & the Gas Oven by Jane Arden (1969)

    Written in 1969, Vagina Rex and the Gas Oven is a powerful, experimental text about oppressive gender roles and pain in heterosexual marriage. It was the first play of the Women’s Liberation Movement. Arden is increasingly recognised for her groundbreaking work in cinema, but she was first a playwright. Originally published by Calder and Boyars in 1971, the play has long been out of print.


  • Workshop / 11am - 6pm

    Pam Gem’s early play was first staged by The Women’s Company in 1974.

    This workshop will include discussion and text work focusing on the connection between settler colonialism and heteropatriarchy, and how we can connect where we are today to the foundations of settler colonialism as a gendered process. We’ll also explore women as other and women as property. By working through specific scenes we’ll explore how far (or not) we’ve come from the time the play was written and the era in which it’s set.


    About the play

    Go West Young Woman by Pam Gems (1974)

    Gems, with Caryl Churchill and Timberlake Wertenbaker, was one of the major playwrights in terms of the extent of their work and achievement to emerge from the feminist theatre movement in its early years. This play was produced by The Women’s Company in 1974, a multi-scene, multi-character exploration of what the opening of the West meant for pioneer women was a reminder of what the promise of space, new territory, traditionally coded as a male zone of danger, adventure, action, risk, also offered to women breaking from the safety, respectability, domestic confinement and conventional expectations, and encountering new freedoms, but also new dangers and new versions of the old ones in a world of lawlessness and bullying masculinities.


  • Walking Tour / 3.30 - 5pm

    A walk through Soho in the west end of London exploring and celebrating some of the locations and women that transformed theatre in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The route will include the original site of Inter-Action’s Almost Free Theatre on Rupert St, the location of the first Women’s Theatre Festival in Britain that took place 50 years ago in Autumn 1973.

    Over the course of two walks, we will visit a range of key venues and spaces that were part of the history of the alternative theatre movement in the 1960s, 70s and 80s in terms of their connection to women and the emergence of feminist theatre (with nods towards the earlier history of suffrage theatre). Focused on the West End, they will look at how women have been key to the work of innovative spaces, programming, writing, producing, directing and designing work, including lunchtime theatre, experimental work, new writing, LGBTQ+ theatre and street performance.

    Led by Susan Croft, Director of Unfinished Histories and former Senior Curator (Contemporary Performance) at the V&A Theatre Museum.


  • Talk & Walking Tour / 12am - 8.30pm

    Soho Poly Theatre
    16 Riding House St, London W1W 7DT

    A series of live oral history interviews and a panel celebrating the Women’s Theatre Festival of 1973 and the radical questioning and explosion of creativity that has followed over the next decades. The interviews will explore some of the individual women’s stories that contributed to this rich history.

    These will be followed by tea and cake and a panel discussion.

    The event will close with a further opportunity (7pm) to do the guided walk Women in the (Alternative) West End.

    Presented by Unfinished Histories and London Performance Studios as part of FYFFI: Fifty Years of the Fight for Inclusion this event is part of a year-long programme marking Fifty Years of Feminist Change in Theatre and will be jointly presented with Aurora Metro Books, marking the publication of FEMINIST THEATRE THEN & NOW.


  • About the play / 7 - 9pm

    Vagina Rex & the Gas Oven by Jane Arden (1969)

    Increasingly recognised for her groundbreaking work in cinema, Arden was first a playwright. The first Women’s Liberation Movement play, this is a powerful, interdisciplinary text about female rage and pain in heterosexual marriage, first produced in 1969. There is increasing interest in and recognition of the importance of Arden’s work. Originally published by Calder and Boyars in 1971, the play has long been out of print.


  • Workshop / 10am - 6pm

    What does it mean to be Black and British today, and how has that changed over the years?

    Using the groundbreaking Windrush texts Motherland and The Wind of Change as a starting point for discussion, this workshop is a chance for young Black British women to engage in the same questions our parents were asked, to explore how things have changed, and how far we’ve come.

    What does it mean to be Black in England today? What did our parents pass onto us to set us up for a good life in Britain? Why did our parents make the choice to come and stay, and would we do the same in their positions today?


    About the plays

    Motherland by Vauxhall Manor Girls’ School (1984)

    Devised by a multi-racial cast of young women from the school aged 11 to 19, working with director Elyse Dodgson, the play was based on interviews with their mothers’ generation about their experiences coming to Britain from the West Indies in the 1950s, it was first performed at Oval House in 1982. Through song, dance, scenes and personal testimony the play explores the struggles of the women to find housing, childcare, training, support and community, their encounters with racism and their aspirations for their daughters.

    &

    The Wind of Change by Winsome Pinnock (1987)

    Originally produced and toured by the Half Moon Young People’s Theatre in 1986, this was Pinnock’s first play.Since, she has gone on to produce many modern classics, such as trailblazing 1987 play Leave Taking at the National Theatre. Set in the 1980s and in flashback to the early 1960s, this is a play about the experiences of a young Jamaican woman coming to work in the NHS in Britain, the racial prejudice that she encounters, the friendship that develops between her and a young white nurse and its limitations.

  • Workshop / 10am - 6pm

    In this workshop we will explore the 1979 text Ophelia, a groundbreaking reimagining at the time, to explore the tradition of reimagining Shakespeare through a queer feminist lens.

    What is it about Shakespeare’s texts that inspires reimaginings? What is it about his tragic heroines that we feel we need to save? And how has the value of this changed from then to now?


    About the play

    Ophelia by Melissa Murray (1979)

    Originally produced by Hormone Imbalance lesbian theatre company in 1979 the play was described as ‘a completely new interpretation of Hamlet that retains some of the old characters but almost nothing of the plot…and draws on elements of modern-day political power struggles.’ According to Time Out it inverts and rewrites Shakespeare’s Hamlet, making it the story of the women. Gertrude is Queen (sans Claudius), Ophelia a spirited woman who runs away with her maidservant, rather than accede to the arranged marriage with Hamlet by which her machinatory father Polonius hopes to secure his own political power.


  • About the play / 7 - 9pm

    Ophelia by Melissa Murray (1979)

    Originally produced by Hormone Imbalance lesbian theatre company in 1979 the play was described as ‘a completely new interpretation of Hamlet that retains some of the old characters but almost nothing of the plot…and draws on elements of modern-day political power struggles.’ According to Time Out it inverts and rewrites Shakespeare’s Hamlet, making it the story of the women. Gertrude is Queen (sans Claudius), Ophelia a spirited woman who runs away with her maidservant, rather than accede to the arranged marriage with Hamlet by which her machinatory father Polonius hopes to secure his own political power.

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