12 Aug 2018

Mansfield in Bloomsbury

From Standing Room Only, 2:39 pm on 12 August 2018

Writer Virginia Wolf was shocked by Katherine Mansfield's 'commonness,' while the New Zealander said she felt like a cat among tigers, on their first meeting. Wellington playwright Lorae Parry is exploring the friendship that grew from those unpromising first impressions in a new play called Bloomsbury Women & the Wild Colonial Girl It's part of Wellington's130th birthday celebrations for Katherine Mansfield. Lorae spent months reading correspondence between the two women and what they wrote about each other apart from those letters. Verbatim extracts from other members of the illustrious if pretentious Bloomsbury Group also find their way into the work. Lynn Freeman talks to Lorae, and to Isobel MacKinnon who plays Katherine. Bloomsbury Women & the Wild Colonial Girl opens at Circa Theatre in Wellington on the 18th of August. It's part of both the KM130 and Women's Theatre Festivals.