Belvoir's Eamon Flack Brings The First Feminist Playwright Back From The Dead

Where art is concerned, history can be a fickle thing. The greats of long ago, now held up as the most accomplished creative minds of their day, often have a chequered past - forgotten, rediscovered, and finally celebrated long after their deaths. Likewise, those who enjoyed popularity in their lifetimes can be lost to the mists of time, drifting from the public gaze and into obscurity. Among these abandoned talents is Aphra Behn, the 17th-century playwright, poet, fiction writer and translator. Today, Behn's work is neglected by all but the most well-read of theatrical scholars, but the lack of recognition suffered by this prolific wordsmith is something of a headscratcher, given this one remarkable plaudit: Behn is believed to be the first English woman to earn her living entirely as a writer.

However, while she was unquestionably a trailblazing pioneer for female writers, her contribution to the literary world went far beyond gender politics. Now regarded as a key dramatist of Restoration theatre, as well as a major influence on the development of the English novel, Behn's writings dared to explore gasp-worthy taboos, including slavery, sexuality and class divisions. And that's not all. Working as a spy for King Charles II, imprisoned in a debtors jail, and campaigning as a Royalist firebrand during the Exclusion Crisis; Behn's headstrong, defiant, culture-busting life story also makes for some thrilling reading. Unfortunately, her refusal to conform would also prove her undoing, as her work was rejected for more than a century after her death, damned for its apparently immoral content.

"She was a woman who many people regarded as difficult," says Belvoir Theatre Artistic Director Eamon Flack. "For a long time, even feminist scholars of theatre history had problems with her. What she wrote was, for the times, extremely wild, and even amongst her Restoration peers, her work was sexually frank and very shocking. I think the fact that this was coming from a woman playwright was more than Edwardian critics could bear. But she was an incredible and very formidable person. She tempted fate a lot in her life - she clearly lived what she argued for and you definitely feel that in her plays."

"She tempted fate a lot in her life - she clearly lived what she argued for and you definitely feel that in her plays."

While she may have scandalised theatregoers in her day, it's the daringness of her storytelling that has attracted Flack to one of Behn's most adventure-packed melodramas, The Rover. A tale of debauchery, revelry, and outrageous excess, the play follows a roguish crew of Cavaliers, led by heartthrob playboy Willmore, as they let loose at the Naples carnival. Jilted lovers, unobtainable desires and swashbuckling tomfoolery abound as Willmore and his rakish band of bad boys find themselves clashing hearts and heads with some sorely underestimated women.

For Flack, the most striking revelation of all is how relevant Behn's narrative remains to this day. "Whenever you stage a historical text, you're presenting it to an audience with an understanding which is inherently contemporary, so it's kind of redundant to try and make the play explicitly about contemporary issues. But as we've worked on it, what has emerged is something very familiar - this battle that women continue to fight to free themselves from the lexicon of what it means to be a woman. In many ways, that battle is the same now as it was back then," Flack explains.

Despite this radical subtext challenging the gendered status quo, The Rover was an instant hit when it was first performed, becoming one of Behn's greatest money spinners and a personal favourite of King Charles II. Its success was driven by its massive entertainment value, thanks to a healthy infusion of daring deeds, nail-biting duals and bawdy comedy. It's Behn's use of edge-of-your-seat excitement as a vehicle for socially progressive ideals that is her most valuable contribution, Flack insists.

"I'm interested in theatre's subversive qualities more than its revolutionary qualities. I'm very much drawn to theatre that can create an undertow rather than a direct confrontation," he shares. "Theatre has the power to smuggle ideas into the world, rather than standing up and lecturing an audience, and The Rover is able to pose really dynamic ideas by using this wonderful sense of theatricality and playfulness and mockery and wit. You know, at the moment there's so much deadly serious stuff going on in the world, so to be able to counter that is a really interesting thing for me. I think it really shows why theatricality and excitement on stage is so important right now."

Belvoir Theatre presents The Rover 1 Jul — 6 Aug.