Reviews 2012
Reviews 2012
✭✭✭✭✭
by Githa Sowerby, directed by Alisa Palmer
Shaw Festival, Court House Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake
May 24-September 22, 2012
“Another Lost Treasure Discovered”
The Shaw Festival’s dedication to literary archeology has paid off yet again with its production of A Man and Some Women by Githa Sowerby. The Festival previously produced Sowerby’s Rutherford and Son (1911) in 2004 and The Stepmother (1924) in 2008 to great acclaim. A Man and Some Women (1914) only confirms the view that the unjust neglect of Sowerby (1876-1970) has given us a skewed vision of writing for the stage in the first part of the 20th century. It is a gem of a play – seemingly straightforward but with complex resonances about the negative effects of women’s subjugation not only on women but on men.
Sowerby introduces us to the women of Richard Shannon’s household before Richard ever appears. Richard’s two unmarried sisters, Rose (Kate Hennig) and Elizabeth (Sharry Flett) are whiling away their time braiding cloth (Rose) and plating solitaire (Elizabeth) as if Richard’s cousin Jessica (Marla McLean) were not in the room. Rose especially focusses on the scandal involving a female relation of Jessica’s that has forced her to leave her young son Jack (Jordan Hilliker) in Richard’s care. The atmosphere cools noticeably when Richard’s wife Hilda (Jenny L. Wright) enters who can barely tolerate Richard’s sisters even if they pay for their lodging, would like Jack to live elsewhere and cannot understand why Jessica continues to stay with them when she is the only independent one among them and has work in London.
All the women are waiting for Richard (Sanjay Talwar substituting for Graeme Somerville) to return from his mother’s funeral. For reasons we never learn, Richard’s mother hated her two daughters so much she refused to let them see her when she was dying and refused to let them attend the funeral. Rose, Elizabeth and Hilda all want to know if Richard’s mother left the sisters an inheritance so that they might live on their own. Richard maddens Hilda by refusing to say what inheritance he has received and by denying her money while insisting that Jack stay with them. It is clear that Hilda’s only interest in life is money and she resents anyone, like the sisters and Jack, whose presence diminishes the amount that Richard could give her. It is also clear that Jessica is the only one of the four whom Richard can speak to openly. She is the only one he can tell about an offer he has to go to Brazil to continue his study of tropical diseases, an offer of a lifetime he knows he will have to forgo because of the three women dependent on him. In the noxious atmosphere of the house, Richard’s friendship with Jessica is instantly misinterpreted by Rose as something illicit.
Critics praise Pinter for the atmosphere of menace that pervades his works and the ability he has to create it with significant pauses and the intonation of a few words. On the evidence of A Man and her other plays seen at the Shaw, Sowerby had already mastered that technique about fifty years earlier. She conjures up an almost unbearable tension in the first two scenes through the cruel remarks Hilda makes in complete indifference and in the nasty implications Rose lends to nearly everything she says. Pauses and terse phrases evoke a depth of hatred among the characters that seems literally to cloud the air of the stage.
If A Man had been written by a man, some might accuse it of misogyny because of how forcefully it portrays female malice. Yet, that would be unfair on two counts. First, the active maliciousness of Hilda and Rose is balanced by the active kindness of Elizabeth and Jessica. Second and more important, Sowerby’s intent is to show how maliciousness grows from a state of dependancy. Hilda, Rose and Elizabeth know absolutely nothing of the outside world, of work or of money. They have no outlet for their talents and, as Elizabeth remarks, she doesn’t even know if she has any talents. They subscribe to the view of their time that the man earns money to provide for his women, be they his wife or his sisters. In a particularly advanced exchange, Richard tells Hilda that she has merely replaced the woman who used to be his mistress and did nothing but live off what he earned. As Emma Goldman (1869-1940) said, “To the moralist prostitution does not consist so much in the fact that the woman sells her body, but rather that she sells it out of wedlock.”
What is especially fascinating about A Man is that Sowerby recognizes that a system that demands male dominance over women is also harmful to men. Richard can talk freely to Jessica because she is financially independent and not beholden to him in any way except as friend to friend. Richard will have to give up an opportunity to improve human knowledge because he, too, is part of the system that requires that the moral man provide for women rather than pursue his own interests. The play closes with a surprising vision of a world where love not money or blood determines human relations.
On the day I attended (August 8), Sanjay Talwar went on for Graeme Somerville. If there had not been a notice in the lobby and in the programme, I never would have thought Talwar was the understudy since he fit so perfectly into the ensemble. He is expert at showing us a good-hearted man worn down by the constant nagging of his family until he reaches a breaking point. Hennig gives a superb performance as a woman, spiteful but still pitiable, so unhappy with her own life that she can find mitigation only in making the lives of others unhappy, too. Wright’s performance is a revelation. I’ve never seen her play so hateful a character, but she does so splendidly, making Hilda’s meanness all the more biting because it is displayed so calmly. Flett is radiant as usual and wins our sympathy as a woman whose goodness is held in check by circumstances beyond her control.
McLean shows that Jessica is very much like Richard in character, a person whose reserves of patience are wearing down under the injustice she sees. Even Ijeoma Emesowum as the maid Grey suggests that she is working under duress in the stifling air of the household. Jordan Hilliker must be commended for his remarkably sensitive performance. To communicate the text and subtext so ably at only eight years of age is an amazing accomplishment.
Designer Leslie Frankish has captured the oppressive nature of the Shannon household in both her set with its heavy Victorian patterns and in the bustled gowns of the women that look beautiful but burdensome. They contrast completely with the lithe, free-flowing garb Jessica wears when at work in her own flat in Act 2. Louise Guinand’s lighting also underscores the difference between the two locales.
Alisa Palmer has directed the play with precision and detail. Where the subtext so dominates the text, she makes every covert glance, smile and gesture count. A Man and Some Women is the kind of play that is so exciting it makes people speak to strangers in the audience just to share their pleasure in discovering a provocative work so well performed. We are so lucky to have at least one theatre in Canada that continues so boldly to excavate for literary gold.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.
Photo: Kate Hennig and Marla McLean. ©2012 David Cooper.
For tickets, visit www.shawfest.com.
2012-08-09
A Man and Some Women