Love, lust, prostitution and slavery in a 19th-century Quaker household.
A devout Quaker, her wealthy husband, a freed American slave and her emancipator come together in 1840s Dublin. As they interact, each is revealed to be rather less high-minded than they would like to be thought.
Elizabeth Kuti’s play The Sugar Wife was first performed at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, in April 2005 in a production by Rough Magic. The production transferred to Soho Theatre, London, in January 2006.
The Sugar Wife won the 2006 Susan Smith Blackburn Prize.
‘Marvellous… intelligent and affecting’
— Sunday Tribune
‘A moving play whose themes of charity, colonialism and morality resonate deeply’
— Guardian
‘A consistently intelligent and beautifully shaped play’
— Irish Times
Susan Smith Blackburn Prize
