The Divine Mrs S is a backstage satire set in the year 1800, when flouncy costumes and elaborate English prose were common cultural ornaments. On press night the venue was full of resting actors and theatrical hangers-on who adored the show’s in-jokes and rehearsal-room wisecracks. Titus Andronicus is ‘an experimental play about a pie’, says an actor. Another thesp demonstrates how to enliven a dreary line by pretending that one’s character is in love.
This tedious act of defamation belongs in the bin. Or the Radio 4 early-evening comedy slot
The production looks immensely stylish and the company are clearly having a ball, but the ordinary punter may find it tiresome. A few minutes of pastiche is amusing but this lasts well over two hours and it takes nothing seriously. Even the deaths of Mrs S’s children are treated as an opportunity for our heroine, played by Rachael Stirling, to weep convincingly into a hanky.
The script is structured simplistically as a revolving-door of entrances and exits. Bothersome fans, pretentious pseuds and wannabe playwrights gather outside Mrs Siddons’s dressing room while her noisy maid acts as gatekeeper. In one rather incredible scene we see a West End critic writing his review from the personal dictation of the leading actor. Would that have ever really happened?
Apart from its sketch-show ambitions, the script wants to change the world by portraying women as helpless slaves of the patriarchy. But its grasp of history is patchy and it offers no information about how women were treated before Mrs S arrived and what reforms she instigated. It fails to mention that her career was rocket-boosted by two external factors: she was married to a wealthy husband who appears not to have obstructed her ambitions. And her brother, John Kemble, owned the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, which no doubt eased her path to the top of the profession.
She was gifted, of course, but her gift was brought to fruition with the help of men. We first meet her at the age of 42, and she’s desperate to land a decent role before she turns into an old maid. Her dream comes true. She’s offered the lead in a female-cast version of Hamlet but instead of rejoicing at the news she explodes in fury and rips a cushion to pieces. Some people will never be satisfied, it seems. The character of Mrs S clearly articulates the views of modern activists who resent male influence over the theatre in the 21st century. But what exactly is their objection? Female-led playhouses are proliferating while male artistic directors are close to extinction. And this production, which is written, directed and acted by women, proves that the toxic era of male dominance is over. ‘Howl, howl,’ rages Mrs S on behalf of marginalised women who want to be heard in the theatre. But she can’t pretend she’s being silenced when she speaks from a public stage and has a rapt audience hanging on her every word. It’s like sailors bemoaning the wind or oranges complaining about sunshine.
This play is a very poor advert for activism as it creates the impression that some rebels are incapable of wielding power because they only know how to attack it when it’s wielded by others.
More silenced women at the National Theatre. Underdog: The Other Other Brontë is the puzzling title of a new satire by Sarah Gordon. This too uses the sketch-show format and it opens with Gemma Whelan, as Charlotte Brontë, prancing around the auditorium and bawling questions at the crowd. ‘What’s your favourite Brontë quote?’ she yells. ‘The End,’ offered someone.
Fans of the Brontës should avoid this show because it lacks historical detail and it deliberately sets out to be superficial and childish. In the opening scene the three sisters snarl and curse at each other like letterless brutes stuck in a youth detention centre. Branwell, the drunkard, makes a brief appearance and after being drenched with a bucket of water he’s kicked off stage again. Later he dies, unlamented. In this play, as in most modern scripts, the male characters are presented as either rotters or rapists. No other conception of masculinity exists.
And the emotional texture never varies as the sisters caper about like shrieking TikTok divas waging rancorous battles for recognition and royalty fees. Quiet and self-effacing Ann, played by the beautiful Rhiannon Clements, is by far the most attractive member of the clan. Charlotte and Emily (Adele James) come across as a pair of foul-mouthed fishwives who make the Spice Girls seem sophisticated.
Someone should have questioned the wisdom of hiring actresses to impersonate great novelists and to stand on the stage of the National Theatre effing and blinding at the audience. This tedious act of defamation belongs in the bin. Or, failing that, in the Radio 4 early-evening comedy slot.
Why has the National engaged in this tedious act of defamation of the Brontës?
9
0
11.04.2024
The Divine Mrs S is a backstage satire set in the year 1800, when flouncy costumes and elaborate English prose were common cultural ornaments. On press night the venue was full of resting actors and theatrical hangers-on who adored the show’s in-jokes and rehearsal-room wisecracks. Titus Andronicus is ‘an experimental play about a pie’, says an actor. Another thesp demonstrates how to enliven a dreary line by pretending that one’s character is in love.
This tedious act of defamation belongs in the bin. Or the Radio 4 early-evening comedy slot
The production looks immensely stylish and the company are clearly having a ball, but the ordinary punter may find it tiresome. A few minutes of pastiche is amusing but this lasts well over two hours and it takes nothing seriously. Even the deaths of Mrs S’s children are treated as an opportunity for our heroine, played by Rachael Stirling, to weep convincingly into a hanky.
The script is structured simplistically as a revolving-door of entrances and exits. Bothersome fans, pretentious pseuds and wannabe playwrights gather outside Mrs Siddons’s dressing room while her noisy maid acts as gatekeeper. In one rather incredible scene we........
© The Spectator
visit website
login
who are we?
contact us
qosheapp
Toi Staff
Gideon Levy
Belen Fernandez
Andrew Mitrovica
Mort Laitner
Nikkei Editorial
Ali Fathollah-Nejad
Rami G Khouri
