Playhouse Creatures

The Lion and Unicorn Players specialise in the more unusual plays and this work by April De Angelis, which premiered at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 1993, certainly fits the bill. It depicts theatre life at the time of the Restoration. It is 1663, Charles II is on the throne and women have only recently been allowed to act on stage; the play charts the lives of six women struggling to succeed in a man’s world, only one bad performance away from the gutter.

Director Laura Sheppard cleverly opted to use the floor of the auditorium as well as the stage, clearly separating the scenes in the dressing room (on the floor) from the snippets we see of the characters’ performances on stage. The set was beautifully made and painted by the company, and dressed to perfection with an amazing assortment of costumes and other odds and ends that one might find in a repertory company’s dressing room. It gave a real sense of being in a theatre.

Costumes, to my untrained eye, seemed perfect for the period with differences in the characters’ class clearly shown by the quality of their attire. The picture was completed by simple but effective lighting – the spotlight on Doll when she was narrating was a clever detail.

This was a very strong and capable cast, with no weak links. Each actor created a vivid and individual character – all the more important when the story is based on real people. The play doesn’t have a story as such, but rather depicts a series of incidents over a period of some years. The whole thing is held together by Doll Common, played with great feeling by Beryl Savill. Doll helps out in the dressing room and, from Beryl’s droll delivery, you know she has seen it all before. It was easy to warm to her down-to-earth nature and apart from holding the company together, she holds the play together by introducing us to the other characters and providing a narrative.

We see the start of Nell Gwyn’s career as she abandons orange selling and wheedles her way into the theatre, eventually becoming a favourite of King Charles with a carriage waiting outside. Gemma Lynette gave Nell real spark and determination, but still showed a kind side when Rebecca Marshall’s (Kat Wootton) luck runs out.

The matriarch of the group was Mrs Betterton, wife of the company owner. She was portrayed with considerable style by Eileen Riddiford.  The character has some of the best lines and, along with her wonderful facial expressions, Eileen delivered them with aplomb. Despite Mrs Betterton’s domineering nature, we were still made to feel desperately sorry for her when she is sacked, for a younger actress, by her own husband (whose equal age did not seem to matter).

With recent scandals in the media indicating that the casting couch is still very much in use in the theatre and film industries, it seems that not very much has changed in the last three hundred and fifty years, so perhaps this is a pertinent time to highlight the problems of what is still a largely male-dominated profession. The play’s author and this talented company, who are utterly professional in every respect, made this history lesson fascinating and, in turns, both desperately sad and riotously funny.

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