Suffragette Koans

by Linda Carson

"I am beginning to believe that we do not need a giant. We need for all of us to be a little taller."

Suffragette Koans is a five-woman one-act, a ladylike black comedy about sexuality and repression.

The first production was a workshop in the fall of '95 at Wilfrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada where I was invited to direct for the University Players.

Koans was a favourite at the Rhubarb Festival in February '97 at Buddies in Bad Times in Toronto. We had a blast remounting it for the Summerworks Festival and Parallel Lab in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in August '97.

The production requirements are simple but stylized. Most of the action takes place on or around a decorative park bench. The bench sits in front of a suspended flat, unmasked, which features a hyper-realistic skyscape with clouds (after Magritte). Costuming can be as simple as rehearsal skirts--or as elaborate as full period costume--but the women all wear their hair up in gentle Gibson Girl buns.

Suffragette Koans features heightened language with a faux-Edwardian flavour and a surrealist sensibility. There's a very particular poetry and eroticism to the speech patterns that offers actors a rich voice-work challenge.

(I was as shocked and appalled as you to find out I'd turned into a surrealist. I'm seeking treatment. If it's any consolation, the whole thing is so blatantly, cheerfully feminist that I don't think the capital-S Surrealists would have me anyway.)

The script is presented as a sequence of Zen teaching stories, or koans. Now, picture the setting. Imagine the actors. Go to Koan 6 to read an excerpt from Suffragette Koans.

Of course, Linda Carson holds the copyright on this script and she'd be forced to take bold action if you used it without permission or claimed it as your own. Contact me if you want to perform this or any of my plays. It's easy. Just email to lccarson@bigblackpig.com