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Alison's House

Orange Tree Theatre, Outer London
From: Wednesday, 7th October 2009
To: Saturday, 7 November 2009

Our Review:

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Synopsis

It is 18 years since Alison Stanhope, the country?s foremost poet, died. Now the house must be sold. But the house holds secrets. Is it right for the family to protect itself and its past or does Alison belong to everyone? Inspired by the life and work of Emily Dickinson, this play won Susan Glaspell the 1930 Pulitzer Prize and our production develops our relationship with the author after productions of The Verge, Inheritors and the recent Glaspell Season, which included the hugely successful Chains of Dew.

Our Review:

Nancy Groves - 19 October 2009

When great artists die, does ownership of their art pass onto the family or into the public sphere? This is the question posed by Alison’s House, Susan Glaspell’s Pulitzer prizewinning play, sensitively revived at the Orange Tree by director Jo Combes, following a spirited production of Glaspell’s Chains of Dew last year.

The Alison of the title is Alison Stanhope, a celebrated poet of Emily Dickinson mould, twenty years dead as the play opens. It is New Year’s Eve 1899 – the final day of the 19th century – and the Stanhope family are packing up the house Alison shared with her sister Agatha to be sold onto developers.

Old, ill and confused, Agatha (Georgine Anderson) is reluctant to leave, but her well-intentioned brother John (Christoper Ravenscroft) believes he is acting for the best, despite the efforts of his two sons and a visiting newspaper reporter to disrupt the task. Everyone seems to w...

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