THEATRE REVIEW:
KPBS AIRDATE: March 16, 2007
Everybody needs some bawdy. And that’s just what
you get in “Restoration Comedy,” the latest work by the award-winning San
Francisco playwright Amy Freed. She conflated two popular comic works from late
17th century England, Love’s
Last Shift, or Virtue Rewarded, and its sequel, The Relapse, or Virtue in Danger. Both were written in 1696, during
the Restoration, which came just after the regime of Oliver Cromwell and the
Puritans, who had banned all theater, condemning it as decadent. When the
theaters reopened in 1660, after decades of repression, all hell broke loose.
Restoration comedies were notorious for their sexual explicitness… and famous
for allowing women to perform onstage for the first time.
Freed is clearly having a field-day. Her play contains
all kinds of couplings among wildly exaggerated characters with
personality-defining names like the foppish Sir Novelty Fashion, lusty Hillaria
or flea-brained Narcissa. The central character, Loveless, is a sex addict who
can’t seem to master monogamy. He left his adoring wife for a decade of
debauchery abroad. Now he’s back in London, thinking she’s dead. But Amanda is
alive and ever-faithful. Worthy, her friend and ardent admirer, offers to teach
her to unleash her inner wild-woman, and she poses as a courtesan to win back
her husband. That works for awhile, but then things take a different turn in
the somewhat less-amusing second act, which gets mired in less-fascinating and
funny minor-character subplots. In the foreground, Amanda does win back her
man… but only for a short time. He’s soon distracted by another woman; but
maybe this time, he’s met his libidinous match. Since there wasn’t any divorce
in England at the time, the original version forced Amanda to remain with her
wandering mate and endure his infidelities. But in Freed’s version, she’s
freed… to have her own life – with a Worthy man who loves her.
It’s all very witty and literate and filled with
hilarious anachronisms like hair dryers and baseball gloves. But it’s not all
just fun and games. Freed’s ultimate message, maybe with a little political
edge, is tolerance of differences in sexuality and sexual preference.
Still, if you want, you can just sit back and have
a great time. The ensemble is outstanding, the set is like a Watteau painting,
with suspended cherubs and a sky-full of fluffy clouds, the lighting is
beautiful, and then there are the clothes… ornate ensembles full of frippery
and froufrou. It’s a delicious, sexy romp, that would appeal to anyone but the
most crusty curmudgeon.
©2007 Patté Productions Inc.