“A vindication of the right to great theatre, which this post-modern feminist play almost is. ”
Most people’s cultural awareness of feminist philosopher Mary Wollstonecraft is through the lens of her famous daughter, Frankenstein writer Mary Shelley. This production seeks to remedy that and explore the life of the seminal political and cultural provocateur through Maureen Lennon’s script and Esther Richardson’s direction.
We follow Mary’s brief but trailblazing life through a series of rage-filled vignettes punctuated with musical interludes. She gets angry at her abusive father and leaves. She gets angry at her domestic sibling situation and leaves. She gets angry with the influential men around her. She’s mad when her best friend, Fanny Blood, dies. She gets mad in the middle of Paris during the Reign of Terror. She falls madly in love with an American self-described “male feminist” and then gets mad when he leaves her with their newborn child, Fanny. She gets mad she has to cross the ocean to be with him. She gets mad when he betrays her. She gets mad she has to continually fight for equal rights and education for women. Honestly, she was just angry the whole time. Then she dies.
Six talented women play various roles and genders to great aplomb, with their male representations often feeling more realistic than the female ones. Laura Elsworthy plays our firebrand heroine, Mary, with gusto and confidence and almost little else. Mary is portrayed so fiercely fearless all the time, it was a relief to see her in a moment of vulnerability when she is seduced and ultimately betrayed by her American lover Gilbert Imlay (convincingly rakishly played by Elexi Walker). It was an all too rare
moment of quiet poignancy and reflection.
It’s technically a musical of sorts, with short songs written by Billy Nomates (AKA Tor Maries). The music itself is catchy- all trad goth meets 80s synthpop. Unfortunately, the songs were so forgettable that they did not develop a plot or character. The lyrics were boring and merely repeated lines that had just played out in the scene before them, highlighting their redundancy. The play felt didactic and preachy. Lines such as “there are several Fannys in this play- that’s feminism for you” were corny and too on the nose.
Sara Perks impressively vertiginous Tetris wooden block set looked like a logistical nightmare, with performers precariously tottering up and down them adding visual intricacy. I appreciated the fun period piece costumes mixing corset stays, stripy socks, and punky bustles. It felt like a steampunk Vivienne Westwood fever dream or an Emilie Autumn music video.
On paper, this show sounds amazing. In practice, it just sounds like everyone’s pissed off, and feminist resistance needs more than anger. Characters felt over-exaggerated and one-dimensional. The show felt like it wanted to be a burlesque in the true theatrical sense of cultural and political satire, but instead, it felt constantly incensed with no reprieve. Even a cursory glance at Ms Wollstonecraft’s Wikipedia page will tell the audience she’s a very complicated and accomplished person. Even her most seminal work, The Vindication of the Rights of Woman, is mentioned but never truly explored. None of her writings are properly written, which is truly a waste.
The cast is excellent, but the material misses the mark for me, with the second act more empowering and thematically diverse than the first. Mary Wollstonecraft is an incredible historical figure but she is reduced to Combative Angry Feminist, and her literary legacy deserves a lot more.