Patricia Leonard
What Shall We Do for the Rent?
Year: 2015
Duration (in minutes): 1:20:00
Difficulty: High (professional)
Description: Opera in One Act. Camden Town, London–1908. The action takes place over the course of one afternoon in the studio of painter Walter Sickert. The artist is waiting for the arrival of his next subject, a young model to sit for him as part of a series of melancholy female nudes on beds. Sickert will give this painting the title What Shall We Do for the Rent to add to his three other paintings in the series to be titled The Camden Town Murders; this will cause much controversy and ensure attention for Sickert’s work. Throughout the session, the model inquires more into Sickert’s odd obsession with Jack the Ripper and she grows increasingly uncomfortable with his predilections for violence and distressed women. Then begins a series of probing questions that examine Sickert’s true feelings towards women and morality.
Was Sickert Jack the Ripper?
