Timberlake Wertenbaker

With her mother dead and her father away, the Ash Girl lives huddled deep in the protection of the ashes with her stepmother and two stepsisters. When an invitation to the Ball, addressed to all the daughters of the house, arrives from Prince Amir, Ashie can't believe that she can go too.

In The Break of Day Timberlake Wertenbaker turns a sharp and beady eye on three women and their partners. The century is coming to an end and a feeling of dissatisfaction and unease seizes the group. Is it too late to have children? Were they wrong to focus so much on work? These questions force each of them to recast their future. Timberlake Wertenbaker's new play was commissioned by Max Stafford-Clark's Out of Joint Theatre Company. The play toured in 1995 and opened at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in November.

This play is set in ancient Thrace, and is the reenactment of the rape of Philomele, and her terrible revenge on her violator. While it retains the ancient myth, it also brings in feminist views which are far more modern, as the rape of Philomele is also the silencing of women and their "words" with contempt and butality. The elements of a crumbling kingdom, and the fears of a rebellion by the people, led by King Tereus's soldiers is also a driving motive for the cutting off of Philomele's tongue. So, an ancient myth, political unrest and feminist freedom of thought are cleverly interwoven in the play.