The 18th century had Richard Brinsley Sheridan.
The 20th century had Clare Boothe Luce. Both playwrights excelled
at comic ridicule of the upper class. This season the Gallery
Players played tribute to Sheridan with an excellent production
of "The School for Scandal." Unfortunately, the Heights
Players, despite a few exceptional performances, don’t do quite
as well with Luce’s "The Women," which plays through
April 17.
John Bourne directs a cast of 21 women, some of whom play multiple
roles. It is a Herculean task for a community theater, and Bourne
does an admirable job moving the actors around the stage. He
doesn’t do so well moving the play along. "The Women"
runs for a whopping three hours, which dulls the comedy as well
as the senses.
The excessive duration of this production is partly due to the
lengthy scene changes, which are executed with a good deal of
style but nevertheless are all too frequent breaks in the action.
But to an even greater extent, the play drags because the actors
do not keep the banter quick, breathless and without pause –
as one would expect from women chafing to deliver the next barbed
remark.
"The Women" is set during the Depression, but it is
not about people living in Hoovervilles or selling apples on
the street. It is rather the story of women in high society who
have nothing better to do with their lives than pamper their
bodies and indulge in useless, vicious gossip.
Edith Potter (Christine DeMoor) is perpetually pregnant and perpetually
complaining about it. Peggy Day (Magdalen Neuwald) is a rich
woman who has married a poor man and come to rue that decision.
Sylvia Fowler (Alexandra Lincoln) is a woman with loose morals
and a looser tongue who delights in destroying other peoples’
lives.
The heroine, Mary Haines (Kathryn Kinser), is a happily married
woman who adores her husband and daughter, Little Mary (Megan
Dinnerstein). When she finds out through Sylvia’s manicurist,
Olga, that her husband is having an affair with a shop girl named
Crystal (Justine Campbell-Elliot) and realizes that Olga has
also told all her friends about it, Mary ignores the advice of
her wise and experienced mother (Lois Look) and takes off for
Reno for a divorce.
There she meets several other women eager to untie the knot,
including the delightful, often-married Countess De Lage (Laurie
Muir who once again – she played Madame Arcati in the Heights
Players’ "Blithe Spirit" – steals the show). But two
years later, after her husband has married Crystal, and Sylvia
has lost her own husband to another woman, Mary has second thoughts
and decides to get her husband back.
Although only women are onstage throughout "The Women,"
as the play’s tagline says, "It’s all about men." Or
to be more precise, it’s all about women’s relationship with
men – which Luce, despite, or perhaps because of her marriage
to the wealthy publisher Henry Luce – holds in great contempt.
The bitchiness of women and the fickleness of men are the sources
of Luce’s humor and scorn.
But whose side is she on anyway?
"The Women" was first presented on Broadway in 1936,
and revived in 1973 and 2001. A 1939 film version starred Norma
Shearer, Joan Crawford, Rosalind Russell, Paulette Goddard and
Joan Fontaine. But the jury is still out on that question.
One thing’s for sure, however – "The Women" is a variation
of the romantic comedy in which love triumphs over adversity.
Although Luce does raise some interesting points on marriage,
motherhood, fidelity and self-fulfillment, for the most part,
"The Women" is pure fun. The lines should be delivered
in rapid-fire succession accompanied by grand gestures and grandstanding.
But it is only in the scene between the Haines’ domestics, Maggie
(Margaret Sullivan) and Nurse Jane (Ariella Toder), that both
director and actors seem to fully understand Luce’s comic intent.
In the privacy of the kitchen, Sullivan and Toder discuss the
foibles of their "betters" with the clarity only servants
possess onstage. Their special combination of amusement, pity
and mimicry are refreshingly hilarious.
One would be remiss to close any review of this production without
mentioning the very functional and attractive set designed by
Gary VanderPutten, whose crowning achievement is a rolling bathtub
filled with bubbles and a luxuriating and triumphant Crystal,
the home-wrecker. Nor should one forget costume designer Albert
Walsh, whose feathered hats, high heels, slinky gowns and tailored
suits capture wealth in all its expressions – from the tasteless
to the tasteful.
Nothing ages more quickly than a comedy of manners. But even
the rustiest engine can be given new life by stoking the fire
a little. As it is, except for a few spurts, this baby doesn’t
get out of the station.
The Heights Players’ production of "The
Women" plays through April 17, Fridays and Saturdays at
8 pm and Sundays at 2 pm at 26 Willow Place at State Street in
Brooklyn Heights. Tickets are $12, $10 seniors and students.
For reservations or more information, call (718) 237-2752 or
visit the Web site at www.heightsplayers.org.
