This play was inspired by George Gissing's The Old Woman (1883). The setting is 1885 -- a time of great passion, great confusion. A population imbalance leaves London flooded with half a million more women than men, and an escalating suffrage movement has ushered in a rip-roaring New Age. Mary Barfoot, an ex-militant suffragette, runs a school for secretaries with her beloved Rhoda. The school's invasion by three spinsters and a charismatic cod named Everard creates a catalyst for political, sexual, and emotional explosion. Ideas and libidos clash for dominance, as each character confronts the meaning of revolutionary courage.
