Sarah Liz Bell as Dame Anu

My Hamlet-like inability to let go of this play continues.

Dame Anu was the second character created for the show, immediately after her nemesis Dame Grendela. She was initially conceived as a Sir Andrew Aguecheek to Grendela’s Sir Toby Belch, but I quickly decided to throw some Malvolio in there to counter Sir Andrew’s Timidity. It was not long before Malvolio took over entirely.

The Black Knight is dressed in blue, traditionally the color most likely to win an audience’s sympathy. This is lucky, as Anu is perhaps the most querulous person in Amosa (and also shares my disdain for inebriation).

In retrospect, I feel Anu gets off a bit light compared to Malvolio. She is exposed as a hypocrite and made to feel foolish, but only in front of two people; whilst Malvolio is humiliated to an extraordinary extent and almost driven mad, made an amusement for all the Illyrian court. And yet, paradoxically, it is Anu’s humiliation that has elicited sympathy from the audience, something I have failed to accomplish in at least three attempts with various Malvolios. Perhaps Malvolio should have a sword fight with Olivia.

(Note to self: sword-fight between Malvolio and Olivia).

COSTUME by Delena Bradley
LIGHTING by Benjamin Dionysus
PHOTO by INDie Grant Productions, LLC

Still not (emotionally) done with this show, apparently.

Grendela was the first character created for The Wayward Women. Though she has the martial pride of Fluellen and the avuncular debauchery of Falstaff (Aunticular? Tantatious? Materteral?), it is decidedly Sir Toby Belch from whom the Green Knight derives most of her personage. Lecherous, treacherous, drunken, a self-congratulatory bully, handy with letters, and certainly not afraid of a brawl, the Grendel epitomizes the Jacobean phrase, “What is a knight if not a thing of blood?”

Jack Sharkey as Cordelius

Turns out I’m not ready to say goodbye to this show just yet.

Several of the costumes for The Wayward Women were “reveals,” and the fact that Cordelius opened the show with this particular reveal was very… well, revealing. The Swiss nobleman had the most exposed legs of any character in our production (the quality of his legs are commented upon in the script), and seeing the costume for the first time immediately reminded me of ‘Pants roles’ (male roles written to be played by women), especially in Restoration era theater. Although such roles did often comment on gender and certainly provided more diverse opportunity for women, they were also very much written so male audience members might ogle a female performer’s legs. To have this not-so-subtly reversed in The Wayward Women was just one of the genius strokes executed by designer Delena Bradley.

Amanda Carson looks imperious AF as the Duchess Penti Celia

The Duchess, who fights to impose order in her chaotic realm, was ironically the most spontaneously created character. Originally a plot device to orchestrate the conflict between Dames Anu and Grendela, the Duchess’ dialog and especially monologues just kept growing as I wrote. Every line she spoke seemed so beautiful, so nuanced and utterly, utterly different from what everyone else had to say. She reminds me of Ulysses in Troilus & Cressida, or Leonato in Much Ado About Nothing: vastly underrated characters that have fascinating things to say, provided a gifted enough actor can imbue those words with meaning (luckily, Amanda is a rock star in this arena).

Like Prince Escalus of Romeo & Juliet, Penti Celia has the rare misfortune of being a powerful and articulate ruler who is still ignored and disrespected by her underlings. But this exactly is the Duchess’ journey: learning that she cannot control everything. Her desire to be in charge is so great that she seems to almost enthusiastically embrace the possibility of open warfare, if it will allow her the power she once had as a military commander. Despite her frequent paeans to beloved peace, Celia is having as much trouble as anyone adjusting to a post-war society.

There are three echelons of Amazon society represented in The Wayward Women, and each group experiences uncertainty regarding how to live their lives without war. The Duchess’ echelon, like a mother, learns a looser grip might not necessarily grant you more control, but it will certainly give you fewer blood clots.

COSTUMES by Delena Bradley
LIGHTING by Benjamin Dionysus
PHOTO by INDie Grant Productions, LLC

Gilly Guire strikes a rakish pose as Aquiline

As happens with many young male writers (though I’m really not that young anymore), Aquiline began as a commentary on a girl. Rather than self-indulgently writing her as a cliched satellite to a male character, however, I wanted to make sure she was the lead in her own story. Today’s theater remains relatively replete with conflicted male leads and one-dimensional women that inadvertently help them discover something about themselves. In Aquiline, we see a conflicted woman and two men that inadvertently help her gain greater introspection. In fact, it only just now occurs to me that Quill’s two great speeches each occur right after her attitude toward each of the men alters significantly; though, tellingly, neither man is mentioned in either speech.

One of my favorite things about The Wayward Women, though, is that the introspective characters who just might undergo some change over the course of the play are all subservient to and overcast by loud braggarts who actively resist conscious change. Dame Anu, Dame Grendela, and Cordelius present very one-sided personalities to the rest of the world, undergo brief periods of potential change, then discard these alterations in favor of the comfortable personas they have worn all their lives. If these three learn any lessons, their outward selves remain very much the same. Quill, Julian, and Pinne all undergo significant changes, but these are inevitably overshadowed.

For Julian and especially Aquiline, however, change seems unclear. Quill declares more than once that she will change her behavior, but we never really get to see if that is true. In fact, in almost every scene, all we see is some variation of “I’m doing the wrong thing, but at least I’m conflicted about it.” I think this is a very human sentiment, and some of the play’s most beautiful poetry comes from that contradiction.

COSTUMES by Delena Bradley
LIGHTING by Benjamin Dionysus
PHOTO by INDie Grant Productions, LLC