In the second half of our chat with Blood Relations director Diana Lobb, she talked about gender roles: in this play, in the works of Pollock generally, and also in the production team. Read on!
Continuing our series of conversations with the Blood Relations cast and crew, we have Michael L. Davenport, the show's costumer, telling us about some difficulties of period pieces and the lengths one goes to solve them.
We sat down with Diana Lobb, director of our upcoming production of Blood Relations, to talk about the show and her vision for it. In this post she talks about Lizzie Borden, both the historical person and the character in the play.
It's not easy being a woman in the 19th century, particularly if your family thinks you're incapable of being a “lady”. Knowing the family fortune is being manipulated away, knowing her beloved birds were exterminated for being “a nuisance”, knowing there was absolutely nobody to trust, Lizzie Borden finally snaps — turning an axe against those who wronged her. Did she commit murder? Or did her parents end themselves?
In this dark comedy, four sisters who are as different as the cities they're named after are reunited after the death of their mother, only to find out that the circumstances of her death are not what they seem and may be intolerable. Old wounds are reopened and the sisters reach a crisis point as they must decide if they can stand together, knowing that the alternative is to fall apart completely.
