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| L-R: Emily Walton, Dee Pelletier, Aedin Moloney, and Kate Middleton in WOMEN WITHOUT MEN. Photo by Richard Termine. |
When
Madeline Albright claimed that there’s a special place in Hell reserved for
women who don’t support other women, she surely didn’t have the denizens of the
teachers’ lounge at Malyn Park Private School in mind – but she very well could
have. For it is there that the teachers
in Hazel Ellis’s Women Without Men
(all of whom are women at the exclusive girls boarding school in Ireland in the
1930s) allow their most petty jealousies to gain the better of them – and
ultimately come to bear the inevitable consequences of their actions.
None
of the women, other than the newest member of the faculty, Miss Jean Wade
(Emily Walton), is married or engaged, or likely ever to get married or even have
a suitor. (Ruby is the exception: she
has a boyfriend and fully expects to marry him some day, just not right away.) Miss Connor (Kellie Overbey) is constrained
by the fact that she must care for her aging mother and invalid sister,
providing her with no real opportunity to create a family of her own. She has channeled whatever creative energies
she might have had into the writing of a a history of “beautiful acts” through
the ages, annoying her contemporaries no end with her self-aggrandizing references
to her book, The entire experience has left her unpleasant, officious and
friendless.
Madamoiselle
Vernier (Dee Pelletier) was born into a somewhat higher estate than the others,
which meant that most men weren’t good enough for her but, when her grandfather
lost all the family’s wealth (and with it their social standing and
Madamoiselle’s dowry), it turned out that maybe it really was she who wasn’t
good enough for most men. Nor do
marriage prospects for Miss Marjorie Strong (Mary Bacon) or Miss Margaret
Willoughby (Aedin Moloney) seem any brighter.
Ruby
and Margaret are forced to share living quarters which serves as a continuing
irritant to both of them. Ruby is
well-liked by the students (if not by her fellow-teachers) but since Jean
arrived, Jean appears to be replacing Ruby in the students’ affections, much to
Ruby’s consternation. Margaret resents
the fact that Mademoiselle granted permission to one of her students to abstain
from Margaret’s class walk without first clearing it with Margaret. Miss Connors and Mademoiselle are at
loggerheads over the proper use of the teachers’ lounge. Miss Connors and Jean are at cross-purposes
when it comes to the disciplining of a student, the use of space for a play
rehearsal rather than tutoring, and the importance, or lack thereof, of
participation in an elocution contest.
Somehow, Marjorie manages to maintain her distance and stay above it
all.
Women Without Men was first produced
in 1938 at the Gate Theatre in Dublin but, despite receiving positive reviews
from both critics and audiences alike has not been revived since. Now that oversight is being corrected with a
wonderful revival - indeed, the
long-overdue American premiere! - of the long lost play currently being staged
by the Mint Theater Company at New York City Center Stage II on West 55th
Street in midtown Manhattan.
This,
of course, is what the Mint Theater Company is justifiably noted for:
unearthing worthwhile forgotten works and staging them with great aplomb (with
ostensibly considerable emphasis on the works of forgotten female dramatists). The lost plays by women that it staged in the
past included A Little Journey by Rachel Crothers and Rutherford & Son by Githa Sowerby (among others), both of which proved to be excellent
productions. Nor has the Mint lost its
magic touch: this production of Hazel Ellis’s Women Without Men clearly deserves a place in that panoply of Mint
successes.
Women Without Men is something of a whodunit
but, unlike most whodunits, in which one or more murders would seem to be de
rigueur, Ms Ellis predicates her mystery on what superficially would seem to be
a far more trivial crime: the wanton destruction of Miss Connor’s nearly
complete magnum opus, that history of “beautiful acts” through the ages. No one is murdered or abducted – there is not
even a jewel heist – but Miss Connor has devoted her life to writing her book and
for someone to have taken it from her in this manner does appear to have been
the most dastardly of acts.
No
one really wished Miss Connor ill, but then no one really wished her well
either, so it would seem that virtually anyone might have perpetrated the
crime. Suspicion quickly falls on Jean,
however, and when Miss Connors discovers a piece of Jean’s broken brooch
beneath her shredded manuscript, the case against Jean grows even stronger.
In
addition to the six teachers, the cast includes the school’s Headmistress, Mrs.
Newcome (Joyce Cohen), the school’s Matron (Amelia White), and three of the
school’s students (Beatrice Tulchin, Shannon Harrington, and Alexa Shae
Niziak). The entire ensemble cast is
just terrific, so good that it is simply impossible to single any one out. Suffice it to say that the entire production
is first-rate, in no small measure due to its first-rate cast.
But
due as well to all the other women involved in this production since, in terms
of direction and design, it is also an all-woman production: Jenn Thompson has
done a fine job of directing while Vicki R. Davis (sets), Martha Halley
(costumes), Traci Klainer Polimeni (lights) and Jane Shaw (sound) all deserve
plaudits for their respective contributions.
Indeed,
to paraphrase Madeline Albright, if there is a special place in Heaven reserved
for women who work so well together to provide us all with such a fine
theatrical experience, these women can all start adjusting their wings.
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