REVIEW: Jane Anger (Shakespeare Theatre Company)
Preview: While I am catching this pretty late in the run, I was glad that a friend of mine sprung some tickets on my partner and I this past New Year’s Day. No better way to ring in 2023 than with some theAtre, right? For a self-anointed local theatre critic, I actually don’t keep up much with Shakespeare Theatre Center as much as I probably should. Each production I’ve seen of theirs has been quality stuff. The premise: Shakespeare, cooped up with a “youthful” assistant, is suffering from writer’s block while quarantined due to the plague. When an old flame (Jane) arrives to leverage their prior relationship, things start to go smoothly again until the sudden arrival of his forgotten wife, Anne Hathaway. I had no expectations going into this though, but as it unraveled over the 90-minute runtime it was clear that this is going in a much different direction that you’d probably expect; for better, or for worse.
Acting: Michael Urie “stars” as Shakespeare, and you could be fooled into thinking this show was about him and all his gaudy, self-entitled wit. Make no mistake though, this is about the women in the cast, Jane (Amelia Workman) and Anne (playwright Talene Monahon). While Urie and Workman spend the large part of the show bickering, flirting, fighting, and spatting, the latter also acts as a narrator, talking directly to the audience repeatedly. She gives a fun performance heckling both the Bard and his certainly-not-40-year-old assistant Francis (Ryan Spahn) through the fourth wall throughout, with enough cynicism and grump to easily carry the attitude of the audience back at Urie’s Shakespeare. Concurrently, Francis acts as the comic relief throughout most of the show as a dull Shakespeare fanatic, until the final third when Anne climbs through the studio’s window to join the quarantine fray. I loved Monahon’s performance the most out of anyone’s. She is firmly in her bag as a forgotten, ditzy, bimbo wife right off-the-bat, delivering conscious silliness to an unconsciously silly stage of the book. This is made all the more worthwhile by the end, where she and Anger become friends of their own. 5/10
Production: Consisting of a big, projected sheet with the title of the show and a sparsely furnished writing studio, the show captures the early-COVID feelings of isolation and cabin fever very well by creating a claustrophobic space for the actors. The audience clearly sees that the entire usable space of the stage is not put to use, creating a feeling of unease reminiscent of 2020 life. This does become relevant later in the show as Anger reveals to the others that we, the audience, have been here the whole time, causing them to step out of the room, onto the unused stage, in awe. The characters remember this as well, often running around the aisles of the audience and even delivering their own personal headshots in case Spielberg is somehow there and ready to cast 1593 Francis in 2023’s next film. Overall, a fun and unexpected use of space. 7/10
Book: This story starts off with a dramatic, headstrong feminist message about being tossed aside as a woman, especially when involved with someone famous and influential like Shakespeare. By the end of it, Shakespeare is dead, missing both arms, and Francis has eaten a sticky pudding filled with Shakespeare’s semen. The story is funny, and there are some great lines, but I think where it trips up is the gradient of serious-to-silly that frames the plot. As referenced above, Anne Hathaway was my favorite performance, as her silliness was the only one that felt natural the entire time she was on stage. Everyone else sort of had to mesh into different shades of tone, whether it matched the flavor of their character or not. Jane being a bit more serious the whole time, clashes a bit when the tone of the moment is outright chaos. Francis’ interactions with Shakespeare constantly flickering between serious, flirty, and silly over the span of one scene. For me, anyway, it made it harder to gauge where the book was going. This was a more amicable feeling in the final third, when the expectation of chaos had set. 4/10
Visdev: Very standard with the STC branding and aesthetics, and given it’s an established playhouse with a generally pretty niche offering, I didn’t expect it to. However, there are little things here and there that I enjoyed. For example, an oversized portrait of Urie as Shakespeare is the centerpiece of the stage, and you can get a sugar cookie with the painting on it at the concession stand. In the show, Shakespeare rewrites an existing “King Leir” as the more familiar “King Lear”; but as he is killed in the climax of the play, the rewritten version never makes it out. Given STC’s next major Shakespeare production is King Lear, the posters in the lobby are reflected with this alternate spelling for audience members to see as they leave. Great touch! 8/10
