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Event
The Oldest Profession
Directed by Bill Bottomly The play will be read with stage action throughout
The time is 1981, shortly after the election of Ronald Reagan. The place is a sunny park bench at 72nd Street & Broadway, in New York City. The people are Mae (Ciel Bottomly), a madam, and her stable: Ursula (Pat Myers), Lillian (Ginny Spaven), Vera (Cynthia Hight) and Edna (Margie Ferguson). They are five "working girls" at the end of their very long and exhausting careers. The youngest is 72 years old. While waiting for appointments with their gentlemen, the women reminisce about their early days in New Orleans' Storyville district -- where, Mae says, "there was honor in the trade" -- and argue about their options today. They are businesswomen whose clients are literally a dying breed. One of their customers has been kidnapped by his children. Another thinks it's 1940 and has taken to paying with silk stockings. Others are in the hospital, and may not be coming out. For Mae's stable, the financial situation is grave . . . and these girls aren't getting any younger.
Pulitzer Prizewinning playwright Paula Vogel (How I Learned to Drive) uses the notion of elderly prostitutes as a way to talk of the economic situation of women in a male society, the need for security in old age, the fears of death and change, and the age-old notion that a woman's best, and sometimes only, bargaining chip is her body.
With the warmth generated by longtime friendships, and personality enriched by a lifetime of experience, the actresses in The Oldest Profession humanize the absurd spectacle of elderly prostitutes. These characters are independent, fun-loving, and gallant. These ladies portray the sisterhood of "The Life" with lively, unsentimental humor. Margie Ferguson and Pat Myers are making their Timshel Theatre Company debut in this show.
ABOUT TIMSHEL THEATRE
What does "Timshel" mean?
"...thou mayest..."
In East of Eden by John Steinbeck, the character Lee, a wise and inquisitive Chinese scholar, spends years studying various translations of the Bible verses in which God speaks to Cain about conquering sin.
As he learns, God's words are translated by some as a
promise that "thou shalt" conquer sin, and interpret this as
predestination: Nothing they may do can interfere with what will be. In other translations it is "Thou Must"which some take as the order "Do Thou", and thus throw their weight into obedience.
But Lee's study of the Hebrew text reveals that timshel,
the original word of the original writer, is best translated as
"thou mayest", a word that gives mankind the choice to conquer sin, to choose his course and take control of his destiny.
Timshel's Mission
Timshel Theatre is a place where we recognize and celebrate the freedom to choose our own course, to do the art we love and believe in: important, thought-provoking theatre in an intimate setting with which we can touch and move one another, learn from one another's humanness, make a difference by opening minds and hearts.
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LocationBlue Sage Center for the Arts (View)
226-228 Grand Ave.
Paonia, CO 81428
United States
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