NEW YORK – The latest play by Kate Hamill draws inspiration from history and art across different ages and cultures. While on her honeymoon in Italy in 2020, Hamill entered the Uffizi Gallery in Florence and encountered a remarkable painting by the Baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi, created around 1620. This encounter profoundly moved her.
“I stood in front of this painting, overwhelmed with emotion for about 20 minutes,” she recalls. “That’s when I decided to write a play about this incredible woman.” The resulting work, titled “The Light and the Dark,” is now running at 59E59 Theatres as part of a Primary Stages production. The play explores Gentileschi’s challenging yet inspiring life as she produced striking artwork despite facing numerous societal obstacles. Hamill describes her creation as a “feminist primal scream.”
The narrative shines a spotlight on Gentileschi, who resisted the constraints of a male-dominated art scene. She boldly used her own body as a model, and her testimony against a famous painter who assaulted her—despite being tortured during the process—has made her an icon for strong women. “Please don’t let her give up—she is a survivor,” Hamill emphasizes in the notes for the play.
Not only did Hamill pen the script, but she also takes the stage as Gentileschi herself, embodying the traumas, betrayals, and victorious moments of her artistic predecessor. “As a female artist, it was critical for me to present myself physically in the service of a female artist who used her own body to convey powerful messages,” Hamill explains.
Inspiration for the play also stems from Gentileschi’s renowned painting, Judith Slaying Holofernes. This artwork vividly illustrates the tale of Judith, who saved her people by decapitating the Assyrian commander Holofernes. During a time when Hamill felt disheartened by ongoing #MeToo issues, this encounter with the painting reignited her passion for feminist storytelling in theater.
“I felt as if this historical woman reached across time to push me— urging me to utilize my voice and privilege. I realized I couldn’t let others silence me. I needed to become louder and bolder!” she reflects. Hamill’s husband, actor-director Jason O’Connell, recalls witnessing her profound reaction to the painting, likening it to a spiritual experience that transformed her. “She looked like she was in a trance, almost like she had become part of the painting,” he recalls.
The painting’s theme inspired a key speech in the play: “Every daughter of mothers who ever sees this work/Will know she is not alone/She will see what it means/To survive, despite the hands at your throat.” Hamill’s signature style permeates the production, featuring strong female characters, humor, and a blend of contemporary elements amidst historical context. In “The Light and the Dark,” actors don modern attire underneath Renaissance outfits, emphasizing the connection between past and present.
Hamill has carved out a niche for herself as a notable adapter of classic novels for the stage, creating fresh interpretations of works like “Vanity Fair,” “Mansfield Park,” “The Scarlet Letter,” “Little Women,” and “Pride and Prejudice.” In her adaptation of “Sense and Sensibility,” she incorporated a Greek chorus to reflect societal pressures of the time.
“Approaching adaptations feels like a collaboration between myself and authors who are often long gone,” Hamill states. O’Connell, frequently seen alongside his wife in the theater, takes on two separate roles in the new play, depicting an art appraiser who testifies against Gentileschi and a court officer who inflicts torture upon her. “I betray her in two distinct ways within a single scene,” he jokes, turning to his wife and affirming, “This play embodies who she is—her voice shines through every part of it.”
Hamill articulates that her work taps into the same energy that motivated Gentileschi—a deep-seated dissatisfaction with the status quo and a vision for a more equitable world. “Feminist narratives are about envisioning a future where equality prevails among women, men, and individuals beyond the gender binary. Many people aspire to live in such a world and recognize the discrepancies in our current reality,” she concludes.
