Githa sowerby biography of donald
Githa Sowerby — who died in relative obscurity in 1970 at 93 — was born in the industrial Tyneside region of England. And in 1912, Sowerby followed the useful adage that you should write what you know, penning “Rutherford & Son,” an exceptionally skillful and provocative exploration of the patriarchal industrialist male, wrecking havoc on the sensitive souls in his own family even as he makes money on the outside.
“Rutherford & Son” was first staged under a pen name, K.G. Sowerby. TimeLine Theatre is ascribing that choice to the sexism of the era and the consequent reluctance of the author to reveal her gender. Part of the story, certainly.
But Sowerby was actually born into a famous glass-blowing dynasty — her family’s Ellison Glass Factory once was the largest producer of pressed glass in the world. The central character in “Rutherford & Son” actually was based on her own father, John, who had, in fact, already driven the family business into bankruptcy. With that last name, she was revealing plenty.
That perhaps explains why, unlike some other writers of the period, especially those born to more humble origins, Sowerby did not so much take on the evils of capitalism as focus on what was going on in the living rooms in which she surely had found herself. This is, in fact, a very nuanced play that, when you dig deep, actually gets at the disconnect between what was expected from a man like her father and what he was able to achieve.
The play certainly has points to make about parents and children, especially the way in which the upper-middle-class manufacturing classes tend to be more repressive of their loved ones than the gentry whose social position they envied (that continued, frankly, at least until Sowerby’s death). But there is also compassion in her portrait of Rutherford, played at TimeLine by Francis Guinan.
Not all of Sowerby’s subtlety is reflected in director Mechelle Moe’s new production, which seems to see the work as a takedown
Rutherford and Son
She was acclaimed at the time of writing this, early 1900s, as the first female playright of note. This play came out with her gender disguised and there is an argument, which can't be proven, that it would not have been the big hit it was at the time otherwise. Her gender was quickly made public, but the feminist view is that she would have received bad reviews if not for her anonymity to begin with.
So, 100 years down the line, has there been some sort of plot to 'airbrush her' as one commentator put it, from history?
It's a Guardian report (should that not surprise me?) http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/... which puts what I think passes these days for a feminist spin...
May I counter with a couple of obvious points. I gather from all reports of its various revivals over recent years, that it isn't much of a play: one of those fixed in its time and the very reasons for it being a contemporary hit contain the seeds for it being uninteresting with the passing of time.
Add to this - and more importantly than the quality of the piece - the sad fact that the Play is astonishingly ephemeral. It might seem to have a solidity lacking in ice sculpture, but in practice that isn't so. I go to see a lot of theatre and this preys upon me, that the many new plays I watch, thrilled by them, will all, or almost all, be completely forgotten for ever in next to no time.
So, around the time of Sowerby, in this case, there were many talented playwrights, almost every one of whom has been completely unknown for most of the period since then and will continue to be. Supposing only one of these was female, the chance of what happens to be the only female being 'airbrushed from history' are enormous. It would have been the most felicitous bucking of the odds for anything else to ha
Rutherford and Son
1912 play by Githa Sowerby
Rutherford and Son is a play by Githa Sowerby (1876–1970), written in 1912. It premiered in London in the same year with four matinee performances at the Royal Court followed by a run of 133 performances at the Vaudeville Theatre. The production was directed by Norman McKinnel who also took the role of Rutherford. The same production opened at the Little Theater, New York, on Christmas Eve, 1912 and ran for 63 performances. The Times theatre critic, Arthur Bingham Walkley, called it "a play not easily forgotten, and full of promise for the future as well as of merit in itself", while the Saturday Review thought it showed "what can be done in the modern theatre by keeping strictly to the point." Journalist Keble Howard, after an interview with Sowerby in 1912, wrote that, "Rutherford and Son is a marvellous achievement...".
Plot
Rutherford, "a bull-headed capitalist who crushes his own children beneath the wheels of industry" has built a glassmaking business which he has always intended to pass onto his son, John. He sent John to Harrow School to have him educated as a gentleman, but to his disgust John turned his back on the business and went to London, where he married a working-class girl, Mary. When John and Mary had a child, Tony, they could not afford to feed and look after the baby properly, and they have come back to live in Rutherford's house. Rutherford dominates the household, consisting of Ann, his sister, and his children John, Richard and Janet; he barely acknowledges Mary's existence.
John, trained in chemistry, has developed a metal which he believes can save the business a great deal of money; but rather than giving it to his father to benefit the business, he regards it as his to sell to make his fortune. He tries to sell it to his father, who turns him down as he believes that John owes him it both in return for bringing hi The Stepmother, Githa Sowerby, Orange Tree Posted on 18th February, 2013 in Suffragettes, Theatre I went to see Githa Sowerby’s 1924 play, The Stepmother, at The Over the years there have been rumblings of a revival of interest TheBlog
Orange Tree Theatre in Richmond on 16 February 2013. Before this production the
play had never been performed in public (there was a private performance in
1924). In fact Sowerby, the author of a critically acclaimed play about a
bullying industrialist, Rutherford & Son (1912), had been largely
forgotten.
in Githa Sowerby (1876 – 1970). In 1980 the Theatre Upstairs put on an abridged
version of Rutherford & Son. The Times Literary Supplement in 1994 talked
of the “uncovered greatness of Githa Sowerby” in a review of a production of the
play at the Cottesloe Theatre. Then she sank back into obscurity until 2009
with the publication of a biography by Pat Riley (Looking for Githa); the unveiling
of a plaque at her Gateshead home; a revival of Rutherford & Son by Northern
Stage; and other events in Tyneside to commemorate the Gateshead-born author –
a veritable Githa Sowerby Festival.
Stepmother tells the story of Lois Relph’s marriage to Eustace Gaydon. Eustace
gained influence over Lois when she was a young woman alone in the world, married
her for her money, and immediately got control of her fortune. Running through
his female relatives’ money is something of a habit of his: he’s already spent
his Aunt Charlotte’s and for all we know (it isn’t mentioned) his first wife’s
as well. Lois has no idea what he has done with the money, where
it’s invested, even how much she has. If she needs money she has to ask Eustace
for it, and then he only doles out small amounts. The situation continues even
when she sets up her own business as a dress-designer (Eustace calls it her
hobby), and might have continued indefinitely had not her eldest stepdaughter
Monica needed money to ma