Review - The Rover - Theatre Erindale, Mississauga

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by Aphra Behn, directed by Melee Hutton

Theatre Erindale, Mississauga

March 13-23, 2014

Angellica: “When a Lady is proposed to you for a Wife, you never ask, how fair, discreet, or virtuous she is; but what’s her Fortune” (Act II)

Theatre Erindale has followed up its Canadian premiere of Fanny Burney’s The Witlings (written in 1779) with a production of Aphra Behn’s The Rover (1677). Behn’s comedy is not quite as completely unknown as Burney’s. Equity Showcase presented a professional production in Toronto in 1996, the Queen’s University Department of Drama presented a student production in 2000 as did the Department of Dramatic Arts of Brock University in 2001, but the play has still escaped the eye of Canada’s major producers of classical theatre. This is a pity since Behn (1640-89) was one of the first women to earn a living by writing and was seen as an inspiration not only by the women writers who immediately followed her but by Virginia Woolf. The Rover itself was one of Charles II’s favourite plays and was so popular that Behn wrote a sequel to it in 1681. The play remained in the repertory through the 18th century. Victorians, however, disapproved of the play’s bawdy aspects and so it drifted into obscurity. Theatre Erindale’s production, however, demonstrates what a vital work it still is.

At first glance the play would seem to be merely a Restoration sex farce, albeit a very skillfully plotted one. The action is set during carnival in the Kingdom of Naples before the Restoration in 1660. From 1504 to 1714 Naples was ruled by Spain. The play’s subtitle, “The Banish’d Cavaliers” indicates that the English soldiers visiting Naples are royalists who can’t return to the Puritan Republic lead by Oliver Cromwell. We thus have an unusually rich political setting where Englishmen cast out of home interact with a Spanish elite ruling a land that is not their home.

We first meet two sisters, Hellena (Eliza Martin) and Florinda (Eilish Waller), whose fate is about to be determined by their brother Don Pedro (Zachary Zulauf). Don Pedro has decided that the spirited Hellena should become a nun and that the beautiful Florinda should marry his best friend, Don Antonio (Gevvy Sidhu). Don Pedro wants her to marry him quickly, while their father is still away, because their father wants Florinda to marry a wealthy old man of his choosing. Florinda cares for neither but instead is in love with the English colonel Belville (Adrian Beattie).

Since it is Carnival, the sisters obtain permission to have one last day of pleasure accompanied by their cousin Valeria (Cornelia Audrey) and their governess Callis (Courtney Keir). Given that it is a time for masquerades, the women disguise themselves as gypsies and cross paths with the cavaliers. Hellena immediately falls in love with Captain Willmore (Nicholas Potter), the “rover” of the title and the most dissolute of the bunch, because he adheres to no rules.

Meanwhile a parallel plot is set up between Willmore and Blunt (Evan Williams), an English country gentleman. Blunt is so naive that he refuses to believe a lovely woman like Lucetta (Brittany Miranda) could actually be a prostitute. He learns the hard way when Lucetta and her pimp Sancho (Anthony Yu) bilk him of all he has except his undergarments. Willmore, in contrast is worldly wise, and when the famous Paduan courtesan Angellica Bianca (Chiamaka G. Ugwu) advertises her fee as 1000 crowns. Willmore is so brazen that he is admitted to Angellica’s house despite saying that he has no money to pay her. Angellica, too, falls in love with him and gives herself to him for free.

What is so unusual about the play is how clearly it focusses on sexual politics from a female perspective. Behn sees no difference between an arranged marriage and prostitution. Don Pedro may as well be pimping his sister since he is bartering her for money. Angellica, however, is much freer than the two noblewomen since she can decide her own fate. The difference between them is the effect of love. Not loving either of her possible male partners ultimately impels the man Florinda does love, Belville, to rescue her and lead her to a happier life. For Angellica, falling in love with one of her clients, namely Willmore, is her ruin. Hellena’s view is even more novel. When she sees that Willmore is loved by other women that only increases his value in her eyes. In fact, the question of how to value love, sex, money or marriage would seem to be the main theme of the play.

The production uses a variation of the same ingenious set that Patrick Young designed for The Witlings. Of the five doors, the second from stage right has been replaced with a balcony to represent Angellica’s house and the second from stage left replaced with steps and a corridor to represent Lucetta’s house. Since the locations change so rapidly, James W. Smagata’s lighting is key in telling us where we are at any given time.

All of the student actors could stand to improve their enunciation, voice and breath control and communication of the text’s meaning (though the same could be said for most of the young actors at the Stratford Festival). The three clear standouts are Nicholas Potter as Willmore, Chiamaka Ugwu as Angellica and Eliza Martin as Hellena. Potter has the clearest diction in the cast and speaks Behn’s complex Restoration prose with ease. He also succeeds in the difficult task of showing how such a freedom-loving character with doubtful morals could come round to the idea that marriage with such a sprightly young woman as Hellena would not be such a bad idea. He does this by suggesting that a life of roving has taken its toll and his final argument with Angellica seems to put a seal for him on the further attraction of frivolity.

As Angellica, Chiamaka Ugwu commands the stage with her every appearance. She tends to run out of breath at the ends of lines, but certainly not of intensity and becomes an image an image of female power in the play. Ugwu makes us feel that this courtesan’s descent into love is really a tragedy encased inside a farce. Angellica is aware of the cruel irony when she exclaims, “My Virgin Heart.... oh ’tis gone! Restoration audiences likely thought a prostitute in love was a comic figure, but thankfully director Melee Hutton does not and it is Angellica’s fall more than anything else that lends depth to the comedy.

Eliza Martin begins the play rather too big and on the verge of losing voice control, but soon enough she ratchets down the volume and focusses on the complexities of her character who is softened by love of Willmore despite an awareness of his lack of morals. Martin makes us see why someone would fall for such a rake because he represents all the freedom that she herself would like to enjoy. She also makes Hellena’s questioning of Willmore while she is disguised as a boy the wittiest part of the play, Behn herself taking many cues from similar scenes in Shakespeare.

Eilish Waller and Adrian Beattie are the virtuous young lovers Florinda and Belville whom Behn does not make as tepid as such figures often are. Waller has a lovely voice and elegant demeanour but needs to project more. Beattie shows promise but needs to concentrate more on emphasizing the meaning of his words. He is perhaps finest in the scene where he refuses to kill Don Pedro in a duel. Zachary Zulauf’s deep voice and rigid body language set Don Pedro up well as the greatest source of malice in the play. Evan Williams is quite funny as the hapless Blunt though he could stand to bring more subtlety to his lines. Special mention should be made of Courtney Keir who brings such a melodious voice and air of grace to the smallish role of Callis.

This is a lively, enthusiastic production, including lots of sword-fighting, to which Hutton could have brought more focus. A few times she can’t resist adding an anachronistic joke of her own, such as when three women take on an 18th-century variation of the iconic Charlie’s Angels pose. Hutton, does, however, periodically remind us that the action is set during carnival with religious and profane processions crossing the stage. This is appropriate since the characters are wearing both physical and mental disguises and the action with its labyrinthine twists is the epitome of what critics call the carnivalesque. Again we owe our thanks to Theatre Erindale not only for bringing another rarity from an earlier century to light, but for reminding us, as with Fanny Burney, that there were female writers in English before Jane Austen.

©Christopher Hoile

Note: This review is a Stage Door exclusive.

For tickets, visit www.utm.utoronto.ca/english-drama/online-tickets.

2014-03-19

The Rover