THE VEGAN TIGRESS
A new play by Claire Parker
Directed by Tracy Collier
Performed by Claire Parker and Edie Campbell
“An important and wonderfully enjoyable play - sharp, funny, and fast-paced”
★★★★ everything theatre
“Original, funny and touching”
★★★★ London Pub Theatres
"Parker & Campbell keep an audience electrically aware at every stage of their shifting emotions, Parker with understated, but pointed, sensible exasperation, Campbell with volcanic elocutionary relish.”
★★★★ Lost in Theatreland
“A highly entertaining two-hander with compelling performances...Campbell is hilarious as the ascerbic aristocrat, Lady Tuttle, matched by Parker as the frugal but feisty de Morgan.”
The Family Stage
“Parker and Campbell are hypnotic in their imaginative retellings and performances of De Morgan’s stories.”
The Conversation
“Claire Parker’s writing is witty and playful…powerful and poignant”
The British Fantasy Society Journal
A 19th century feminist fairytale writer accidentally summons a ghost. The spirit is the highly-offended mother of the lover the writer spurned years before. The opposing worlds of free spirits and corsets collide...
’Fearless theatre in love with storytelling.’
’The performances are magnificent and the writing sublime.’
’Full of surprises, revelation and humour.’
’Clever and very moving.’
Mary De Morgan was born in London in 1850. Her mother was a spiritualist and her father a mathematician. She was a writer, a woman of independent means, a socialist and an activist. Mary wrote several volumes of fairy tales, tearing up the rule book on expected outcomes for boys, girls and happy ever afters.
She grew up amongst artists and activists in a circle of free-thinking Pre-Raphaelites and was well acquainted with the families of William Morris, Edward Burne-Jones, Rudyard Kipling and the Rossettis and would frequently read her stories to their children.
Quietly influential for 100 years, this play shines a light on De Morgan and her sublime, subversive stories. Playwright Claire Parker, (Rotten Perfect, When the Cat’s Away) wittily reimagines the moment a tightly-laced and formidable ghost from Mary’s past forces her to re-evaluate her own story as she finds herself on the cusp of a life-changing journey.
Playwright Claire Parker:
‘I’m intrigued by the amorphous quality of narrative and the desire for one’s personal story to stand out from the collective. An almost forgotten writer herself, I love to imagine that Mary De Morgan’s bright intellect sowed seeds in the minds of her eminent male contemporaries whose names and legacies we do still remember. And that, even though she was ahead of her time, she sought to be heard through her fairy tales. It may be impertinent but I love to pluck inspiring women from the past and bring their fascinating stories into the light once more.’
The Bread & Roses Theatre talks to Claire Parker
B&R: Can you tell us about the origins of The Vegan Tigress and what inspired you to bring Mary De Morgan’s life and stories to the stage?
Claire Parker: I was immediately captivated by how lively and radically unconventional Mary De Morgan’s imagination was. She was brave and unapologetically outspoken. She wove social and feminist commentary into her subversive, unusual fairytales. So why hadn’t I ever heard of her?…
The British Fantasy Society Journal
Taming the Vegan Tigress by Claire Parker
…My play shines a light on this quietly influential voice lost amongst her illustrious contemporaries and overwritten by the dominant narrative of the time. The play lets us glimpse at what meaning life may hold for us as it begins to draw to a close, looking playfully at life and death, love, memory, legacy and friendship. The formidable ghost from her past forces her to re-evaluate her own story as she finds herself on the cusp of a life-changing journey. The play not only serves to celebrate the life of this exceptional writer but also the magical art of storytelling that was so dear to her heart…
