April De Angelis’s 1993 play is more a snapshot than a coloured-in portrait of the first cohort of women to be permitted on to the stage. Still, it is an entertaining and enlightening ensemble work that captures the delicate moment in 17th-century stage history when these pioneering women straddled empowerment and economic independence with sexual objectification and hostile moral judgement.
Nell Gwyn, played spiritedly by Zoe Brough, is famously known to be among these early female actors, but De Angelis draws out several others stories and plaits five lives together, on and off stage. There is Mrs Betterton (Anna Chancellor, giving a glinting performance), something of an elder who brims with stage wisdom and technique; Mrs Marshall (Katherine Kingsley), a steely type whose former affair with an earl has left her vulnerable to heckling and attack; Mrs Farley (Nicole Sawyerr), who starts off as a soapbox Christian before taking to the stage; and finally Doll (Doña Croll), who assists them.
Michael Oakley’s production brings them to live with charm and economy as they talk about their jobs, loves and dreams, as well as the work being staged by the King’s Company: the Scottish play, Othello the Moor and “Hamlet the Ditherer”. They perform snatches of shows in front of invisible 1660s audiences, and it is a mixed bag from Cleopatra to Amazonians, sometimes leaning into sexualised stereotypes with archness. It is in the backstage drama that they come most to life – although their interpersonal stories are drawn with rather too light a touch.
There is camaraderie, confidences and competition – the competition being mostly between Gwyn and Farley, who first catches the eye of the king before he turns his attentions to Gwyn. A host of issues are covered, from ageism in the theatre company and among the actors themselves, to the accidental pregnancies that can force these women off stage.
The stories are always compelling but only slight, and the characterisation is broad-brush. But the actors elevate it, bringing warm, lively comedy. There is a limber, light touch to Fotini Dimou’s stage design too, and it works well in this space, with candle-light lowering or rising to signify when the women are on or off stage, and a sense of glitter and glamour conjured through costumes and confetti.
This is a play that exudes a love of the trade, from sawdust to the stars, as well as serving as a reminder of a turning point in theatre history, when these women were regarded simultaneously as trailblazers, renegades and oddities akin to dancing bears.
• At Orange Tree theatre, London, until 12 April
