Is it 1972 or 2023? 'The Inferior Sex' at Trinity Rep tackles timeless gender politics
Playwright Jacqueline Lawton was born in 1978, so she didn't experience what women faced in the workplace in the early years of that decade, but she wanted to write about it anyway.
The result — “The Inferior Sex,” about an all-female staff at a fashion magazine in the early days of the feminist movement — debuts at Providence's Trinity Repertory Company this week, marking several firsts for the bubbly, prolific North Carolina-based playwright.
Lawton, an associate professor of playwriting at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, had never written a play with an all-female cast, nor one with as many characters as this one (nine).
“I like to tell stories about people of color, women of color, and mostly place black women at the center of my plays. And, I believe in intersectionality, where everything comes together,” Lawton says in a Zoom interview. “With this play, I was interested in times in our history where intersectionality could have happened but didn’t. We didn’t even have the term in 1972, but the realities existed.”
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Her research drew heavily on the politics of the time, 1972. Title IX, and the Roe v. Wade ruling the following year, made history, and the current rollbacks and challenges of those milestones should draw audiences of all ages to the show, Lawton says.
“We’re having the same fights as 50 years ago,” she says.
What is 'The Inferior Sex' about?
Imagine, she says, a wealthy young woman who, with her father’s help, opens a fashion magazine in 1972 and hires all women who would not be hired or accepted at other publications. Then imagine they hire an edgy female political reporter. An edgy, Black female political reporter. Add Shirley Chisholm, the first Black woman elected to Congress and a presidential candidate in 1972, and you have “The Inferior Sex.”
“Some characters had been waiting their whole lives for this moment, and others are just not sure,” Lawton says. “The play blends realism with magical realism. There are interstitial scenes where you see Shirley on the campaign trail, with women seeing her against the new world they’re in, trying to break the mold of the '40s and '50s.”
While the premise may seem heavy — with the added political tensions over the Vietnam War, the push to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment and the eruption of the Watergate scandal — the playwright says she infused comedic moments throughout.
“If you can laugh, you drop your guard down. I hope people can turn to someone who thinks differently and feel that it’s OK," Lawton says. "I feel laughter can get us there.”
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One of the freedoms of playwriting, she adds, is including Chisholm as a character to help address this country’s problems with race and gender.
“She was talking boldly about this in a way candidates today would not be able to, because it alienates people,” Lawton says.
“The Inferior Sex,” she hopes, will inspire women and people of color to continue working toward social change.
“I want to empower people, especially young people,” she says. “I want them to know it’s OK to fail when you’re making big, bold changes.”
If you go ...
What: "The Inferior Sex"
Where: Trinity Repertory Company, 201 Washington St., Providence
When: Through April 16
Tickets: $25-$77
Info: trinityrep.com, (401) 351-4242
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: New Trinity Rep play "Inferior Sex" tackles timeless gender politics
