A ROUSING RACKET TO HONOUR A LIFE
Mary Wollstonecraft was a pearl of the 18c Age of Reason, even more treasurable for having – as a woman – a harder time of it than all the Lockes and Burkes and Paines. Her rebelliously-rational intellectual, moral and feminist principles and writings lately had a tribute in a pretty terrible sculpture at Newington Green; she spent some years there when not reporting on the French Revolution, starving half-frozen and pregnant by the treacherous Gilbert Imlay or travelling Scandinavia in support of his enterprises. But this punkish, musical and theatrical tribute by Maureen Lennon is far more fitting to her energy, and comes from her East-Yorkshire childhood home, and the vigorous Hull Truck and Pilot Theatre.
She grew up in Beverley, defending her mother from her violent father (unthanked , even resented for ‘provoking’ him) . From the start she read and thought and took in ideas and made her own philosophy. Which, in a line, is that nobody is anyone’s property and women – once allowd to be educated – are equal to men. Her ‘A vindication of the rights of women” had her followers immortally described as “Hyenas in petticoats’.
The show begins with a hyena howl, and proceeds with noisy exuberance, and a few rousing songs by Billy Nomates (How to grow a girl in this world” “Be a good girl”, tuneful, sometimes bluesey. There are six players, Laura Elsworthy fiercely central in neon-orange hair surrounded by five in multiple roles, decked out in ruffles and bustles and boots (and often breeches beneath as they morph into men of the time). But even the flounces owe more to cabaret than bonnet-drama, with one adding a fine pair of spangly knickers and Mary herself in dashing striped tights. Sara Perks’ design is also brilliant in a set made of wooden blocks (some handily containing props) over which the cast leap and climb and scramble: it’s constantly visually gripping; worth the trip for that theatricality alone. Esther Richardson directs.
Some of the Wollstonecraft original lines and sentiments are magnificent: the opening childbirth sequence (I felt sorry for the schoolboys in the front row) has her worrying about a girl-child – “should I unfold her mind, and so make her sick of this world?” . I got a bit irritated at first by the girl-powery numbers with “I just wanna run wild”, not quite suiting the idea of this scholarly, ever-writing young woman, but Lennon creates a lovely line for her sister Eliza – “Mary LIVES for difficult – the boringer the better”.
The players take us through her encounters, from the Unitarian preacher crying “Why do the nations of the world grovel to tyrants?” To Johnson the publisher who bravely sent her to write about the French Revolution. I would have liked a bit more about how – having welcomed the new world it seemed to promise – Mary got disillusioned by the Jacobins’ attitude to women, and verbally ran her own revolution against the Revolution. There’s a wonderful musical sequence with the “Important Men, Intellectual Men” of the age, preening while this wild-minded woman challenges them – including Godwin, who eventually became her second lover and better husband (Kate Hampson does a lovely job of softening, and is entertainingly dressed up in apron and Marigolds by the cast at the end, when Godwin agrees to be a team partner, not a ruler of his wife She also gets all the fun out of the role of Lady Kingsborough, prototype posh-lady-boss). Another good sequence uses all the words Mary was called , and women often are – bossy, hectoring, ugly,miserable, stupid, boring – ‘nasty woman!” She briefly wonders “am I a monster?”.
Her affair with Gilbert Imlay – “author, charmer and, wait for it, male feminist!” and his betrayal is touchingly done, Elsworthy managing despite the pace of the show to evoke vulnerability and the moment when, seeing that after all “there is no new world”. So after five minutes’ misgivings, I absolutely warmed to it, enjoying some fine singing , great ensemble physical humour and above all, proper heart.
All the more because it happened to be a multiple schools’ matinee, and kept very attentive: plenty of boys of an age vulnerable to Mr Tate, plenty of girls in hijabs. Outside a couple of them were arguing excitedly about it all. Honour to the unsubsidized Wiltons for reclaiming the political-musichall spirit, and getting the kids in too.
Box office. wiltons.org.uk. to 29 march
Rating 4
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