This was just too intriguing to pass up: a promised mashup of Shakespeare and feminism, set in a plague year. What fun! And we were going to be in Washington, DC, anyway. Perfect. And a chance to check out Shakespeare Theatre Company before we go see their production of King Lear next March.
The Play
Written by Talene Monahon during the COVID pandemic, Jane Anger postulates that famous playwright William Shakespeare, himself quarantined during a plague, is having difficulty writing his next play(s), meant to be an adaptation of an old tale about King Leir. Sure, this sounds a bit like the premise of Shakespeare in Love, but this is definitely a different story. For one thing, the play starts with a monologue by the eponymous Jane Anger, who is based on a real-life person who published a pamphlet in 1589 called "Jane Anger, her Protection for Women".
And after Shakespeare flails about for a bit with his assistant, Francis, Jane Anger literally climbs in through the window and puts her angry wit to work on Will.
The Production
Wow. What to make of this? The lobby of the very nice Klein Theater is full of materials about the real Jane Anger and her ilk. Great stuff: makes me all ready to see a play about an assertive woman who influences a better-known (and able to be published/performed) playwright into improving his works! Sadly, this is not the play we were led to expect.
Apparently playwright Monahon and director Jess Chayes would rather write a sophomoric skit full of gender and bodily-function "jokes". Had I read Monahon's prologue in the program ahead of time, I would have learned that she is "deeply interested in jokes--in puns and gags and potty humor." Oh. Well, then I guess that's what STC wanted to present. I won't say there is nothing of substance around the gags and potty humor, but the balance is way off from what I had anticipated. Instead of using those in service of (as she claims to want) "rupturing history", she instead uses the promise of a feminist overthrow to string together gags and puns, but then never gets to the punch line: We never get to see or hear or even really know much about the supposed better works that Jane Anger would have produced.
It's kind of hard for me to evaluate the cast here. My take at the time was that the acting was way too over-the-top and broad. I suspect that toning down the overt clowning might make the jokes more effective, not less, but perhaps that is just my preference. For what it's worth, Amelia Workman does a pretty good job as the titular character. The others are so thinly written and so broadly performed that it's hard to say how well it's done, and I'm not familiar with any of the players.
Bottom Line
This feels like a missed opportunity. I'm still interested in the question of how a feminist, woman of color might have been able to influence or even subvert a famous writer into projecting their ideas into the mainstream, and what would have resulted. But Monahon, despite feints in that direction, doesn't seem to want to go there. Instead we have a very forgettable piece of fluff, sort of amusing, but not terribly funny, that seems to have even less of a point than the materials hung in the lobby. I'm grateful that I got introduced to Jane Anger, but Jane Anger was not really worth the effort.
I look forward to seeing what STC does with an actual Shakespeare play next year.
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