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One widow’s battle against the patriarchy: Great Barrington Public Theater’s ‘Madame Mozart’ to start on July 10

“It’s about a woman racing against time and racing against the patriarchy,” playwright Anne Undeland told The Berkshire Edge.

Great Barrington — Great Barrington Public Theater’s production of “Madame Mozart, The Lacrimosa” at the McConnell Theater will run throughout the month from Thursday, July 10, until Sunday, July 27.

The two-person play is a fictionalized telling of the life of Constanze Mozart, the widow of composer Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

GBPT’s website describes the play:

Constanze Mozart, wife of the great composer, struggles mightily in the wake of his too-early death in 1791 — to feed her children, to survive her own shattering grief, and to secure her husband’s astonishing musical legacy by completing his great unfinished masterwork, the Requiem in D Minor. With the odds and the whole of patriarchy working against her, the perennially-underestimated Constanze Mozart digs deep to find a way to not only prevail but to triumph—in the end, she’s the last woman standing, smarter and braver than everyone else in her story.

“It’s about a woman racing against time and racing against the patriarchy,” playwright Anne Undeland told The Berkshire Edge. “When Mozart dies quite suddenly, she still has two young children to feed. In his last year of life, Mozart had an excellent year in his career. However, he did not leave her with anything. She had no real means of support.”

In the play, Constanze was left with the unfinished commission “Requiem in D Minor,” which could bring her money if the commission were completed. “In completing the requiem, she is racing against time and also against elements of a patriarchy that are all working against her,” Undeland said. “In writing the play, I was interested in that moment after a beloved person dies. It all turns into a crazy moment where the world is different. The Mozarts had an incredibly happy marriage, and I think losing him must have been enormous.”

Both Undeland and play director Judy Braha emphasized that the play is historical fiction. “Anne has taken some liberties one takes when you decide to leap into theatricalizing or novelizing a bit of history and making it into historical fiction,” Braha said. “But there are important pillars of the story that are historical. Mozart did die in the process of writing the requiem, and he did have assistants who helped to finish it before it was performed.”

“[With this play,] I’m reaching for the emotional rather than the factual truth,” Undeland said. “I see Contanze Mozart as a woman who was not very experienced, but she is fierce and driven by the love of her children and her love of her late husband. This is what motivates all of her actions.”

Actress Tara Franklin plays Contanze Mozart, while Ryan Winkles takes on all of the other characters in the play.

Musician Hudson Orfe will perform a live accompaniment score for the play.

Actress Tara Franklin who plays Contanze Mozart, actor Ryan Winkles who plays all of the other characters in the play, and musician Hudson Orfe. Photos via Great Barrington Public Theater.

“Mozart’s music, the requiem specifically, explores such a vast expanse of emotions,” Orfe said. “I am playing all of Mozart’s notes that have been adjusted to accompany the story. The story and Mozart’s music intertwine and intermingle in many of the scenes in the play.”

“The music is essential to the play,” Undeland added. “The music and the story go hand and hand, and they feed each other. It’s not like two separate things that mush together. They both tell this story to the audience.”

Braha explained that, in the context of the play, Constanze believes that her husband is speaking to her through his music. “That music is what spurs her on,” Braha said. “While the music frames the scenes, it also motivates Contanze in her journey.”

Braha added that women today still experience elements of Constanze’s struggles on display throughout the play. “The play has a reverberation of women’s struggles against a very harsh patriarchy, and it is reflective of the sort of divided world in which we are currently living,” Braha said. “It’s about women struggling against the patriarchal machine.”

The play was inspired by the short story “Lacrymosa” by Gerald Elias and is Great Barrington Public Theater’s first commissioned work.

For more information and tickets, visit Great Barrington Public Theater’s website.

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But Not To Produce.