Theatre review: Playhouse Creatures

With Playhouse Creatures April De Angelis completes a loose trilogy of plays about some of the first women to achieve fame - or notoriety - in something like the modern sense. Whether the connection was intentional I don't know, although I'm guessing the fact that all three of the plays have been underwhelming to one extent or another wasn't part of the plan. In the 1660s Nell Gwynn (Zoe Brough) is still an orange-seller wishing she could join the ranks of the new female actors, only recently allowed onto the stage by Charles II. After being pipped to the only open spot for a new actress by Mrs Farley (Nicole Sawyerr) she eventually tricks her way into a minor role, securing a more permanent spot after catching the eye of the men in the audience - and the King himself.

But this isn't solely her story this time around - in fact De Angelis' play assumes the audience knows something of who Nell Gwynn was and who she became - as we're here to see a variety of women whose new status is precarious and contradictory.

So the actresses are the big sensation of the day, and now that they draw in the crowds no company could succeed without them, but they've not yet been able to translate this power into influence within the company, or a share of the profits. And their novelty value still comes from selling them as a sexual commodity, with the audience expectation that this will continue after the curtain comes down - Mrs Marshall (Katherine Kingsley) is still enduring regular verbal and physical abuse from a former "protector."

This is also a play about how fragile their careers are, and Mrs Farley has a sharp reversal of fortunes when her own wealthy benefactor gets her pregnant. Meanwhile Mrs Betterton (Anna Chancellor,) wife of the company's star actor and manager, is generous with help and advice for the new young stars, but when Gwynn and Marshall are finally made shareholders she's denied the same promotion, her husband instead firing her for being too old.

Of the onstage characters only Doll Common's (Doña Croll) job is steady: As the general maid and dresser of the company, whose own acting career never rose above playing corpses, she never had any status to lose. So there's definitely potential in these characters, but outside of the comic moments where we see snatches of the melodramatic plays they acted in there's little energy.

Perhaps Michael Oakley's production has seized on the melancholy of the situation at the expense of the excitement of it: Certainly there are some moving moments - like Mrs Betterton's attachment to Lady Macbeth as the only female character who she enjoyed as much as the male ones she once played surreptitiously. But despite opportunities to revel in the women's sense of devilry and rebellion, they're never quite energised enough to provide highs equal to the lows, resulting in something that feels increasingly flat.

Playhouse Creatures by April De Angelis is booking until the 12th of April at the Orange Tree Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 10 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Ellie Kurttz.