Chamber Music (play)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chamber Music is a 1962 one-act play by absurdist playwright Arthur Kopit. (Some sources date it to 1965.) The story is set in 1938 and concerns eight famous women from different historical periods who all are interned in the same insane asylum.

The women are — or at least believe they are — author Gertrude Stein, martyr Joan of Arc, activist Susan B. Anthony, politician Queen Isabella of Spain, Constanze Mozart (wife of the famed composer), pilot Amelia Earhart, silent-film actress Pearl White, and explorer Osa Johnson. They have come together to represent the women of the asylum in planning for an attack they believe is soon to come from the men's ward.

In the context of the play, it is suggested that the woman who claims that she is Amelia Earhart could be telling the truth instead of being insane, given the time frame and that Earhart went missing.

The play was published by Hill and Wang, New York, and was first performed at Society Hill Playhouse.^[1]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ http://doollee.com/PlaywrightsK/kopit-arthur.html#19557 Entry on Chamber Music