KIT presents the US premiere of The Worth of Women, adapted from Moderata Fontes text, translated by Virginia Cox. The Worth of Women presents seven women of different ages and experience dialoging about gender equality and the responsibility of husbands and fathers.
Moderata Fonte was the pseudonym of Modesta Pozzo (1555-92), a Venetian woman who was something of an anomaly. Neither cloistered in a convent nor as liberated from prevailing codes of decorum as a courtesan might be, Pozzo was a respectable, married mother who produced literature in genres that were commonly considered "masculine"the chivalric romance and the literary dialogue
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Published in 1600, The Worth of Women takes the form of the latter, with Fonte creating a conversation among seven Venetian noblewomen. The dialogue explores nearly every aspect of women's experience in both theoretical and practical terms. These women take as their broad theme men's curious hostility toward women and possible cures.
