No one is beheaded in Jeffrey Hatcher's Compleat Female Stage Beauty. "Calm down," says King Charles II. "It's the Restoration. No more chop-chop."
But the king's father, Charles I, did undergo the chop-chop a decade before, leading to the Puritanical rule during the Cromwell years. Among the victims of the new order were theaters, their doors boarded up, but Charles II returned from exile in France in 1660 awash in libertine views. Not only did he allow theatrical productions to resume. Before long, he not only lifted the ban against women on stage, but eventually decided that men should be forbidden to play women.
Good news for women, not so good news for the men who played them. One of the most prominent performers made redundant was Edward Kynaston, so popular as Desdemona in Othello that he often took a bow after her death scene but before the play had actually concluded. At least, that is how Hatcher depicts it in his highly entertaining play that offers lively backstage comedy, unexpectedly sweet explorations of sexual identity, sharp dialogue, and an amusing if benignly selective history lesson.
New Conservatory Theatre Center is presenting the local premiere of Hatcher's 1999 play that was well-received but never quite achieved the high profile it deserved. But it did reach wider audiences in the 2004 screen adaptation Stage Beauty, starring Billy Crudup and Claire Danes, which pumped up a hetero-conversion for Crudup's Kynaston. Even if you have seen the movie, NCTC's quality production is worth the visit.
We first meet Kynaston during a performance of the final scene in Othello, and his work is hokey but popular with the punters. But at a competing theater company, Margaret Hughes (another historical figure) is a novelty success as an actually female Desdemona despite a certain lack of talent. Proto-feminism was probably not the king's primary motivation for opening the stage to women. Both he and his fellow noblemen often found mistresses among the new leading ladies. Hypocritical justification for the no-men-as-women edict was also found in religion. "The clergy says men acting as women leads to effeminacy and sodomy," proclaims the throne, "and they are priests so they should know."
Hatcher doesn't hesitate to pull from contemporary sensibilities to make comment on the situations, and while the dialogue playfully scatters about contemporary idioms, the play is not about anachronistic japery. If anything, these bursts of current colloquialisms pull us more into the characters' situations and provide extra bits of humor.
Ed Decker's well-calibrated production on an austere set by Giulio Cesare Perrone and period costumes by Keri Fitch features a cast that must navigate a labyrinth of tones and emotions, and his cast is well-tuned to these needs. In the central role of Kynaston, Stephen McFarland expertly takes us on the character's journey through fame, degradation, despair, sexual illumination, and a resurgent career in new roles. As London's first female Desdemona, Elissa Beth Stebbins' performance warmly develops from a haughty hot new celebrity to a vulnerable actress who knows she's second-rate and needs Kynaston's coaching in the role that has been ripped from him.
As a backstage seamstress with acting aspirations, Sam Jackson excels with McFarland in a gently physical scene as she tries to understand the gender dynamics of Kynaston's relationships with men. Those dynamics are definitely complicated when he is intimate with the Duke of Buckingham (a dashing Justin Liszanckie), who can only act on his homosexual urgings when Kynaston is in costume as Desdemona. Jeffrey Hoffman goes to the top with the foppish Charles Sedley, and Ali Haas has a savvy centeredness as an actress plucked from the stage to be the king's mistress. Matt Weimar has the dual role of Kynaston's traditional Othello and, more colorfully, as King George II.
The king enjoys theater, but encourages the producers of Othello to make it a bit more jolly. He's not sure about the upgraded version with its realistic death scene that Kynaston, now as Othello, brings to bear on his former rival Mrs. Hughes. "That ending is very, very real, almost too much so," says the king. "Well, that's tragedy for you �" all well in theory, but we still get dinner."
Compleat Female Stage Beauty will run through June 14 at New Conservatory Theatre Center. Tickets are $25-$45. Call (415) 861-8972 or go to nctcsf.org.