←Recommendations of THE EQUIVALENT OF SENSATION, full-length play for 5 Women

Arianna Rose’s “The Equivalent of Sensation” is a masterful play that brings to life the art world’s vibrancy through sharp dialogue and robust character development. The plot navigates through time with ease, offering a whimsical and profound tone. The theme of art as a reflection of life is clear and thought-provoking. The dialogue is fluid and evocative, making the historical journey of Etta Cone and her contemporaries accessible and deeply moving. It’s a rich, imaginative experience highly recommended for creative storytelling. Would love to see this staged.

In “The Equivalent of Sensation,” Arianna Rose uses simple props and witty repartee to take the audience on a furious journey from staid Baltimore to the avant-garde salons of Paris, evoking ocean liners, trolleys, WWI ambulances, bats and dogs and cannabis-laced brownies along the way. Reminiscent of Harpo Marx’s comedy, Rose’s imaginative staging focuses on Etta Cone, an early 20th-century art collector. Called back from death, Etta has one night to review her life and discover whether she ever truly lived. The play is both fun and poignant, and a great vehicle for older women actors. Strongly recommended.

What a fierce, fascinating, funny, and magical play.* I didn't know anything about the Cone sisters prior and am intrigued to learn more. Arianna Rose has crafted a striking interweaving of language, history, memory, and art. Not to mention brilliantly rich roles for five, count 'em five women(!) I really hope to see this live with all its elements of stage magic one day.

I had the privilege of hearing this play as it was being developed, and I am so happy to see how Arianna Rose has brought these characters to life, and then to see it performed at Sol Theatre in Boca Raton, FL. This is a tour-de-force of art, insight, and understanding about two fascinating women -- the Cone sisters -- and their collection that brings two towering figures of 20th century literature -- Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas -- into our minds guided by the presence of a figure from Matisse. Enthralling and truthful.

The stage is Arianna Rose’s canvas, and in THE EQUIVALENT OF SENSATION, she fills it with rich portraits of of four women noted for their considerable contributions to art and literature in the first half of the twentieth century. As wonderful as all of these characters are, it is Etta Cone, who steps out from the shadows cast by her sister, Claribel, and Gertrude Stein to drive this intricate narrative. This play has received a great deal of recognition, and is deserving of much more.

If Samuel Beckett and Tom Stoppard had been women, they might have been able to write this play together. This is such a smart, interesting, magical, mysterious play. The structure of the play itself often reflects the artworks that are so central to its story. I was fascinated throughout, constantly surprised, and challenged every step of the way.

A sharp, daring, and utterly compelling portrait of four (real-life) women who shaped the legacy of modern art as they struggled to shaped their own unconventional lives. Arianna Rose displays her usual passion for finding truth through words in a play filled with rhythmic dialogue, honest emotion, and extraordinarily well-drawn characters. This always absorbing play pays great, overdue tribute to some under-sung women from our cultural past.

The Equivalent of Sensation is a beautiful, dream-like piece that brings to focus a woman's struggle to find her genuine self, under all the trappings of convention (illustrated hilariously through the multiple petticcoats of her attire) and the burden of being dominated by bigger personalities. Etta Cone's metamorphosis from mouse to curator of her own being takes us back to her relationships with her older sister,, and with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas, and forwards to a totally believable day of life decades after her death, where she again meets all three. The liberating writing invites our own introspection.

I had the great pleasure of hearing this work in a Zoom reading last night. It offers a thrilling resurrection of the reputation and importance of the Cone sisters in the history of 20th century art. The parallels between the relationship between the sisters and between Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas are vividly illustrated. All four characters are clearly drawn and compelling. The complex structure, moving from present to past to fantasy, is rendered with absolute clarity. This is a valuable and engaging historical work.

In this vibrant portrait, the art collector becomes a curator of the blooming color of Etta Cone's inner life. Rose explores Etta’s permanent state of urgent becoming and challenges ideas of patriarchy through bodily freedom. Rose's Cone sisters didn’t put their art on a pedestal to never be touched – they use it, they wear it, they drape themselves in it. A woman is also more than something to be marveled at. Rose's characters are sensual beings. They do not break easily and ‘if it breaks, it breaks.” Better to break by living than to die on a pedestal.