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Golden Girls is a 1984 play by Louise Page that was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company and was first performed at The Other Place, premiering on 20 June 1984, directed by Barry Kyle. Although Page's writing received a mixed critical reception, Kyle's direction was generally praised, and Josette Simon's performance as Dorcas Ableman was acclaimed.

Plot

The British national women's hundred-metres relay team is currently training for an international event in Athens, with their coach and medical staff on hand. The team is sponsored by a cosmetics firm seeking to boost its sales. To enhance performance, the team doctor informs the athletes that they are being administered a new, undetectable fortifying drug, Hydromel. However, on the day of the event, the most ambitious of the athletes, Dorcas, decides to exceed the prescribed dose and is subsequently caught. Although the team wins the race, a scandal erupts. Dorcas receives a lifetime ban, but her ambition continues to haunt her.

Cast and characters

History

Background and development

Golden Girls was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Author Louise Page later reflected that writing Golden Girls, with a cast twice the size of what she had previously written, "was quite difficult ... I sort of assumed it was going to be half the number of lines for twice the number of people - but it does not work that way at all! And I had to learn to write exit lines. One of the problems with having a lot of characters on stage is how you get them off again." Kenneth Branagh wrote in his autobiography that before the script was available, as many of eight of his fellow cast memebrs were under the impression that they were playing the lead. He recalled that on the first day of rehearsals, the script had still not arrived, and as rehearsals progressed, "Louis's re-writes were arriving very slowly, and everyone was desperately throwing their weight around and implying that they might leave at any moment. The actors felt betrayed, Louise felt persecuted, and Barry. I'm sure, felt both". However, despite his concerns about the preparation and his own performance, Branagh considered that the first run of performances were successful, and pleased the audiences.

The central role of the black runner Dorcas Ableman drew on Simon's own experience of being an athlete; Page later related that the play had been rewritten from an ensemble piece, as "the sheer dynamism Josette brought to the role meant that it was her journey through the play with which the audience identified". The play helped establish Page's reputation as a playwright.

Productions

Golden Girls was first staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company at The Other Place, directed by Barry Kyle, premiering on 20 June 1984. Kit Surrey was the designer, costumes were by Allan Watkins, musi was by Ilona Sekacz, and lighting was by Wayne Dowdeswell. The same cast performed the play at the Gulbenkian Studio, Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 18 to 23 March 1985, and it transferred, with some cast changes, to The Pit in London, where it played from 29 April to 10 September.

A two-part radio adaptation, written by Page, was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1986. It was directed by Vanessa Whitburn and incuded Angela Wynter as Dorcas, Terry Molloy as Bassett, and Berger, Emmanuel and Yuill reprising their roles from the stage versions.

Themes

Like Pages's other plays of the early 1980s, Golden Girls was critical of the UK's class system, favouring Socialist values in opposition to the materialistic values of Thatcherism.

Themes of the play include the unfair treatment of women in sport, the difficulties of balancing a personal life with being an elite sportsperson, racism in advertising, the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport, and sport psychology. When the sponsor's representative declares that the team should be mainly white, "the resulting dialogue evokes the anti-Apartheid mood of the time, which saw South African teams banned from international competitions."

Reception

Page's writing of Golden Girls received a mixed critical reception, while the response to Kyle's direction was largely positive. Starring as Dorcas Ableman was breakthrough role for Josette Simon. Her performance was "unanimously praised" according to the literature scholar Kurt Eisen; she won the Plays & Players magazine award for best actress

The Financial Times reviewer Michael Coveney wrote that "The immense power and beauty of this actress is at last given proper opportunity by the RSC." Ros Asquith of The Observer felt that Simon's performance was amongst the most thrilling in London.

The Daily Telegraph critic Eric Shorter praised the cast's efforts but felt that the play suffered from overly slow pacing. Mel Gussow of The New York Times wrote that "the play has intelligence and momentum"

Notes

1. At The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon; and Gulbenkian Studio, Newcastle-upon-Tyne

References

1. Sakellaridou 2009
2. ^ Page 1985, p. Cast list.
3. ^ "RSC Performances: Golden Girls". Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Retrieved 21 May 2024.
4. ^ Eisen 1996, p. 294.
5. Page 1990, p. 175.
6. Branagh 1991, p. 152.
7. ^ Branagh 1991, p. 153.
8. ^ Richards 1993, p. 247.
9. ^ Naffis-Sahely, André (2010). "Louise Page". British Council Literature.
10. "Theatre Week". the Stage. 14 June 1984. p. 7.
11. "RSC Performances: Golden Girls". Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Retrieved 21 May 2024.
12. Isaacs, David (19 March 1985). "First prize for these runners". Newcastle Journal. p. 3.
13. Herbert 1986, p. 24.
14. ^ "The Afternoon Play: Golden Girls: Part 1". BBC Programme Index. Retrieved 21 May 2024.
15. Bartleet 2021, p. 375.
16. Öğütcü 2019, p. 871.
17. Rogers 2022, chapter "Rosaline, RSC, 1984", search phrase "Dorcas Ableman".
18. "Josette Simon". BBA Shakespeare. Retrieved 21 May 2024.
19. Coveney, Michael (21 June 1984). "The Arts: Golden Girls/The Other Place". Financial Times. p. 23.
20. Asquith, Ros (12 May 1985). "Short back and throat". The Observer. p. 17.
21. Shorter, Eric (22 June 1984). "Athletics at a jog". The Daily Telegraph. p. 13. Archived from the original on 19 April 2023. Retrieved 19 April 2023.
22. Gussow, Mel (12 August 1984). "Stratford keeps its kingly standards". The New York Times. p. 2.5.

Books

• Branagh, Kenneth (1991). Beginning. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0312058225.
• Eisen, Kurt (1996). "Louise Page". In Demastes, William W. (ed.). British Playwrights, 1956-1995: a Research and Production sourcebook. Westport: Greenwood Press. pp. 291–300. ISBN 0313287597.
• Herbert, Ian, ed. (1986). "Productions of the Year 1985". London Theatre Record Index 1985. London Theatre Record. p. 24. ISBN 090794504X.
• Page, Louise (1985). Golden Girls. London: Methuen. ISBN 0413579603.
• Richards, Sandra (1993). "The Recent Actress". The Rise of the English Actress. London: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 230–260. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-09930-6_11. ISBN 978-1-349-09930-6.
• Rogers, Jami (2022). British Black and Asian Shakespeareans: Integrating Shakespeare, 1966–2018 (ebook ed.). London: Bloomsbury. ISBN 978-1-350-11293-3.

Journal articles

• Bartleet, Carina (2021). "Backpages 31.3: In Memoriam: Louise Page (1955- 2020)". Contemporary Theatre Review. 31 (3): 364–379. doi:10.1080/10486801.2021.1935026.
• Öğütcü, Murat (December 2019). "The Politics of Sports in Louise Page's Golden Girls". Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Dergisi. 59 (2): 871–882. doi:10.33171/dtcfjournal.2019.59.2.8.
• Page, Louise (1990). "Emotion Is a Theatrical Weapon". New Theatre Quarterly. 6 (22): 174–182. doi:10.1017/S0266464X00004243.

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• Pending AfC submissions in article space