Written by Elizabeth Inchbald
Presented by the Schwarzman Centre in collaboration with Creation Theatre and the Orange Tree Theatre.
Why don’t you marry, and throw all your misfortunes upon your husband?
Written in the revolutionary decade of the 1790s, Elizabeth Inchbald’s comedy places women at the centre of a changing society. Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are exposes the tension between female autonomy and the idealism, nostalgia, and expectations imposed by the men determined to shape their futures.
As old values clash with new ways of thinking, Inchbald’s characters navigate love, marriage, and independence in a world that insists on defining them before they can define themselves. What unfolds is a play that is witty, subversive, and strikingly modern.
Revived for today by Creation Theatre and the Orange Tree Theatre, this script-in-hand performance of Wives as They Were and Maids as They Are reminds us that debates around gender, power, and choice are anything but historical. Bold, playful and incisive, this is a comedy with teeth…and a past that speaks directly to the present.
“Hugely enjoyable.”
The Guardian
“Inchbald manages to amuse, entertain and provoke thought.”
The Stage
Cast
India Shaw-Smith
Maria Dorrillon
John Heffernan
Lord Priory
Ailsa Joy
Lady Priory and Lady Mary Raffle
David Acton
Sir William Dorrillon
Oscar Pearce
Sir George Evelyn and Mr Norberry
Zak Ghazi-Torbati
Mr Bronzely
Creative Team
Elizabeth Inchald
Writer
Eleanor Burke
Director
Sophie Cairns
Assistant Director
Prof David Taylor
Dramaturg