SETTING

London, England • 1869

A variety of locations in the boroughs of Westminster, Southwark, and Islington, including private homes, public streets, a doctor's office, a rented room, and the Angel Amphitheatre.

Content Advisory

This production contains instances of "adult language" (profanity/innuendo), as well as depictions of/references to the following: fighting for sport, sex work, death and dying, intimate partner violence, termination of pregnancy, reproductive coercion, and administering medical treatment without consent.

American Sign Language interpretation will be provided during the 2nd Friday evening performance and talkback for every show.

THE OLD MAN & THE OLD MOON

Friday, October 7, 2022

SOMEWHERE: A PRIMER FOR THE END OF DAYS

Friday, November 4, 2022

IN PIECES: A NEW MUSICAL

Friday, November 18, 2022

THE SWEET SCIENCE OF BRUISING

Friday, February 24, 2023

AS YOU LIKE IT

Friday, March 24, 2023

CABARET

Friday, April 14, 2023

The Sweet Science of Bruising transports us to Victorian London, 1869, only a decade after Charles Darwin published his theory of evolution in On the Origin of Species. The paradigm shift of Darwin’s revolutionary theory courses through the play as Professor Charlie Sharp lures us and our unexpected pugilists into the ring with the promise of progress and independence.

While some held “the Angel in the House” as the Victorian ideal of womanhood, the women’s movement was fighting for equality — the right to higher education, the right to own their own property and money, and the enfranchisement of the vote. In 1867, the Liberal Philosopher John Stuart Mill MP had gone before the House of Commons to argue that British Women should be given the right to vote; he proposed to amend the Second Reform Act, replacing instances of the word “man” with “person.”

In 1871, Darwin countered these notions in The Descent of Man, where he wrote, “The chief distinction in the intellectual powers of the two sexes is [shown] by man attaining to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up, than woman can attain — whether requiring deep thought, reason or imagination, or merely the use of the senses and hands. . . Man is more courageous, pugnacious and energetic than woman, and has a more inventive genius.”

Laws, customs, and ways of thinking continue to evolve (in spite of Darwin’s objections), but the fight is far from over. Today, more than a century and a half later, The Sweet Science of Bruising puts on gloves and steps into the ring.

Near the end of the play, Lady Boxing Champion Matilda Blackwell christens the boxing ring her “looking glass through time, showing all her daughters, coming out of the back streets, the brothels, the sweatshops and sweating their way up on to the world’s stage...” Matty’s looking glass through time isn’t reflecting the past, mothers and grandmothers; it’s reflecting daughters, the next generations. I can’t help feeling she’s seeing us in that ring, and I wonder, what is she reflecting back to us? What future are we fighting for for those who follow us?

— Alexandra Harbold

The Sweet Science of Bruising begins in 1869 London at the start of the United Kingdom's Women’s Suffrage movement. In the Victorian Era, married women lived under the regulations of coverture, which gave men legal and financial control over their wives.

Women had been seen as a lesser party to men for centuries leading up to this, but what made the push for women’s suffrage was the Reform Act of 1832. This legislation acted as the first explicit statutory bar to the women’s vote, defining a voter as a male property owner. This reform was meant to “correct abuses'' by granting the individual the vote as opposed to having representative voters for boroughs. Although it also served as the first public acknowledgment barring women, even those who owned property, from voting.

This bill was followed immediately by the first of many petitions pleading for women’s suffrage. The call to action had been heard across the country after this petition for women’s suffrage was seen in court In 1832. It wasn’t until 1866, three years before the start of our play, that a petition made noise in parliament. This petition held 1,499 signatures that had been collected in less than a month. Although this petition did not successfully grant women’s suffrage, it is often considered the beginning of the organized campaign to vote. This caused the formation of women’s societies across Britain that focused on the suffrage movement, notably the Manchester National Society for Women’s Suffrage.

Women’s occupational opportunities were sparse when compared to the opportunities of their male counterparts. Socially acceptable jobs for women were limited to low positions, often in domestic service, which fell in line with the “homemaker” attitude of the time. Despite the minimal job opportunities for women in the nineteenth century, many had to find work in order to support their families. Women from lower social classes would take opportunities wherever they could, working as typesetters for The Times, in coal mines as "Pit Brow Lasses," or as prostitutes in the Haymarket. The attitude from the women’s suffrage movement began to bleed over into women in the workforce. Though prospects looked bleak, many women pushed for equal job opportunities in respected fields like law or medicine.

Some unique women even went as far as to aspire to vocations in sports, such as fencing or boxing. This begs the question: can women work together in the pursuit of equality by day while throwing punches by night? The sociopolitical events of the nineteenth century may still lead us as we find our way through current legislation. Sometimes we may find more reflections from the past in our current society than we expect, so how can we let the struggles of those before us illuminate our path?

— Laurel Morgan, Dramaturg

For more info about THE SWEET SCIENCE OF BRUISING, please visit our dramaturgical website at https://sweetscienceofbruising.wordpress.com/