THE ANASTASIA TRIALS IN THE COURT OF WOMEN
makes theatre history with a courtroom drama which engages an audience of
women to serve as both judge and jury for a trial against five women accused
of denying another woman her identity as a survivor. The play is shaped
by the audience decisions to overrule or sustain the attorneys' motions,
and every night's audience sees a play tailored to their own ethics:
Should a woman's use of alcohol be considered a factor in her betrayal of another woman?
Can a woman's history of childhood abuse be admitted as a defense of her own abusive actions?
Does a survivor's acting-out behavior ever warrant her incarceration?
THE ANASTASIA TRIALS is a farcical, but profoundly engaging excursion into the hidden world of ethics for women who are both survivors and perpetrators of abuse toward women. The format is a play-within-a-play, where a radical feminist theatre company comes together in order to perform a courtroom drama.
In presenting the play, the Emma Goldman Theatre Brigade has instituted
a new system to ensure equal opportunity for the actors: a lottery. As the
women assemble to draw their roles from the hat for the evening's performance,
sisterhood is put to the test. The performance itself is a conspiracy trial
against five women accused of denying a woman her identity. The plaintiff
is
none other than Anastasia Romanov, sole survivor of the massacre of the
Russian imperial family in 1918. The audience is required to serve as judge
and jury for the case, providing both rulings on the motions and the final
verdict.
THE ANASTASIA TRIALS IN THE COURT OF WOMEN requires intense audience participation, and the question of women betraying women is called for every woman in the theatre.
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