When the English Roundheads under Cromwell lost power in 1660, the monarchy of Britain was restored with a vengeance. Cromwell, Lord Protector, had subsequently died but was exhumed and had his head, coated with tar, displayed outside the Tower of London for the next 30 years. All others who had signed the death warrant for Charles I were drawn and quartered.
His son, Charles II, fresh from exile, was crowned King of England in 1660, and his reign ushered in a Stuart renaissance. Known as the Merrie Monarch, he loved women, spaniels, luxury, and the theater, especially the theater. Shuttered since 1642, he opened them up – actually only two were given royal patents – but those were enough to satisfy the public’s thirst for live theater.
Charles’ one great improvement in the arts was the permission of women to act upon the stage. Actresses had been a novelty in France, Spain, and Italy for years, and Charles, being a lover of all things French, declared that England should have them too. It created a watershed, and the basis for April De Angelis’ delightful yet somber restoration romp, Playhouse Creatures.
We have a new theater company in town, Lionwoman Productions, TX, the creation of our great Houston actress Michelle Britton, and she has chosen this all-female play directed by Marshall Mays as its inaugural production. What an auspicious beginning for Lionwoman.
Written in 1993 and premiered in London at the Theatre Royal Haymarket, it predates the Alley’s fascinating Born With Teeth, set in Shakespeare’s era, but both share many attributes.
Teeth is a two-hander, with Shakespeare and soon-to-be rival Kit Marlowe battling in a sexy mano-a-mano dance of one-upmanship. Byzantine Elizabethan politics, theater maneuvering, and even the size of their goose quill pens play into this intricate game.
Creatures focuses on five actresses and their fate. History and its times will curse them, doom them, or give them unimagined wealth. De Angelis’ posits that nothing has changed during the centuries for women on the stage. Fame is fleeting; a sexual tryst might end in pregnancy; the allure of the stage and its applause is a powerful numbing drug; yet growing old on stage, even when bearing wisdom and proficiency of craft, is no guard against youth waiting in the wings.
It’s no surprise then that the most accomplished performances are given by the more mature: Britton and Christianne Mays, as Doll Common and Mrs. Betterton, respectively.
We’re in the shell of a theater somewhere “between time and life.” The ghosts of the past fill it. Doll is a wise old bawd, playing background characters and sweeping up backstage and throwing their piss pot out the window. She’s seen it all, and her wisdom, filtered through a lifetime of drudgery, is on the spot. Her education comes from life, and her grumpy wisecracks and surprised reactions have the ring of the eternal clown.
There’s no one better in Houston theater to deliver a put-down or a juicy bon mot like Britton. And when she wants to stop the audience and command the stage, she does so in her closing monologue about the horrid treatment of the animals in those infamous bear pits whose entertainment so riveted the Elizabethan audience. She likens actors to those pitiable bears, made to suffer and entertain until they died. It’s a cold slap in the face De Angelis gives us at the end, made more chilling by Britton’s masterful, mesmerizing delivery.
Mays, as old pro Betterton, married to the company’s owner and leading man, goes just as deep and powerful as she relives Lady Macbeth (Mary Betterton’s most famous interpretation, according to theater historians and contemporaneous reports). Betterton, with her precise, and comic, clock-face positions to show emotion, and her unending list of “accoutrements” to reveal character is like living history to the younger actors. She knows things from the past, theater traditions and how to move an audience, the tricks of the trade. What she also knows, is that she is old and her days on stage are numbered, especially in leading roles. She must relinquish her love of the stage. It’s inevitable. Mays breaks your heart with her grace.
Mrs. Marshall (Tyne Jeanae) is a woman on the rise who acquiesces to a marriage to a roué earl. Unbeknowst to her, it’s a sham marriage to get her into bed, and forever after she is taunted as a whore, and eventually driven out of the theater to get away from him. Her voodoo ceremony to exorcise him is effective, but will later brand her as a witch by the vindictive nobleman. Privilege doesn’t buy happiness.
Elizabeth Farley (Jeana Magallón) shows early promise on the stage, but is seduced by its glamour and instant fame. Propositioned by the King, she scurries to his bed, only to be cast aside shortly after. When her pregnancy shows, she must leave the company for propriety’s sake. She cajoles the others into performing an abortion – a graphic scene indeed, staged for its grand guignol effect by director Marshall Mays. The pain is too much for her, and she later abandons her baby. As she walks the streets of London, forlorn and forgotten, all she has at the end is her now-soiled silk petticoat, a sop from the King.
Of all the famed actresses on display, the only one we remember from history is the one who had the shortest career, and the one least likely to have become an actor, Nell Gwyn, a seller of oranges at Drury Lane who eventually became the mistress of Charles II. Alexandra Szeto-Joe brings to her a vivacity and low-class charm. She is a go-getter, the most modern among them, as she lives for herself. Her career on stage only furthers her ambitions, and when she catches the eye of Charles, he is smitten and she becomes the royal plaything.
Gwyn’s final tale is not revealed in the play, however, for she lived a ripe life and died one of the wealthiest women in Britain. At that time, she no longer had the affections of the royal house, for he had moved on to many others by then. But on his deathbed, asked of his brother and successor James, “Don’t let poor Nellie starve.” Gywn must have had something indescribable. If only De Angelis had described it.
Like a Restoration riff on Forever Amber, these five suffer and laugh through their time on the stage. As they share the “tiring room,” their camaraderie is infectious with its jealousy and its sisterhood. Dreams may come true on the stage, but in Restoration London, life upon the wicked stage might be exactly what you didn’t wish for.
Playhouse Creatures continues through November 23 at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays and Monday, November 11; 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; and 3 p.m. Sundays. (Cat Thomas plays Elizabeth Farley, November 17; and Jennifer Doctorovich plays Mrs. Betterton, November 14.) at Lionwoman Productions at MATCH, 3400 Main. For more information, call 713-521-4533 or visit lionwomanproductionstx.com. $17-$40.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
