The Orange Tree’s revival of Playhouse Creatures by April de Angelis brushes the dust off a much-neglected chapter of British theatrical history: the advent of the actress. How was progress made from the ruffed transvestite players of the Elizabethan courts to the female performers strutting and fretting upon the stage today? The answer lies in the 1660s and with Charles II who was covetous of the theatrical fare on the continent. When kingship called, he set about breathing life into theatres that had shut under Puritan rule and, in imitation of what he’d seen in exile, extended roles to women.
In Michael Oakley’s joyously stagey production, Angelis’s play raises the spectres of five of the period’s leading ladies to focus attention on the precarity of their position as commoditised sexual objects. With intelligence and flirtatious cunning, their erotic allure could gain them considerable riches from the roués of the Restoration aristocracy, but if they lacked wits, they’d be no better off than the oranges routinely consumed and discarded by playgoers in the pit. Suffice it to say, there weren’t many winners.
Riffing on the ‘dressing room peep’ genre popular in the seventeenth century, Angelis’s play unfolds through a selection of rollicking vignettes, inviting the audience backstage to bear witness to the sheer excitement but also the sexual vulnerability of our first actresses. Anna Chancellor plays a sublimely narcissistic Mrs Betterton who is half-immersed in the memories of her great performances and will do anything to nab a bit of attention away from the younger stars. Zoe Brough’s Nell Gwyn is wildly ambitious, sliding through life on charm and with the aid of a low-cut corset. Doña Croll, a withering Doll Common, brings comic cynicism and sagacity to the production, using her rasping voice like a broken flute and filling the air with pathos. Nicole Sawyerr’s Mrs Farley and Katherine Kingsley’s Mrs Marshall round off the cast in performances that balance the humour of the production with the devastating realities of sexist abuse and romantic desertion. That all this takes place in a theatre the size of a jewellery box with a faintly seventeenth century air to it simply heightens the pleasure.
Fotini Dimou and Male Arcucci’s excellent use of costume makes Oakley’s production transporting. The whole story of these women’s thespian careers and economic fortunes is borne out by what they wear on their backs. At the beginning of the play Mrs Farley boasts of her pristinely white lace petticoat, an index of her success and reputation. By the end, it’s dirtied and unwanted, a fate the sexually discarded Farley also shares. Elsewhere there are magisterial cloaks of golden brocade, beplumed velvet hats, and dishcloth underskirts. It’s worth going to see the production to view such delightful apparels.
The Orange Tree’s revival of Playhouse Creatures is an assuredly wayward treat, a lesson in stage history that glistens with earthiness and wit. Angelis’s play speaks in poignant ways to issues that are still of urgent concern to women – the exigency of economic independence, the pitilessness of ageism, the double-edged sword of beauty and the asymmetrical consequences of sex – yet to get the audience fully on board, these parallels needed to be given slightly more force and shape. Regardless, the Orange Tree is proving itself to be a mecca for those with a curiosity for theatre history. All the talk of Otway and Behn made me eager to see a full run of a seventeenth-century play. With this production piquing interest, we just might.
Playhouse Creatures
By April De Angelis
Director: Michael Oakley
Photo credits: Ellie Kurtz
Cast includes: Zoe Brough; Anna Chancellor; Katherine Kingsley; Nicole Sawyerr; Doña Croll.
Until: 12th April at the Orange Tree before touring to Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford from 22-26th April and Theatre Royal Bath from 28th April-3rd May.
Running Time: 2 hours including an interval