The Stepmother

Synopsis

Lois Relph, a young stepmother with two stepdaughters for whom she cares deeply and her own thriving business, appears contented and in charge. But this is 1924, so does she really have control of her own money, or even her life, and what will she be able to do if things are in danger of going wrong both personally and professionally? It needs courage and determination to define what being a wife, mother and businesswoman means and it is not easy. A story whose resonance is still felt today.

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 11 February 2013

Githa Sowerby's best known play, Rutherford and Son, is revived this week by Northern Broadsides, but one of her later titles, The Stepmother, given one private performance in 1924, and not seen in London since, is no less deserving of another look.

Although we think of Sowerby as an Edwardian writer, her stepmother heroine in this play, Lois Relph, is a thoroughly modern woman in a world where her independence as a governess and dressmaker is undermined in marriage by financial secrecy and condescension.

Her husband, initially her employer, Eustace Gaydon, proves a thorough-going rotter, arranging a mortgage on her business without her knowledge, before blaming her for the mess that ensues. And of course, the little woman must be the weaker party: “You had a headache, and were getting jumpy.”

Sam Walters' leisurely but rewarding production starts with a prologue in 1911 with an ailing old aunt (Julia Watson), a dispute o...

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Latest User Review

George Stacy - 2 March 2013:

On the evidence of this excellent production by Sam Walters, it defies belief that this well-constructed play has gathered dust for so long. In a uniformly strong cast, Christopher Ravenscroft stands out for playing the villain with great subtlety and elciting gasps from the audience with his convincing delivery of the blatantly sexist attitudes of the period. ...

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