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“What’s beautiful about what Zadie Smith has done is she’s made it very contemporary, very alive, very immediate, like we’re watching a character that is from London now. But is still remarkably like the original character in Chaucer’s ‘Wife of Bath.’”

“The dialogue, the writing is so real. Just like [Smith’s] books do, the characters sing off the page.”

A compilation of resources for educators and learners from all contexts to explore the world of twenty-first-century Willesden that Zadie Smith portrays.

In Smith’s The Wife of Willesden…a chorus of voices at the pub chime in as Alvita dishes on men and women, power and deception, sex and desire.

There’s a feeling that British actress Clare Perkins gets when she reads an intriguing role, a “fire” of sorts that makes her want to take part. So when she learned of the character Alvita…Perkins knew it would be “a good character to bring to the stage.”

Female characters in medieval literature were more usually princesses or virginal damsels; nuns or saints; witches or prostitutes. But the Wife of Bath was different—she was a middle-class, middle-aged, sexually active woman.

The Wife of Bath is one of only a handful of literary characters—others include Odysseus, Dido, Penelope, and King Arthur—whose life has continued far beyond their earliest textual appearances.

It can be expensive to see a professional theatrical production… But the new Take Five program at the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge makes tickets available for just $5.