This one-woman show tells the story of a Womens' Studies' tutor forced into retirement after her wild-west antics inspired by the life of Calamity Jane embarass the department for one last time. Jane regales the audience with her tales, and after a few minutes we learn that the audience have been given the role of her students at her penultimate lecture. Jane goes on to talk of her career, flashing into moments of Calamity herself. The show progresses back and forth, paralleling the professor's life with that of the Western Female archetype as we hear of her rise to infamy and her ultimiate demise resulting from the very acts which made her famous.
The script itself is intriguing as it twists these two lives together, playing on ideas about what femininity and ultimately feminism are made up of. I did find that the stylistic traits of the language between the two characters was not as distinct as it could have been; this, muddied the ability to distinguish which character was being inhabited at each moment. Ultimately I would have appreciated a clearer distinction between the two, as it would have defined the parallel more clearly. Without this, the two characters spun together a bit too much and made the piece difficult to follow at times.
Overall this was a nice, enjoyable script and one I would love to see further work on.
The script itself is intriguing as it twists these two lives together, playing on ideas about what femininity and ultimately feminism are made up of. I did find that the stylistic traits of the language between the two characters was not as distinct as it could have been; this, muddied the ability to distinguish which character was being inhabited at each moment. Ultimately I would have appreciated a clearer distinction between the two, as it would have defined the parallel more clearly. Without this, the two characters spun together a bit too much and made the piece difficult to follow at times.
Overall this was a nice, enjoyable script and one I would love to see further work on.