Eleanor Marx: the Jewess of Jews Walk
The Sydenham Centre

THE ONLY Marx to acknowledge the family’s Jewish roots, Eleanor Marx lived on Jews Walk, Sydenham, at the twilight of her life and Lucy Kaufman’s new play sheds a spotlight on the last few months of her time there and her relationship with common-law husband Edward Aveling.

The foremother of socialist feminism, an internationalist, trade unionist, her father’s first biographer and editor of his key works, she was the first translator of Madame Bovary and a pioneer of the works of Henrik Ibsen in London of the end of the 19th century.

Kaufman’s precise and moving writing brings to life this giant of the British left, portrayed in an extraordinary performance by Sarah Whitehouse. On stage for most of the play, she shows immense versatility in depicting Marx's emotional journey. “You make your own laws,” she is told at one point and the dilemma between her struggle for equality and the deeply unequal society in which she lives is the focus of the narrative.