SEEKING SISTERHOOD

BY ZAHRA PARSONS PRINT CO EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

This year’s musical, “Little Women,” is a coming-of-age story based on Louisa May Alcott’s original novel. It featured various female lead roles and highlighted the intricacy and complexity of womanhood.

This year’s musical, “Little Women,” took place Fri, Jan. 20 through Sunday, Jan. 22 in the Goppert Theatre at Avila University. The cast consisted of 28 students, including six seniors. The story features various female lead roles and depicts primarily women’s stories, a determining factor in its selection.

“The hardest thing for me about choosing a musical is finding a show with strong female characters, and predominantly female leads,” director Elizabeth Mulkey said. “That’s the hardest thing, but it’s also the very first thing I look for, so that was the biggest draw. I also want female characters that have a growth, roles that are good for us to see and understand.”

“Little Women” is a coming-of-age story following the lives of the four March sisters, Beth, Jo, Meg and Amy, who live in Concord, Massachusetts. during and after the civil war. The sisters are heavily based on the family of author Louisa May Alcott, who published the novel in 1868.

The story has been adapted into film numerous times, most notably in 1994 starring Winona Ryder, Kirsten Dunst and Christian Bale, and in 2019 with Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson and Timothée Chalamet.

The tale depicts their transition from childhood to adulthood as they encounter various adversities, strengthen their bond with each other and both challenge and embrace the roles of women in the 19th century.

In the early stages of rehearsal, the cast came together to gain a better understanding of the show’s context and main messages, and collectively chose several themes, including pursuing dreams, work/life balance, accepting change, self-improvement and prioritizing family, to emphasize in production.

“We always take time to learn about the time period of the show, the roles of women in the show and in that time,” Mulkey said. “With this one, we were learning about different women that broke barriers, like the first female barber, the first female that ran a lighthouse. Then, they chose the themes that they felt this show represents.”

The versatility among the characters’ personalities and identities was also a key factor in the selection of the show, as they exhibit distinct aspects of womanhood.

“The lead character, Jo, is like a tomboy, and pretty bold and rash, but then her older sister is elegant and wants to do elegant things, or play what you would consider a more traditional female role, but they’re both strong characters,” Mulkey said. “Then we’ve got the caring, loving, mothering character, and then we’ve got the actual mother but she’s pretty strong too. We’ve got this obnoxious older aunt, who’s kind of awesome. But they’re all very unique characters and represent multiple sides of women.”

This range is not limited to the characters’ dispositions; it extends to their future objectives and paths. The story works to push the notion that each woman’s role, whether it breaks the boundaries of traditional female pursuits, embraces them, or falls anywhere in between, is just as suitable, important and noteworthy as any other.

“The show empowers women because each individual sister has their own talents. Meg is an actress, Amy’s a painter, Jo’s a writer and Beth is a piano player,” senior Carolina O’Byrne said. “Jo starts off as a teenager writing stories in her attic, and then moves to New York to be a writer. Meg ends up getting married and playing that more traditional role, which was what she wanted.”

The lessons portrayed in the story and in the realm of theater itself are ones Mulkey wishes to impress upon the show’s cast to enact in their daily lives, even beyond high school.

“It’s a team. You have to perform, and put yourself out there. Those aspects give you so much personal growth, and to learn how to control yourself, how to handle yourself when you make mistakes, how to handle yourself in front of large crowds, and [to be] in the shoes of a different person,” Mulkey said. “They are learning to be themselves, and learning to be true to themselves, but still be part of a greater picture, and understand societal roles and know when to challenge them.”