Writer: April De Angelis
Director: Michael Oakley
Playhouse Creatures, April De Angelis’s 1993 play, is a jolly romp, set backstage at a theatre in the 1660s. Playhouses, which had been closed by the Puritans, are reopened with the restoration of Charles II. One of the innovations was the appearance of women on stage for the first time. Playhouse Creatures explores the lives of five real-life actresses who found fame in the period, foremost among them, Nell Gwyn.
The play opens with Doll Common (an impressive Doña Croll), alone in a now-defunct theatre, remembering both its glory days and its previous use as a site for bear baiting. The reason for the theatre now being defunct remains hazy, as do the reasons for actresses from the past reappearing. Anyway, we’re soon back in the past.
Out in the streets, young Puritan Mrs Farley has just lost her father and is trying to scratch a living by preaching Puritan teachings, focusing on the evils of fornication. Hearing of a chance of an acting job from another penniless girl, Nell Gwyn, she throws off her Puritan beliefs and hightails it to the theatre to audition.
The central drama of the first half is the tension between Farley and Gwyn, both trying to keep a foot on the bottom of the theatre ladder. Farley, played with appealing venom by Nicole Sawyerr, is ambitious, quick to suggest Gwyn just doesn’t have the class to succeed. Zoe Brough’s Gwyn, in contrast, is a mixture of sweetness, innocence, bravado and sheer optimism. And whatever else we may know about Restoration drama, we know Nell Gwyn will make it.
We’re always backstage, either watching the women rehearse or hearing the baying of the male audience behind the curtain. There’s a suggestion from De Angelis that they are the human incarnation of the bears. The women are all in awe of Mr Betterton, their lead actor and manager. Even Mrs Betterton, his actress wife is scared of offending him. But as we never see him, or any of the men named – not even Charles II who we gather is often in the audience – there’s no attempt at nuance in their presentation. The women, however, are great in their various roles. Anna Chancellor is mesmerising as Mrs Betterton, playing a number of lead women including a glorious Cleopatra, with Katherine Kingsley as the actress Mrs Marshall splendidly overacting the death of Charmian.
It’s not entirely clear, however, whether De Angelis is saying something about Restoration acting style. There’s a certain amount of lofty arm waving to suggest stylised movement. But when the women immerse themselves in their roles, notably in small sections of Macbeth, Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra, their performances are powerful rather than hammy. This makes for good viewing but doesn’t in any way advance the plot.
And that perhaps is the problem with Playhouse Creatures. The first half of the play is mainly about the tensions between the two younger women – we watch Farley briefly picked up by the King himself, to be ignominiously dropped soon after, only for Gwyn to make her ascent. But there isn’t much plot in the second half to maintain the drama.
The relationship between the King and his favourite lover is barely touched on. There is the real-life move on the part of the actresses to gain the legal right to become shareholders in their theatre, which although a historically interesting point, is one that’s hard to represent dramatically. We hear a little bit about Mrs Betterton’s past, with a suggestion that she may have secretly appeared cross-dressed on stage before the Restoration.
Key events in London history are briefly flagged up but it’s all rather broad brush. The Great Fire flashes by. Aphra Behn is name-checked. There’s a short abortion scene. Disappointingly no one in the audience passes out. Although Chancellor movingly presents Mrs Betterton facing age, there isn’t an obvious end-point to the drama. But the ride has been fun.
Runs until 12 April 2025, then touring
The Reviews Hub Score
A jolly ride
