Grace of Mary Traverse

THE STORY: Mary Traverse, the pretty, carefully schooled daughter of a wealthy London merchant, chafes at her pampered existence, and hungers for knowledge and experience of the outside world. Leaving her father's protection she is, at first, shocked by the unbridled, dissolute life she encounters in the teeming streets of eighteenth-century London, but under the corrupt tutelage of an embittered servant, Mrs. Temptwell, Mary is soon drawn into this new and fearsome world, first losing her virginity and then, in time, becoming a prostitute herself. Along the way she invades such staunchly male preserves as gambling dens, taverns and cockfights, and encounters a wide array of bizarre characters, culminating in a sexual episode with her own father-who, because Mary is by now so changed, does not recognize his own daughter. Fast paced, and comprised of a series of heightened scenes, the play alternates earthy humor with moments of great poignancy but, in the end, yields both a sense of optimism and a parallel for our own time as Mary comes to realize that only through wisdom and self-knowledge can she, as a woman, transcend the unhappiness and despair that worldly experience has brought her and progress (or traverse) toward the true freedom and sense of purpose she so desperately seeks.Wertenbaker, Timberlake is the author of 'Grace of Mary Traverse' with ISBN 9780822204688 and ISBN 0822204681.