Blue Stockings: Feminism 101

publicity photo for Blue Stockings

Kevin Nguyen and Zoë Autumn in Blue Stockings (Photo by Emily Cooper)

I wish there was a time store where I could go and demand a refund.

The subject matter of Jessica Swale’s 2013 script is potentially fascinating. Set in 1896, Blue Stockings is about women’s struggle to be granted degrees at Cambridge University. The story features four female students, all gifted scientists, who are members of Girton College, the first college at Cambridge to accept female scholars. If the push for accreditation is successful, these four could be the first women to receive formal degree qualification.

But Swale’s script is politically heavy handed, and it doesn’t find its focus until the second act. Including intermission, the evening clocks in at three hours. (When I realized there was going to be a second act, I suppressed a moan.) [Read more…]

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