STEPHANIE McGregor sips her green tea and states something we all realise, yet seldom remember.

“In 1913, we wouldn’t be able to sit together and have tea,” the actress points out in serious voice.

“Do you realise I would also have had to be chaperoned?

“And in 1913, I wouldn’t have been able to wear trousers. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to take a taxi home with a man driving.”

The reason we’re flashing back103 years is because we’re talking about the Dundee-born actress’s latest play, CauseWay, running this week at Oran Mor.

Victoria Bianchi’s play lifts the curtain on the Scottish suffragette movement, but in a very specific, and thought-provoking way.

“This true story is told through the voices of two women, Ethel Moorhead and Frances Parker,” says Stephanie.

“The women come together at a suffragette meeting in Dundee and decide they want to damage Rabbie Burns’ house.

“And the play centres on the dialogue they have.”

Do the ladies hate the Bard? Did they consider him to be a rampant misogynist - given there were at least three cases where Burns fathered illegitimate children and was labelled a ‘fornicator’.

“The script is based on the truth the pair did travel to Alloway to blow up Burns’ cottage,” says Stephanie, with a mischievous smile.

“But the writer has taken some artistic license with their reasons for doing so.”

Stephanie won’t say what - or how much license - and that’s fair because the audience have the right to be surprised.

“We suggest Burns was a scoundrel, but he was no great oppressor of women.

“And the writer has come up with a well-rounded argument.”

She adds with a knowing smile; “But I’m not going to tell you what it is.”

Stephanie does reveal the story offers a beguiling insight into the minds of young women at the turn of the century.

“I was really taken aback by what I learned in the reading of the play.

“I thought I had an idea of how difficult it was for women at this time, how contained they were, but my eyes were opened wide.”

Her character Ethel’s eyes, we learn, are also opened. Gradually.

“She’s new to the movement. She’s a junior suffragette, so we go on her journey.

“We learn she went along to the meeting because, as an artist, she was disappointed that men keep getting the commissions and she was missing out.”

Ethel starts off as non-radical, she’s not into violence and she’s curious about this new world.

However, the play is set at a pre-war mass meeting – yet there are only two characters on stage? How do you present this on a small Oran Mor stage.

“The plays uses the Oran Mor audience, to create that sense of a crowd,” says Stephanie, who appeared at the basement theatre three years ago.

“And I’m sure the idea will work because the audience loves to be part of the process.”

Stephanie acknowledges her understanding of the women’s movement at the turn of the century was also informed by the move, Suffragette.

“I loved it,” she says of the film starring Carey Mulligan.

“I think they should show it to every young female in schools because we have to be aware of how far women have had to come.”

The actress says she wasn’t overly political.

“Not really, until the Referendum. Now I know I have to pay attention and listen to what’s being said. Now, I read everything and want to learn more.”

Stephanie and co-star Beth Marshall will no doubt sparkle in the play as the young women determined to have their voice heard.

They bring an informed intelligence to the roles, and experience.

Stephanie has wanted to act ever since she can remember.

"I've never wanted to do anything else, but it's just as well because I don't think I could,” she offers, grinning.

After graduating, the actress worked in London for two years. She went on to star in Glasgow Girls and in more recent times appeared in a Scottish tour of Romeo and Juliet.

She worked on three Shakespeare plays, at the Botanics in Glasgow last summer and starred in children’s Christmas show Flora’s Fairy Challenge at the Citizens’.

Stephanie also appeared in the Dundee Rep production Tribes, in which she had to learn to play the piano.

Now, she’s a suffragette, who also plays guitar as well.

“We play some Burns songs in the play, which really add to the mood.”

But what is this mood, Stephanie? Give a clue as to what these two young women really get up to.

“I’m not telling you!” she chides.

“You’ll just have to come and see for yourself. But I will say it’s funny at the start and I have to perform a couple of big monologues, which are great.”

She crosses her arms with all the defiance of a suffragette and grins.

“There. That’s you told.”

• CauseWay, Oran Mor, until Saturday.