Never let it be said that Linda Griffiths lacks determination. The intrepid writer-actress once crashed the Governor General’s Ball and finagled a dance with Pierre Trudeau, all for a play she was co-creating on the PM and his wife. The result, 1980’s Maggie & Pierre, in which she played both halves of the couple, was a succès fou, taking Griffiths across the country and off-Broadway. Her Pierre may have been haughty and witty, but ultimately it was her loopy, ambitious Maggie that was the most memorable. The feverish scribe has summoned up many women on the verge of greatness or madness, or both, over the course of her career, from Gwendolyn MacEwen to Wallis Simpson to Petra, a web designer desperately seeking a cure for her mysterious illness. Her latest work, Age of Arousal, is populated by a group of Victorian suffragettes and features three of the city’s finest actors: the outrageous Ellen-Ray Hennessy, the big-hearted Maggie Huculak and the crafty Clare Coulter.

How did you get started on this project?
I was looking at the dollar bin outside Balfour Books and I came across this battered old copy of The Odd Women by [Victorian novelist] George Gissing. I turned it over, read “Five spinster women…” and bought it. I’ve used the situations in the book, the suffrage movement and a school for secretaries, and taken them in my own direction.

You’ve worked on this for years, with the Shaw Festival, in Montreal, in Banff, in Calgary…
It’s been a long campaign with General Griffiths driving it through. There was some weeping and snivelling along the way, but it was OK, because every time someone turned down that damned play, it got better. And there are three productions this fall—one in Toronto, one in Windsor and one in Philadelphia. I will traipse about and give my hallowed opinion on various aspects.

Were you tempted to take the buzz from Maggie & Pierre and run toward film and television?
I am a lifer in the theatre. I can’t help it. I would love to be able to help it. There are a number of us—George F. Walker says he’s not going to do another play, but you know he will. We’re like that. I was the kid with the puppet show in the backyard.

What, if anything, do your women have in common?
They have to be reaching for something. My women have to be in a state of struggle with the world. I’ve always thought they have to be both brave and cowardly at the same time. That reflects how I feel about myself.

What’s next?
I cannot bloody imagine going through this whole process again. I am battle weary. But I recently wrote a 15-minute monologue on Conrad Black for Ross Manson’s Wrecking Ball benefit—and I got that little itch, that glint and then thought, “No. Down, Griffiths, down.”

Age of Arousal runs Nov. 23 to Dec. 16 at Factory Theatre. See listing on page 145.