Last year, the York Civic Trust caused a minor stir with its efforts to pay homage to the Yorkshire author, mountaineer, and English queer icon Anne Lister. Outside the church in which, in 1834, she declared a marital commitment—with the church’s blessing, remarkably—to Ann Walker, a rainbow-bordered plaque recognized Lister as a “gender non-conforming entrepreneur.” Some saw the descriptor as one that devalued her contributions to the lesbian community. It’s since been updated to “Lister . . . of Shibden Hall, Halifax, Lesbian and Diarist.”
Donoghue admittedly takes sweeping liberties with Lister’s biography (including a complicated intra-family affair), but many of Lister’s onstage Carrie Bradshaw-style soliloquies are verbatim passages from her writings. As Lister, Vahishta Vafadari achieves a colloquial, confident charm that comes across so naturally and easily that it’s easy to forget how radical Lister’s perspective was in the society in which she lived. Likewise, as Lister’s lovers, Jessie Ellingsen, Eleanor Katz, and Lauren Grace Thompson find nuance in the various layers of jealousy and support and platonic, unconditional love shared by a group of women very much committed to finding their own way to happiness, judgements and street glares be damned.
Through 2/10: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3:30 PM; also Wed 1/30, 7:30 PM, Pride Films and Plays, 4147 N. Broadway, 866-811-4111, pridefilmsandplays.com, $25-$30, $20 students, seniors, and military.
