THE WIDOWS

THE WIDOWS

“Til death do us part.”.... Then what? Set in the Victorian era, a time when mourning came with strict stipulations, The Widows tells the story of five women as they come to terms with not only the loss of their husbands, but the loss of their central role: wife. The Widows explores the loud, unbearable ugliness of grief, and the ways in which society has attempted to tame it into something quiet, demure, and prettily dressed in black.



The Body as Poetry:

The stories of our lives are written in our bodies. Our fears, our joys, our aches, every buried emotion, every kept secret, lives underneath our skin. In creating The Widows, it was important to me to tell the stories of these women not just through conversation, but through movement. Physical theatre pieces, set to original poetry and to be devised by the ensemble during rehearsals, are woven throughout the play.

Excerpts from The Widows

  • It comes

    In waves

    This beast in the belly

    Dredged up by a siren song

    Call it longing

    This hunger pang

    Call it grief

    Churns up muck

    Churns up hurt you forgot you buried

    Clings to your back like wet clothes

    Wraps its ghost arms round your neck and

    Whispers in your ear

    Scraps of joy

    Bits of memory

    All that you had

    All that you lost

    All that is left


    You 

    Hungry and

    Not quite whole


  • Consider

    For a moment

    The ocean as a woman

    The curve of her spine

    The churn of her tides

    Consider, if you will 

    The grit of her sand

    Ground up bits of pain

    Sharp stones she has swallowed

    Shards of glass she could not spit out and so she turned the sharp thing soft

    Consider the pain she carries

    And you

    Consider your pain

    Bring your pain to her

    Let her lap at your feet

    Her waves 

    like dogs 

    sniffing out another

    Can I trust you?

    Consider 

    That the ocean will always put her trust in you

    Envelop your body with her’s

    Carry you in her womb

    Rock you with a lullaby that is all her own

    She will let you cry

    Your tears are salt, after all

    Pour your salt into hers

    One open wound healing another

    The ocean is a woman

    Make no mistake

    She will spit you out 

    Sodden and gasping

    But she will always let you in again

    And you will always

    Return


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