Fast-paced, spirited and thoroughly engaging
Playhouse Creatures is a fast-paced, spirited and thoroughly engaging production that offers a snapshot of an overlooked moment in the history of theatre – both as art form and profession, writes Mary Bradshaw.
It’s 1660, and Charles II has returned to England. Cromwell is out, monarchy restored, and England’s theatres have been reopened. England’s first actresses take the stage, but their status is somewhat murky.
The play is vignette-like in structure and staging. Lashings of music and the hoisting up of stage chandeliers signal quick scene changes. Snippets of hyper-exaggerated, hyper-sexualised portrayals of characters like ‘Lusty Shepherdess’ and ‘Widow Well Fed’ intersperse with the backstage and offstage lives of the actresses.
April De Angelis’ script incorporates an impressive amount of true historical detail. The story centres around five women of the past: Mrs Betterton (Anna Chancellor), an experienced actress who guides the others along with advice such as ‘open your mouth when speaking’ and her clock-face theory of head tilts to portray emotion; Nell Gwyn (Zoe Brough), perhaps the best known of these early actresses; Doll Common (Doña Croll) who helps out in the theatre in the play, and was an actress too; Mrs Farley (Nicole Sawyerr), who transitions from slightly scary puritanical preaching to life as an actress and royal mistress with remarkable ease; and Mrs Marshall (Katherine Kingsley), punished (involving excrement in her hair) for a past fling with a nobleman.
There are no standout performances – each is a blowout; highly energetic, physical, comic and touching.
The play covers a lot of ground, too. Ageism, classism, scrutiny and vulnerability in the acting profession, for instance, ring true today.
The mainstay of the play is its humour. The cast members have magnificent chemistry and give us many laugh-out-loud moments. But each time, we are really laughing at the harsh, satirised truth. The actresses’ new-found freedom (if you can call it that) comes at a price. The cost is lusty objectification, precariousness, unwanted pregnancies, jealousy, abuse, and moral denigration. These women might be at the forefront of change, but they desperately tread the dangerous waters between being seen as artists or sex-workers, the latter being the more likely. They might be gaining economic independence as paid-up members of the company, but the desire to be a mistress of a rich (royal) man still propels them up ‘the staircase at the back’.
The truth remains that the entire lives of these women is performance. They’re still observed even in the theatre dressing rooms. Selling oysters, oranges, sex work, it’s all the same. The better the performance, the higher the chances at survival. Their roles in society are entirely defined by men – wife, mistress, former mistress, daughter, prostitute – and each role is performed for men’s pleasure. This idea becomes explicit when Mrs Marshall is accused of witchcraft after celebrating her brief taste of economic independence that would free her from her past roles. ‘They found a new word for me’, she says, ‘before I found one for myself.’
Even if individual characterisation lacks from the script somewhat, this doesn’t matter. The spirited, energetic, almost satirical performances more than make up for any quick treatment of character backstories. Playhouse Creatures is about giving us a taste of painful history, whilst giving us a good time. And it certainly achieves this.
Playhouse Creatures runs until 12 April at Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, before touring to Guildford and Bath.
Booking and full details: https://orangetreetheatre.co.uk/whats-on/playhouse-creatures/
