The Gentleman Is a Tramp

Former English majors will be relieved to learn that master crafts(wo)man George Eliot is no longer relegated to junior-level literature classes. Even better, the gender-bending bad girl of Victorian England is the subject of a new play by Cathy Tempelsman, A Most Dangerous Woman, that is being staged by Echo Theatre at the Bath House Cultural Center. Featuring exclusively women playwrights, Echo Theatre named A Most Dangerous Woman winner of its Big Shout Out! New Play Contest and began its inaugural production with director David Meglino at the helm. Focusing on the themes of identity, gender-politics, sexuality and morality, the play imagines the historical Eliot’s choices, triumphs and frustrations as a fallen woman, neither beautiful nor rich, who is romantically involved with a married man and who at 35 – well past her prime in Victorian England – begins writing masterful fiction – future English classics – under a male pseudonym. We suspect that Tempelsman’s Eliot is as fiercely brave and unflinchingly intelligent as the characters Eliot herself wrote. See the play Thursday through Saturday until September 24 at the Bath House Cultural Center, 521 East Lawther Drive. Tickets are $15 to $25. Learn more by calling the box office at 214-904-0500 or visiting echotheatre.org.
Thursdays-Saturdays. Starts: Sept. 8. Continues through Sept. 24, 2011