Women’s Month kicks off with Wendy Wasserstein’s “Uncommon Women and Others”
March 6, 2019
Kicking off Women’s month that cast of “Uncommon Women and Others” take their final bow of the production.
The final showing of the play “Uncommon Women and Others” ended its shows cycle on March 2nd at the Simonsen Performing Arts Center at Bakersfield College.
The play was written by Wendy Wasserstein and is set in 1972 at Mount Holyoke College.
The play communicates the dry comical style of Wasserstein while providing an intimate look into the tenants of second-wave feminism.
Wasserstein’s work generally involves stories of women finding independence in a changing social and political climate. In those stories, she provides the audience with poignant moments of drama and humor.
The cast of “Uncommon Women” brought to life the many characters and their personalities. The characters in the play are women reaching the final days of their college lives and dealing with the stresses that come along with that.
Cut into a series of vignettes, the story unfolds for eight very different women at Mt. Holyoke. Most of these vignettes give us insight into an individual character and their relationships with the college, their parents, and love interests.
The story also makes jumps in time from 1972 to 1978. At the beginning of the play the main characters Kate (Lindsay Pearson), Samantha (Lorea Laverty Iturriria), Holly (Lucy Brown), Rita (Emma Jordan-Scott), and Susie (Jenna Joy Fernandez) are meeting to catch up on lost time. These women were extremely close and begin to relive some of their happiest and most difficult memories from Mt. Holyoke.
They laugh about a classmate Muffett Di Nicola (Angela Caffee) who was a caricature of a classic American girl living among her more feminist peers.
The women in the play address issues facing them like femininity, access to equity in the workplace, and obligations to family throughout the story. Each one brings their own unique perspective.
The play itself is timely given that March is Women’s Month. Wendy Wasserstein and her play “Uncommon Women and Others” kicked off Women’s Month. Outside of being directed by Bob Kempf, the entire production was put on by a cast of talented women.
