Review: Or, from Theatre Prometheus

The title, Or, with its provocative comma, suggests the production’s playful attitude toward binaries—in gender, sexuality, and morality. Brought to Capitol Hill Arts Workshop by Theatre Prometheus, a company dedicated to centering “women-focused, diverse narratives,” it introduces us to Aphra Behn, one of the first female playwrights to earn her living primarily through her written work.

Behn is a significant historical figure who was fiercely independent, queer, and, most likely, an English spy in the Dutch colony of Surinam (now the Republic of Suriname). Many of her biographical details are fuzzy, but the script by Liz Duffy Adams delivers a highly embellished narrative that unfolds almost entirely over the course of a single, dramatic day in Behn’s London home. All the while, Duffy Adams blends the backdrop of Restoration England in which Behn lived with 1960s-era sexual liberation. Pieces of the play offer intrigue, comedy, and insight, yet as a whole, it comes off a little flatter than than the “rollicking comedy” it aims to be.

We first meet Aphra Behn (Dina Soltari) in debtors’ prison, where she’s wound up as one of England’s many spies experiencing delays in their payment as the country transitions into Restoration. She is writing to King Charles II (Peter Mikhail) to appeal for a rush payment to make bail, when he magically appears to whisk her back to London where, since he fancies her, he’ll put her up in a private flat and help support her financially while she works on penning her first drama.

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The play establishes Behn as insistent on her independence; she lists, among war and tempests, “a brief and necessary marriage”  as one of the torments she has endured, and tells Charles she refuses to be his mistress. She also kisses him no fewer than three times during their first brief encounter, though she declares that the kiss won’t transform her into his concubine, nor he into the theater contract she desires. Throughout the play, she remains clever and in control, but no sooner has she sworn to Charles that neither he nor anything else will distract her from her ambitions than those selfsame distractions come stampeding her way.

Or, from Theatre Prometheus closes August 17, 2019. Details and tickets

The bulk of the play depicts Behn working on her play at home, interrupted by a rotation of visitors and their dramas. The tension increases when a star-making theater producer (Peter Mikhail) swings by to award her a contract with a tight deadline for furnishing a finished manuscript: the next morning. Our playwright heroine is willingly distracted by Nell Gwynne (Zoe Walpole), a lovely and flirtatious young actress, and less willingly by an ex-lover from her subterfugean past (a gruffer Peter Mikhail) who claims to have information about a plot against Charles’ life. These two, along with the king himself, spill into, rush out of, and sometime hide themselves in Aphra’s flat by means of two doors and a huge wardrobe.

The effect of their antics is intended as comedic—Behn shoving her ex-lover into a wardrobe as the king barges in while Gwynne is hiding in the bedroom from the both of them—and sometimes it’s successful. Overall, though, the performances don’t always extend the high energy necessary to sustain the action. The three lead actors are charming, but their deliveries feel rushed and the more biting lines get lost in the mix.

Putting one foot in the 1960s – Madison Booth’s period-bending garb, scenic designer R. Scott Hengen’s tie-dyed curtains, Behn and Gwynne’s bonding over a bong, and winning musical interludes from Patty Pablo – wards off any period piece stuffiness, but also decontextualizes Behn. The play is not a means to learn about a groundbreaking figure in feminist letters, and you aren’t likely to walk away knowing anything about what she wrote. Instead, this is a dramatization of the more sensational elements of her biography serving to reckon with some feminist ideas such as Virginia Woolf’s necessity for womens’ private spaces and the ability to be taken seriously without negating one’s sexuality.

There are interesting ideas at play here, good turns of phrase in the script, and likeable performances. Director Chelsea Radigan offers a series of questions to start off her director’s note, including, “When was the last time you encountered the story of a woman whose ambition was her triumph, and not her undoing? When was the last time you were offered a story from history whose characters were allowed to fully live in their bodies and desires?” It’s true—it’s rare to see a play in which events are controlled by, and go well for, a queer woman. Perhaps the presence of such stories on stage now will open the door for fuller explorations of radical ideas that go beyond feminine ambition and sex positivity.

Or, by Liz Duffy Adams. Directed by Chelsea Radigan. Featuring Dina Soltari, Zoe Walpole, Peter Mikhail, and Patty Pablo. Costume Designer: Madison Booth. Set Designer: R. Scott Hengen. Lighting Designer: Hailey LaRoe. Sound Designer: Kaitlyn E.M. Sapp. Fight and Intimacy Choreographer: Ian Claar.  Assistant Director: Patrick Gallagher Landes. Technical Director: Eric Sullivan McMorris. Casting Associate: Noa Gelb. dramaturg: Anne Damtoft. Stage Manager: Alastair Canavan. Produced by Theatre Prometheus. Reviewed by Hannah Berk.