Celebrating 100 Years of (Some) Women's Voices Being Heard

100 years since some women were given the right to vote in the UK, how does theatre best reflect women's voices? We spoke to three artists to hear the stories of the women they’re putting on stage this year.

“I wanted to write a play about a woman doing monstrous things for a cause she wholeheartedly believes,” says Jen McGregor of the real-life story of Christian Caddell, a 17th-century Scottish woman who disguised herself as a man to become a witch hunter. Reimagined in her Assembly Roxy Theatre Award-winning play Heaven Burns, the piece explores gender politics and religious fundamentalism in an era when gossip could literally end lives.

Caddell’s story, which saw her dress in men’s clothes and assumes the name John Dixon in order to become a witch-pricker – someone who tortured women in order to get them to confess to being a witch – is an incredible one, and also a difficult one to recreate. “There were times when I found it quite disturbing trying to see things from her point of view,” McGregor admits. “It would have been comforting to step away and never think her thoughts again.”

So-called “witch panics” often reflected a wider disruption in society. “Witch panics pop up frequently from the 1590s to the 1660s, and during that there’s upheaval on every level of society,” McGregor explains. “I think the greater people’s suffering, the more they need to attribute it to a powerful cause – so people living through those harsh times bought into the idea that the culprits were people in league with the Devil.”

Like McGregor, Joanne Hartstone’s That Daring Australian Girl focuses on the life and work of another notable woman from history, albeit notable for much more positive reasons. Muriel Matters, an Australian actress and leading UK suffragette, was the first woman to speak in the Houses of Parliament, but is often overlooked.

“Muriel’s life story is fascinating in any medium," Hartstone explains. "She has been documented in books, film, art and musical reviews. However, Muriel was inherently theatrical, both an actress and elocutionist; her natural home was the stage.”

For Hartstone it’s important that Matters’ life, which saw her emigrate from Southern Australia to the UK to help the fight for women's suffrage, is remembered in the theatre, especially in this anniversary year. “The centenary of some women getting the vote in the UK was an additional driving force to bring her ‘home'. It is my hope that by bringing her story back to the UK, she continues to inspire and affect change for equality and social justice in a politically turbulent time.”

What Girls Are Made Of, Cora Bissett’s autobiographical gig/theatre piece follows what happens when your teenage dreams come true. Plucked from relative obscurity while still a teenager, Bissett and her band Darlingheart landed a record deal and toured extensively, but it didn’t last, and the band found themselves without a record company and in debt.

“Everybody’s story is important to them," says Bissett, explaining her decision to stage What Girls Are Made Of, inspired by the discovery of her late dad’s scrapbook of Darlingheart's newspaper clippings, and the 25th anniversary of the release of their first single. Her story, she realised, was important and after working for 15 years as an actress and portraying countless murdered sex workers on shows like Taggart, she’s now creating work that takes women's stage roles in a different direction. And with her recent research revealing that nine out of ten West End shows are written by men, women have to create the roles that they want.

“I think sometimes that’s maybe why we find a lot of female performers who are actor/writer/their own producer/director, because you just go, 'You know what? I can’t find the roles that I’m excited about so I’m gonna go make them myself. I’ll either put someone else in that show, or I’ll do it myself because no one else is gonna give me it.'”

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Heaven Burns, Assembly Roxy, 2-27 Aug (not 14), 2.35pm, £7-11
That Daring Australian Girl, Assembly George Square Studios, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 15, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27 Aug, 11.45am, £8-13
What Girls Are Made Of, Traverse Theatre, 3-26 Aug (not 6, 13, 20), times vary, £9-21.50