The Vegan Tigress, a new play by Claire Parker, shines a spotlight on the largely-forgotten feminist fairytale writer Mary De Morgan (1850-1907). And the timing is particularly apt. The show opened, at London’s Bread & Roses Theatre, in the lead up to International Women’s Day and during the year of the 175th anniversary of De Morgan’s birth.
The production, by LynchPin Theatre Company, is part of a wider cultural project to celebrate underappreciated Victorian women writers, actors and activists. Parker has also written plays on feminist actor Ellen Terry and her daughter Edie Craig.
It also speaks to a general resurgence of interest in the creative De Morgan family. Mary’s father was Augustus De Morgan, the mathematician and logician and her brother was the potter, tile designer and novelist William De Morgan.