In 1999, at age 52, Andrea Dworkin was drugged and raped in Paris. She published a partial account in New Statesman in 2000, but it wasn’t until after her death (of natural causes) that Aftermath, written in the form of a suicide note, fully detailing the experience, was discovered by her longtime partner and literary executor, John Stoltenberg. Ten years after Andrea Dworkin died (of natural causes), The Waterworks Company brought the world’s first full staging of Aftermath to Montreal, with actress Helena Levitt playing the role of Andrea Dworkin.
The play is directed by Rob Langford and Tracey Houston, who are theatre and film artists in Montreal. They have worked (and lived) together since meeting as students in Concordia University’s theatre program in 1992. Their theatre group, The Waterworks Company, is devoted to staging contemporary plays by women.
I spoke with Langford and Houston over the phone on Sunday.
Aftermath runs until September 27th, at Centre culturel Georges-Vanier, 2450 Workman, Montréal.