Art Manke has directed approximately 200 theatrical productions over the course of his career. He has also completed significant work as a choreographer and playwright. One of Art Manke’s achievements in the latter capacity is coauthoring a stage adaptation of the classic D. H. Lawrence novel "Women in Love" with Denver Center Theatre Company dramaturg, Douglas Langworthy.
"Women in Love" will be featured in the Classic Sundays series at Los Angeles' highly regarded Antaeus Theatre Company, under the direction of Andrew Borba, on October 20, 2019. For more information: https://antaeus.org/shows/classic-sundays/
Published in 1920, "Women in Love" was shocking at the time of its release in the eyes of some critics, who wrote about its vice and sexual depravity. Renowned literary critic F. R. Leavis, however, regarded the novel as D. H. Lawrence's masterpiece, and the author himself called it his best book.
A sequel to "The Rainbow," which faced censorship and prohibition for even alluding to sexual acts, "Women in Love" is the story of two love affairs. It juxtaposes a relatively healthy relationship between schoolteacher Ursula Brangwen and intellectual Rupert Birkin with a tragic romance between Ursula’s sister Gudrun (a painter) and Gerald Crich (an industrialist). Set in the years immediately after World War I, the play's themes of women's equality and sexual fluidity are as current today as when the book first appeared.
