overtones

7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Tuesday, June 13, 2023 - Saturday, June 17, 2023

The Bread and Roses

My passions are deeper than yours. I can’t keep on the mask as you do. I’m crude and real, you are my appearance in the world.

A hidden theatrical gem by early 20th century experimental dramatist, actress and activist Alice Gerstenberg, Overtones is considered one of the earliest examples of a play that dramatizes the unconscious on stage.

In Overtones Gerstenberg created two lines of action to tell the story of Harriet and Margaret. Harriet has married for money and longs for the man she loves, while Margaret has married for love (the same man Harriet, too, had loved) and now longs for money. The surface action of the play, which reveals only the “civilized” selves of these women, is shown in conventional dramatic form, while the action below the surface reveals the subconscious selves of the two women in two characters named Hetty and Maggie. Harriet and Margaret exist in the present in a world as it appears to be; Hetty and Maggie speak of the past and life as they honestly feel them. The two actions placed side by side create not just a conventional conflict between two women, but a compelling irony and a conflict within each character, Harriet-Hetty and Margaret-Maggie.

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