Jane Anger

 Jane Anger

Or, The Lamentable Comedie of JANE ANGER, that Cunning Woman, and also of Willy Shakespeare and his Peasant Cousin, Francis, Yes and Also of Anne Hathaway (also a Woman) Who Tried Very Hard

by Talene Monahon

Okay, I loved this play. This play is ridiculous. It’s the plague of 1603 and Shakespeare is experiencing a wee bit of writer’s block. He’s stuck inside with Francis Sir (and aspiring actor who is just barely 16… I guess…), when The Dark Lady (of Sonnet fame) climbs in the window. Jane Anger is here, and she needs Shakespeare’s signature to get her pamphlet published. He agrees only if she is willing to help “unblock”him so that he can write his next great plague play. Jane is quite skillful, and the writing bug strikes as he begins to rattle off King Lear, when his wife shinnies up the drainpipe to join the melee.

This play is brilliant. I love a little bit of revised history, and a whole lot of female rage. There are plenty of delightful metatheatrical winks and some delicious stage violence. I want to do this play right now. Immediately. I wish I could play Anne Hathaway, but I have to admit that I’m probably not pretty enough for the role. But I could direct the hell out of this wacky, insightful, ferocious comedy! Someone give me a theatre!  

Home, I’m Darling

Home, I’m Darling by Laura Wade

Johnny and Judy are a contemporary married couple who have made the conscious decision to live their lives as if it is the 1950s (as much as possible - Johnny does need a cell phone for work, and they have a laptop hidden in a cabinet). Their friend Marcus wishes sometimes that his wife Fran would get into the more domestic lifestyle, though she doesn’t really have it in her. Judy’s mother Sylvia - a former feminist who lived on a commune - is absolutely flummoxed by their agreement. However, when it turns out that all is not well in paradise, Judy and Johnny are forced to confront their feelings about the 50s and about each other.

I found this play generally pretty charming, but I’m not sure I was really able to get invested in the stakes, as I really identified more with her flabbergasted mother than with the main character. A formerly high-powered executive who had opted to turn herself into a domestic near-recluse who managed to miss out on huge news stories like the death of Castro was simply not someone I could really wrap my mind around. The central question ends up being about how to be honest with ourselves and with each other within a relationship, and that’s nice, but I am not sure this was the particular road to that conversation that is right for me. 

Morning After

Morning After by Zoe Senese-Grossberg

Continuing my dive into plays that poke and prod the grotesque world in which we currently find ourselves, Morning After gives us a group of friends waking up after a night of HARD partying. Several of them have little to know memory of the previous night’s events - due in no small part to having drunk the blue stuff in the parrot-shaped bowl. Bad idea.

The first to awaken is Nick, who is suddenly panicked because he is going to miss his flight - however his friends assure him that it has been canceled and he’ll have to reschedule - don’t worry about it. As the friends awaken, reconstruct the night before, and enjoy David’s eggs Benedict, the circumstances of the world beyond their party start to take shape. All of their parents have already departed the country and they are planning to leave in the next few days to meet them. However, the government may shut down all international flights. Or maybe they’ll be able to connect through Canada. Or maybe not. And maybe your citizenship may be called into question… 

We never truly get the skinny on whatever global shift is happening, but the swift and devastating effects of governmental actions become all too present. The conversation is fun and charming - I particularly loved the running device of imagining themselves in other time periods, and the payoff of that device is unexpectedly poignant. I really appreciated the relationships and the banter, as well as the cleverly unsettling atmosphere doled out by little bits of information along the way. Honestly, it reminded me a bit of another play (that will remain nameless) that I think is attempting to have a similar sort of conversation, but does not do it nearly as effectively. 

2:22

2:22 by Danny Robins

My huuuuuuuuuusband has gotten particularly interested lately in how theatre can create genuine scares, so that has pushed me to want to read more “scary” plays… and this was the first that bubbled to the top. The play centers around the parents of a young child and their two friends who have come over for a dinner party. The father has been out of town for the last few days, and while he was gone, spooky things have been happening at home, though no one seems to believe our stalwart mother. But since the spooky things have been happening each night at 2:22am, they decide to have everyone stay up to see if they can confirm or deny her experiences.

That’s kind of all I can say about the play without giving away the clever conceits and genuine chills. It’s well written - I liked the characters, I enjoyed the humor that provided a familiar foundation for the sense of unease that permeates the whole play.

This would be a fun show to do - and it doesn’t really require a ton of special effects or anything, which can often be a barrier to producing a “scary” play. Maybe a nice little October project one of these days!

Girls Kill Nazis

Girls Kill Nazis by James Kopp

These days, I am finding myself in what appears to be my “theatre that wants to burn everything to the ground” era. So I was pleased when searching NPX for anti-fascist comedies I came across this play. It takes place in a not-too-distant speculative future in which the New American Nazi Party has come to power, and things are going just as well as you think they might. We meet a book club made up of four average women in their 20s-50s, and it turns out pretty quickly that there is much more to this book club than To Kill a Mockingbird and 1984. In fact, these four women were brought together by their shared interest in killing nazis.

When the latest new accords require installation of a federal official in every town, the upper floor of their library is selected for the offices, which does not appeal to this group of women (or their new member Bob… who has happily watched the movie of every book on their list).

I found the play emotionally satisfying as someone who is particularly angry and frustrated at this moment in time, though as the title suggests, it’s probably just a little too heavy handed to be reasonably produced in most places - and certainly not at a college. But it was a kind of fun read. And I have to say, Bob’s quirk of “reading” everything by watching it was very charming. And honestly, any story where the librarian is the hero… I’m in.

A Number

A Number

by Caryl Churchill

It's really sort of difficult to describe this play. A two-hander originated by Michael Gambon and Daniel Craig, A Number follows an elder scientist named Salter and his relationship with his son... and his son... and his son. Salter, it seems, has experimented with cloning, and after a problem with his original son, he started attempting to make a better version. However, as the original and the clones learn about each other, conflict arises beyond anything that Salter could have expected.

I read this play in hopes that it would fit into my Science on Stage class, but there wasn't really any discussion of the science of cloning. Of course, that's just fine. Churchill wanted to talk about something else - the emotional weight of fathers and sons. We may fail each other, we may let each other and ourselves down, but does that give us permission to toss those failures to the curb and start anew? Can we accept each other for who we are and what we have done? Can we erase those failures and still be who we are? Can we love each other because of rather than in spite of our faults?

And perhaps most importantly - is there a video anywhere of that original performance?!!? What I wouldn't give to get to see those two men perform this play! 

The Hatmaker's Wife

The Hatmaker's Wife

by Lauren Yee

A young woman referred to in the script only as "Voice" is moving in with her boyfriend Gabe. It should be immediate bliss, but the walls hold a story and they begin to share it. Voice hears the tale of the old hatmaker Hetchman and his wife who disappeared - he had refused to make her a perfect hat, instead expecting her to wait on him hand and foot. The story becomes increasingly mystical as he summons a Golem, and Voice gets increasingly wrapped up in the story, complicating her relationship with Gabe. The story twists and turns and intersects in interesting and charming ways, inviting the audience to think about the roles they and their partners may play in their own relationships.

I read this play not long after I read Julia Cho's The Language Archive, and while I wouldn't say that the plays are really all that similar, there was a common spirit that I sensed between the two plays. There is an epic sense of the scope of old relationships in both plays that serves as a mode for the younger characters in the play to encounter and interrogate their newer romances. It also made me think of Sheila Callaghan's Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), as the walls of the home hold onto the emotional histories that unfolded within them, and become their own strange characters. I really enjoyed the theatricality and mysticism of this play, and I think it would be a lot of fun to explore a world like this!

Space Girl

Space Girl 

by Mora V. Harris

Arugula and her father Nancy are on a mission from their planet to gather information about Earth and its inhabitants, ostensibly to see how the planet might be improved - or possibly whether or not it deserves assistance at all. Arugula attempts to balance her burgeoning teen sexuality and her tendencies toward violence by taking up roller derby, but being a human teenager may be more than she or her father are prepared for.

I have to admit that I didn't love this play, but I did find some real charm to it. The general device of the fish-out-of-water teenager works pretty well, and I really did like the information we got about the home planet's (Zlagdor) inherent violence, and how that clashed with Arugula's attempts to find her place. The sacrifices that she ultimately had to make were a little heavy-handed, but ultimately it's a sweet story, and one that I suspect many of my students would find engaging and fun.

Witch

Witch 

By Jen Silverman

Elizabeth is an outcast in her historical English town, having been dubbed a witch. So when Scratch comes to town in search of souls, hers should be the easiest to collect, but things are not quite that simple.  In town, Sir Arthur is grappling with his disappointing son Cuddy, who is grappling with his father's obvious preference (as well as his own unexplained desire) for the confident and rakish Frank. As passions and ambitions flare, a variety of truths ooze out into the light.

This play is, not to mince words, badass. I read it and immediately wanted to perform it. Someone direct me as Elizabeth... PLEASE! It is sexy and emotional and human and supernatural in all of these really interesting ways. I think the thing that would chase some people away from it is the possible scope of production values - the props for the post-banquet scene alone could be quite a heavy lift (literally and figuratively). But the story and the characters and the relationships are so vivid and vicious, it absolutely leaps off the page.