In swift brushstrokes from a palette of historical correspondence, journals, and paintings, THE CONSEQUENCE OF IMPRESSION examines how women are seen and unseen, lauded and ignored, and how one woman bucks society to find her own way through sets of rules designed to keep her out.
What does it mean, to come of age? Is it even possible to “have it all”? Berthe Morisot – muse of Édouard Manet as both painter and model – was the only woman in the original Impressionist group, a groundbreaker who also bowed to the strictures of her bourgeois life. Between 1868 and 1874, she was drawn and painted hundreds of times by Manet, whose portraits reveal Morisot's passion and lively intelligence, inspiring more than 150 years of speculation by art lovers and critics alike as to the true nature of that relationship.
Note: This play has five characters but four actors – two younger women, an older woman, and two brothers played by one actor – and calls for as sketchy or fully realized a scene design as director and designer choose.