Elsewhere
Elsewhere
✭✭✭✭✩
by Helen Edmundson, directed by Natalie Abrahami
Royal Shakespeare Company, Haymarket Theatre, London, GBR
June 30-September 30, 2017
Queen Anne to Sarah: “You may put it in writing”
Up to now Helen Edmundson has been best known for her 1996 play The Memory of Water. Now, however, it is possible she will be best known for her latest play Queen Anne. Of the queens regnant from Elizabeth I through Elizabeth II, Queen Anne, who reigned 1702-1714, has been one of the most neglected. Reasons for this, such as accusations against her of lesbianism and only recent reassessments of her reign, help explain why writers might only lately have approached her as a subject. Scottish playwright Tim Barrow in his 2014 play Union depicts Anne as a caricature – a woman close to insane, nursing a doll after her many miscarriages and carrying on simultaneous affairs with both Sarah Churchill and Sarah’s husband. Edmundson’s 2015 play provides a useful corrective to Barrow’s skewed portrait and in so doing creates two fantastic roles for middle-aged women.
Before the action of Edmundson’s play begins, Charles II’s son James II, whose hidden Catholicism was becoming more obvious, had produced an heir James Francis Edward in 1688. Fearing that James would begin a Catholic dynasty, William of Orange invaded England and deposed James in favour of Mary, daughter of James I, who vowed she would rule only as co-ruler with William. William and Mary, however, produced no heir. Princess Anne, next in line to the throne, has just suffered the death of her 18th child with her husband George of Denmark. She had been ill since birth and had had thirteen miscarriages or stillborn children. Of the remaining live births, four had died before the age of two with the fifth, William, Duke of Gloucester, dying at age eleven in 1700. Because of this in 1701 Parliament passed the Act of Settlement that stated if neither William nor Anne produced heirs, the crown would pass to Sophia, Electress of Hannover, granddaughter of James I. In Edmundson’s play William’s plan to invite Sophia to court raises fears that he assumes Anne will never be fit to reign.
This, indeed, is the subject of Edmundson’s play. In Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, the question that plagues Henry IV is whether his son Prince Hal, who spends all his time surrounded with the lowlife of London will ever be sufficiently prepared to be king. In Edmundson’s Queen Anne, the question is whether Anne, perpetually sickly, ignorant of politics and subject to the influence of dubious friends, will ever be sufficiently prepared to be queen. What Edmundson shows us is the gradual intellectual, emotional and social awakening of Anne and her consequent conquest of the forces around her bent on keeping her in a state of dependence.
The play begins with a scurrilous skit performed by members of the Inns of Court cruelly ridiculing then Princess Anne for yet again failing to give birth to a living child. Into the law chambers comes the poverty-stricken Abigail Hill to see her cousin Robert Harley and seek any form of employment he can provide. He says he has nothing to offer her but when he hears that she is also cousin to Sarah Churchill, Lady Marlborough, he sends her to see her hoping thus to have to have a spy at court. Sarah at first rejects Abigail’s appeal, but realizing that Anne is even weaker than usual after her last pregnancy, decides that the princess could use another serving woman.
This action, like Sarah’s inordinate concern for Anne, initially makes us see her in a positive light. Anne – obese, nearly unable to walk due to dropsy, fearful of being alone, ignorant of politics, obsessed with religion, her weakness and her children’s deaths – depends entirely on Sarah to encourage her to organize her thoughts and make herself presentable for public occasions. Our first view of Anne is that Anne is both hopeless and helpless as an ordinary human being, much less a future queen. Gradually both we and Anne come to realize that beneath all of Sarah’s kindness and solicitude is a desire to keep Anne in a dependent state. Married to the fertile but frivolous George, Anne craves love and Sarah is not hesitant to provide Anne with at least the appearance of it. Again, we are at first sympathetic to Sarah, but come to see that Sarah uses this pretence of affection to keep Anne under her control.
Once Anne becomes Queen, Sarah’s political goals becomes clearer. Political parties had evolved out of conflicts over the Glorious Revolution with the Whigs favouring constitutional monarchy and the Tories absolute monarchy. Sarah became an avid campaigner for the Whig cause despite Anne’s aversion to their views. Anne comes to realize that she needs to know more to rule well and insists on sitting in on cabinet meetings much to the chagrin of its members.
The more Anne learns, the more she sees that Sarah’s “help” is not disinterested at all. Soon all that causes Anne to keep Sarah in service is the success of Sarah’s husband, the Duke of Marlborough in fighting battles during the War of the Spanish Succession. Yet, even then Anne comes to question the point of the war when it is clear that the populace favours peace. Can Anne dismiss Sarah without dismissing her husband, or vice versa, and still be strong?
Edmundson’s play becomes a fascinating study of the intertwining of psychology and political power. Edmundson does not suggest Anne’s judgement is completely sound when she grows in self-confidence. Anne falls out with both the grasping Sarah but also the good-willed Chancellor Sydney Godolphin, both Whigs. Anne then favours the kind Abigail Hill, later Abigail Masham, but also favours the duplicitous Robert Harley, both Tories. Besides depicting the emergence of Queen Anne into full command of her powers, Edmundson’s play also depicts the emergence of political parties in England in the wake of the Glorious Revolution and how intrigues grow from people’s divided loyalties to both monarch and party.
Romola Garai also presents a masterful slow reveal of her character but in a completely opposite direction. The Sarah Churchill we first meet is attractive, resourceful and decisive. Garai’s Sarah is a master of politics and knows it. Yet our initially positive view of Sarah progressively deteriorates as it becomes more obvious that Sarah is manipulating Anne for her own political and financial objectives, Garai’s tone becomes harder and her manner more inflexible. By the end when Sarah is revealed as an outright villain, Garai shows us that Sarah has even lost her ability to feign friendliness successfully. Garai’s Sarah is not just a servant who would be master but one who would be a tyrant.
The husbands of play’s two central women are well contrasted. Chu Omambala’s Marlborough, husband to Sarah, is as noble in bearing and speech as Hywel Morgan’s Prince George, husband to Anne, is dim and ineffectual. Anne’s two male advisors are also well contrasted. Richard Hope as Godolphin exudes true sympathy and fatherly care for Anne and we feel as unhappy as those around her when she decides to remove him from office. On the other hand, James Garnon as Robert Harley seems an untrustworthy equivocator and Machiavellian schemer ready to do only what will benefit him rather than anyone else. That his advice happens to prove beneficial to Anne when he becomes Lord Chancellor seems to derive from his desire to hold onto power rather from any true desire to help his sovereign.
But Edmundson has added characters like Jonny Glynn as Jonathan Swift and Carl Prekopp as Daniel Defoe and does little with the them even though she could have used them as astute commentators on the action. Dave Fishley blusters his way through the role of King William III and does not sufficiently establish him as an effective foe of Anne.
It’s rather surprising that up until now the only play about women vying for power in the English court should be Friedrich Schiller’s Maria Stuart from 1800. Edmundson has done both audiences and female actors a great service by creating another, quite different play on a similar subject. History buffs may object that Edmundson’s portrait of Abigail is too rosy and that she decides the charges of embezzlement against Marlborough are real rather than invented. Edmundson has Sarah try to blackmail Anne by threatening to a expose a lesbian relationship between them. In reality, Sarah threatened to expose such a relationship between Anne and Abigail, which, beside being true to history would be more realistic for Sarah’s character.
Nevertheless, Edmundson’s depiction of a woman struggling to find her voice and her sense of self in the midst of a world that works against that effort should give Queen Anne a resonance beyond that of many recent history plays. It’s a fascinating play that brings a lesser known period of English history and of female power vividly to life.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photos: (from top) Emma Cunniffe as Queen Anne and Romola Garai as Sarah Churchill, ©2017 John Snelling; Members of the Inns of Court, @2015 Manuel Harlan; Beth Park as Abigail Hill, ©2015 Manuel Harlan; Emma Cunniffe as Queen Anne, ©2015 Manuel Harlan.
For tickets, visit www.rsc.org.uk/whats-on/in/london/?from=ql.
2017-07-27
London, GBR: Queen Anne