Women Talking: The Play

I have been fascinated by stories about women for as long as I can remember. I have always wanted to know more about the people that make the world go around. I wanted to know everything about women. I wanted to know how they got around the lack of rights they had. I remember researching prostitutes and priestesses in Ancient Greece, trying to figure out how women gained some semblance of independence. I remember writing multiple research papers about women in all social classes while I was in high school. I used to read the Goddess Girl books in third grade–but refused to read Percy Jackson  because he was an annoying boy and his narration was of no interest to me.

Eventually, I found myself drawn to films of true stories involving women. I’ve watched On the Basis of Sex, Bombshell, Erin Brockovich, Hidden Figures, Harriet, A League of Their Own, and many more with my mother. The summer before my sophomore year, we watched Women Talking. Neither of us had seen it or knew anything about the events that inspired the novel and film. After we finished watching, my mum turned to me and said “This would be a great play. You should do it at Fairfield.” It hasn’t left my mind since. 

Around the same time, I was asked by Dr. Shannon Kelley to be the first Women, Gender, Sexuality Studies (WGSS) major at Fairfield University. The classes I was most excited to take were always the theatre classes and the gender classes. So, I took Dr. Kelley up on her offer and immediately fell in love with the program.

Ever since seeing the movie and deciding to double major in WGSS and Theatre, I have spoken about Women Talking as “the capstone project I have to do." When it was time for me to finally start the project, it quickly became clear that I would need more than just one semester to truly put everything together. I spent the whole school year wrestling with how to best work with the story of Women Talking. Eventually, I decided to adapt both the novel and the film into a play, and then direct a staged reading of the script.

The poster for the staged reading. Created by Emma Maselli.

I looked at a draft of the screenplay--which I found online--the novel, and facts from the actual crimes to create the playscript. Combining them all together with some of my own writing proved to be a more challenging process than I originally expected; writing the script took a whole semester. I had to focus the play into one place. The film was able to use all kind of B-roll to display the setting, whereas I had to focus on dialogue and stage directions to bring the audience along.

After creating the script came the directing. I knew a staged reading would be exactly what this project needed. As a student, I did not have the budget or knowledge to create a full-fledged production on my own. So, working with what I had, a staged reading was perfect.

A staged reading is part of the overall process of creating a play. Actors have their scripts in-hand and there is minimal blocking. There are few lights and sound cues and costumes as well as a very minimal set. It is not a fully mounted production in any shape or form. Instead, it allows the audience to focus on the words of the play.

Women Talking is a story about people finding their humanity for the first time in their lives. The empowerment that they create for themselves is something I hope to share with everyone. We all deserve to have a voice. This project is one of the ways I’ve shown mine.