Emancipation (2021)
In the late 1950s, a previously happy couple live in the suburbs. Events have transpired to test the strength of their marriage and what it truly means to be a woman in a time of such patriarchal values.
"Some people are resistant to discussing patriarchy or its impact, because they understand it"
Clementine Ford
About Emancipation
This Theatre piece wasn't actually the original intention for the story. Originally, it was about the concept of Lucid Dreaming, with the lead character living years of her life and then waking up to reality, having lost the family and the life they built.
This story came from that idea, I felt there was a deeper story in there somewhere, a bit more grounded and realistic, something was reaching out to me. That was this story, the story of a woman who had lost her baby and the effects of that on both her mental state and her marriage.
Using these as foundation, I found that setting it in the 1950s would also provide me with a platform to undermine and deconstruct the patriarchal stigmas of the time, allowing the husband character to have some humanity and show some genuine emotion over the circumstances.
This Story is something that is near and dear to me, my first real project that I felt like I'd been progressing my skills. I felt so proud and happy with how this one came out, with it being a story that I plan to adapt for the screen in a proper capacity.
Inspirations
To start off, this is my first major Theatrical based piece and I am so proud of how it turned out. However, I found a lot of inspirations from the following sources:
Betrayal by Harold Pinter - This play is one of my personal favourites and a long term goal of mine to adapt for the stage and the screen. I borrowed slightly from the angle of setting the stage around a marriage but I deviated from his viewpoint about focusing on the betrayal by focusing on the marriage itself. I wanted to portray a serious look into a troubled marriage, portray the effects of that on both occupants in their own right. I took a lot of inspiration from the chronology of this play, with that one flowing in reverse-chronological order, Emancipation flows linearly but I set it after the events that tested the marriage have taken place. Following the characters as they struggle through the aftermath rather than the event itself. One smaller thing is that I named the lead male character after that of Robert from Betrayal, as my way respecting the play and paying homage to that terrific character.
Feminist Theory - A big inspiration for me when writing this piece is portraying a strong, rebellious woman in a time where that would be extremely frowned upon. Challenging the status quo of the 1950s, presenting that patriarchal era with a character who is using her grief and her turmoil to rebel against the norms of the time was something that I found endlessly fascinating. "Fundamentally, although the experiences of marriage, homemaking and mothering are in many ways interwoven", this is something that I wanted to subvert with this piece. I wanted to take the usual portrayal of women in this time period and create a character that stands against that, who channels what she feels as a way to counter that exact viewpoint. Each part of the life that is expected by her are countered in this piece, such as her lack of cleaning the house or her neglectful attitude towards her husband or even her grief towards losing her son. Every part of her hates the world around her, and she certainly shows that.
