The Hamilton Spectator: Half the Sky goes for laughs in 25th anniversary play

Pubdate:April 23, 2008

By Erika Engel

Half the Sky Feminist Theatre would like you to laugh
as it marks its 25th anniversary by performing a farce.

The play is called Good Help is So Hard to
Murder, and it strays from the traditional hard-hitting drama the
group is known for.

"This play is a total deviation," says Kathy Brown, one
of seven founding members. "This is a murder mystery. A
woman kills a woman, and we make fat jokes. It's
so wrong and so not us."

This year, Half the Sky's production is meant to celebrate
how far the group has come.

"It's our 25th anniversary, and we thought, 'Let's just have
fun.' We need to have fun, and that's a feminist
issue," she says.

In 1982, in a church basement, during a women's conference,
Brown read a description of menopause from an 1800s medical
dictionary. Friend Zora McLachlan acted out what she read. When
the laughter subsided, Brown wanted to find a way to
do that more often.

"(I thought) wouldn't it be fun to have a women's
theatre group," says Brown.

From there, the feminist theatre group was formed. In 1983,
their first production was called Hot Flashes, and it was
a series of monologues about the lives of the seven
women involved at the time.

Since then, the group has performed about 25 plays, tackling
issues such as abortion, death, cancer, insanity, marriage, homosexuality, aging
and poverty, all from a feminist perspective.

"Feminist theatre is a venue for those issues that address
woman and all of the things in their lives that
are important to them," says Judian, member of Half the
Sky since 1983. "It is incredibly important because women's issues
are not addressed, as a rule, in mainstream theatre."

The original goal of Half the Sky was "to work
in the area of women's issues and have fun," Brown
says. She says it hasn't deviated from that first intention.

Judian agrees.

"We've provided a space that is safe for women to
not only be creative, but to express their inner thoughts,"
she says.

Members of Half the Sky choose or write the plays
they perform collectively.

Liz Inman, member since 1997, will be directing Good Help
is Hard to Murder.

When the group was deciding on a play for its
anniversary, Inman said they spent a lot of time deciding
on this one because it could be offensive.

"This is a farce; we are doing our best to
perform it as a farce and trust that it will
be seen and enjoyed as a farce," she wrote in
her director's notes.

Judian said that although they believe feminist theatre is important,
and it tackles vital woman's issues, the women in the
group still like to laugh.

"I'm hoping that people will come and see that women
haven't lost their sense of humour. It still exists, and
we can have lots of fun with it," she said.

The group won't return to this kind of theatre for
awhile.

In fact, the ladies joke it will be another 25
year before the next farce.