A Fabulous New Play Stages the Stormy Relationship Between Impressionist Masters Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt

When we meet Mary Cassatt in playwright Chris Ward’s new
production, The
Independents, playing now off Broadway at the Jerry Orbach
Theater, she is at her studio awaiting a visit from Edgar
Degas.

A fervent admirer of his work, Cassatt is eager to impress him
at their first meeting. But things don’t go exactly as she planned.
After a few terse exchanges, he stalks out abruptly, offering only
a curt review of her work: “a woman should not be allowed to draw
like that!”

Ward has imagined a rather inauspicious meeting between Cassatt
and Degas, two of the leading lights of the Impressionist movement
of the late 19th century. His play takes place entirely within the
confines of Cassatt’s studio, and is simply staged with just two
actors, Natasa Babic (playing Cassatt) and André Herzegovitch (as
Degas).

There are few firsthand accounts of Cassatt’s relationship with
Degas, but the pair collaborated closely, even working together on
an unrealized journal of prints that became a fruitful new
direction for Cassatt.

To tell their story, Ward spent a year researching, reading
their correspondence, and incorporating reproductions of their
actual words where possible. He was inspired to write the play by a
2014 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC,
that paired the two artists.

The play depicts a stormy relationship between two
strong-willed, fiercely independent individuals with a shared drive
to capture fundamental truths through art. On the one hand is
Degas, an artist who sees beauty where others do not; he is
cutting, brusque, and inconsiderate. On the other is Cassatt, a
woman used to fighting for space in a man’s world; she is
judgmental, defensive, and easily offended.

On stage, the energy between Babic and Herzegovitch is electric,
suggesting a connection that goes deeper than mutual respect. Like
Robin Oliveira’s 2014 book I Always Loved You: A Story of Mary
Cassatt and Edgar Degas, The Independents hints at
the possibility of love—but, as the play’s title suggests, to give
in to such a connection may ultimately have been against both
artists’ natures.

The Independents is on view at the Jerry Orbach Theater at
the Theater Center, 210 West 50th Street, New York, October
17, 2019–January 5, 2020.

The post A Fabulous New Play Stages the Stormy Relationship
Between Impressionist Masters Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt
appeared first on artnet News.