Theatre Review – Soulpepper, Crow’s & The Howland Company/The Welkin by Lucy Kirkwood, directed by Wenyi Mengesha, Young Centre for the Arts, closes Oct. 5.
The prolific and provocative British Playwright Lucy Kirkwood wanted her 2019 play The Welkin to feel angry and loud, to reflect the rage and exhaustion of contemporary feminist struggles through the lens of history, not as costume drama but as a living wound.
Those are strong words, but Kirkwood succeeds in her intent, and like any good playwright, she leaves plenty of room for shocks and surprises.
The Welkin is a powerful political play set in 1759 in rural Suffolk, England, the same year as the return of Halley’s Comet. The welkin of the title refers to the farthest reaches of the sky where the heavens ring. This is The Age Of Enlightenment where science is achieving brilliant advancements.
As Kirkwood points out, within this outpouring of rationalism, both the voice of women and the power of women are nowhere to be found. To correct this situation, she creates a fictional legal council. A female murderer has claimed to be pregnant to avoid being hanged which in fact was true under British law. Rather than being hanged, pregnant convicted murderers were transported to the colonies.
Kirkwood, however, has added in her own delicious piece of fiction. A forum of 12 married women or widows must determine if the pregnancy is true or false. Thus, she sets before us a picture of what happens when women are given power before the law. In other words, a jury of men convicted the woman, but a jury of women must decide her fate. There is an irony here. This is the age of science, but women know their own biology. You could say this is an 18th century female version of 12 Angry Men.
And do Kirkwood’s women become a band of sisters?
They certainly do not given their differences in class, religious conviction, strength of character, views on morality and what they bring in from the patriarchy. Some seek justice, others revenge, and others simply want to go home to their chores. Kirkwood’s jury room is pure theatre as the women tell stories, argue, laugh, cry, come together in friendship, and break apart in bitterness. The dialogue is both riotously funny and heartbreakingly poignant.
The astonishing thing about the play is that Kirkwood has managed to create 13 distinct characters which director Mengesha has lovingly crafted into a brilliant ensemble. And kudos to Mengesha as she bids farewell to her many fine years as artistic director at Soulpepper with this outstanding production.
As each woman takes her oath, Kirkwood has given her a few sentences that tells us something about her. The revelations go from simple to serious to funny to downright scatological. Some husbands come off well and others not so well. Some of the women are clearly content while others are miserable. They do represent a kaleidoscope of life
Several of the women are given higher profiles in the play.
In a brilliant coup de théâtre, Kirkwood has made the prisoner Sally Poppy (Bahia Watson) to be utterly unsympathetic. She and her already executed lover have been accused of murdering the child of the local lord. She is defiant, uncooperative, vulgar, and Watson plays her to the point where it is impossible to find one shred of feeling for her.
On the other end of the scale is the local midwife, the widow Lizzy Luke (Mayko Nguyen) who is determined to save Sally’s life, and she makes it her mission to sway the other women to her cause. The actor literally wears her heart on her sleeve, almost turning herself inside out as she pleads her case. It is a heart-wrenching performance.
Of course, there are the higher-class women determined to make sure justice is carried out, not believing for a second that Sally is really pregnant. They include the imperious forelady Charlotte Cary (Fiona Highet) and the testy and unforgiving Emma Jenkins (Courtney Ch’ng Lancaster).
The very endearing Sarah Smith (Kyra Harper) is the older woman, mother of 21 children, who is always at the ready to spout off her wit and wisdom, often to the amusement of both her neighbours and the audience.
Also for a sort of comic relief, there is Judith Brewer (Olunike Adeliyi) who is suffering from menopause and gets some great lines of dialogue as a result of her condition.
Sally Poppy may or may not be pregnant, but among the women is the very pregnant Peg Carter (Ghazal Azarbad) which gives us an image on stage of the real thing so to speak, which is a clever ploy on the part of Kirkwood, and which puts Peg in a bit of a dilemma.
Sarah Hollis (Raquel Duffy) almost has a double role to play. Because she hasn’t spoken in almost 20 years, she is in the background for most of the action, but when she is propelled to speak, it is what she haltingly, agonizingly, shockingly says that blows the play wide open, and Duffy does her usual skilful rendering of this very dramatic episode.
It falls however to the sweet and kind Helen Ludlow (Hallie Seline) to have the most emotional scene in the play and no one can be left untouched by her performance and the utter pathos of her plight. I can’t recall when an actor has almost paralyzed me with the sheer assault of her emotional outpouring.
Of the remaining four women, Kitty Givens (Nadine Bhabha) is a rather tart transplanted Scot, Ann Lavender (Natasha Mumba) is a serious and firm matron when needed, Hannah Rusted (Annie Lujan) represents the more irreverent set, while poor Mary Middleton (Brefny Caribou) wants only to get home to pick her field full of leeks.
Lizzy Luke’s young daughter Katy (Addison Wagman) manages to get quite a few laughs just churning butter.
And yes there are two men in the cast.
Mr. Coombs (Craig Lauzon) is both the amorous, persistent suiter to Lizzy Luke, and the much put upon silent bailiff when he has to be locked in the jury room with all the women, and he does a good job in both sides of his role. Equally fine is actor Cameron Laurie who plays both the very angry Frederick Poppy, Sally’s husband, and the very pompous Dr. Willis.
And then we have the sonorous recorded voice of Oliver Dennis as The Justice as he takes the oath from each woman.
Julie Fox’s set is a wonderful picture of an 18th century country room with its large fireplace, stark wooden furniture, and small window. Michelle Tracey’s costumes are simply glorious because each woman is absolutely distinct in her appearance, while Bonnie Beecher’s warm lighting continues the period atmosphere. Thomas Ryder Payne’s sound design is absolutely a standout, particularly for the outside noise of the angry crowd wanting their hanging.
The introduction of the women is one of the finest bits of stagecraft I have seen in many a moon.
After that hurried first scene between Sally and her husband, we get the flurry of the women as all 12 come in in a rush, each doing her own chore in a faint light with the dust of the ages swirling around them, and then Tracey has each woman lit briefly so that we can see her at her task. First the rush of movement, then the individual, and so we get the 18th century woman in her domestic domain, silent in The Age Of Enlightenment. The realistic props, the realistic actions, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant.
There is a terrible double irony that happens at the end of the play, and I don’t mind giving it away.
Dr. Willis has been in the neighbourhood, and he offers his services to the court to determine Sally’s pregnancy, and so takes away the women’s power. And an even greater blow befalls Lizzy Luke. The very pregnant Peg Carter confesses to Lizzy that she would rather have the doctor attend to her rather than the midwife. And so man and the patriarchy supplant woman.
I do have one bitter complaint about the play and it is my age-old complaint, diction, diction, diction, diction, diction. It was absolutely aggravating not to get every word. Lines were spoken too quickly; words were dropped at the end of sentences. Articulation at times was nil and I blame everybody for this.
The Welkin is not an easy play to sit through, but it is an important one because of its political stance on where women were then, and where women are now. Kirkwood’s symbolic use of Halley’s Comet and the ancient meaning of welkin standing for an omen of change or disruption is important. The women’s lives are disrupted from their usual domestic pursuits to be given power, only to have it taken away.
Kirkwood, as always, has the audience leaving one of her plays with many questions left unanswered as well as, in this case, with a profound sense of loss.
