Margery Kempe (c.1373-c.1440) began dictating her memoirs to a scribe around 1430 with the implicit hope of canonization. Her manuscript passed into oblivion until it was discovered in a country house in Yorkshire in 1934. The Book of Margery Kempe is now the focus of great academic interest as the earliest known autobiography written in English. Margery Kempe was never declared a saint. The Desire of the Moth for the Star was written by three authors using highly contrasting styles to capture the fluctuating spirit of Margery’s life in each act.
The intention is to amplify divergent ways to interpret Margery’s story, allowing the continuity of narrative and character to link the three acts together. Margery’s story is rife with contradictions, ambiguity, and humor. The authors’ fascination with the character of Margery Kempe was inspired by an inability to explain, psychologize, or laugh away the mystery of her spiritual quest. She was and remains an unquiet soul.
Wesley Savick is a Suffolk University Theatre Department Professor and the Suffolk Theatre Director of Student Programming.
The Suffolk University Theatre Department is a student-centered department. Students write, direct, and design their own original plays and intern with leading theatre companies, both at Suffolk’s Modern Theatre and with organizations throughout the United States. Students work in classic, musical, and experimental genres with a special focus on new work.
The Suffolk University Theatre Department’s Mainstage Productions are held twice a year in Suffolk University’s Modern Theatre, located in Boston’s Theater District. These productions feature a contemporary or new play, directed by a Theatre Department faculty member or a guest artist. Theatre Department productions in the Modern are high-profile opportunities for student artists to be seen by the university and larger Boston community.