Aphra Behn, Punk & Poetess

ALINE CÉSAR
A musical journey through the work and the life of Aphra Behn, a 17th-century English writer
Reading-concert school
Accompanied by the musician Dramane Dembele (flutes peules, n'gnôni), the actress Catherine Rétoré gives to hear texts and tells a little about the colorful life of Aphra Behn: an English playwright and novelist of the late seventeenth century, prolixe and famous in its time, but still unknown in France.
Nicknamed the «George Sand» of England, spy in the Netherlands, adventurer, traveller, scientist, she meets the Amerindians of Amazonia and attends a revolt of slaves in Surinam. A model of freedom and a feminist before the letter, a critic of arranged marriage and slavery, Aphra Behn was one of the first writers to make a living out of her pen and make her mark on the London theatre scene. A success that, in her lifetime, brought her to be laughed at as a “whore and poet” (‘Punk & Poetess’), reminding her that a woman who expresses herself on the public stage was also perceived as a public woman, then celebrated by Virginia Woolf as a pioneer.
Text and direction Aline César with texts by Aphra Behn
With Catherine Rétoré and Dramane Dembele
Asphalt Company
School: Friday 16 September at 2pm
Duration: 1h
Gardens of the Old Castle, rue des remparts, 27110 Le Neubourg
With the support of HF Normandie as part of the Days of the Matrimoine